From La Liga to England's second tier: A year in the life of the enigmatic Rafael Benitez
Football wouldn’t be half the fun it usually is without some of the eccentric characters it houses.
Whether it’s the pithy one-liners they rattle off on cue, the complex philosophies they spew out or the flashy sideline identities they harbour to get them through the seasons, the off-centre dramatis personae who populate the world of football really help make it special.
Rafael Benitez is one such key individual, and the year he has just had epitomises the sort of peculiar figure he has become best known for. Nearly one year ago, the Spaniard was unveiled as the new boss of Real Madrid, but just seven months into his tenure in charge of Los Blancos, he was shown the exit door and he now finds himself manager of Newcastle United who have a season of second-tier English football to endure for the 2016/17 season.
Quickly, it went from Champions League to Championship so it’s time to reflect back on the past year of Rafa the Gaffer’s career and what the future might hold for one of the beautiful game’s most intriguing, and equally baffling of coaches.
Madrid tenure was doomed from the start
Their fans pull out the dreaded white handkerchiefs when things aren’t going according to plan on the pitch, Madrid’s media can get nasty and personal while the matches come thick and fast for one of the biggest clubs in the world. Taking charge of such a team is never an easy task because so much is demanded time and time again, and when Benitez took the role in June of last year, many had already set him up to fail.
At the start of the year, it was revealed by former Madrid club president Ramon Calderon that Rafa was the fourth choice for the job. If this is to be believed, from the get-go, the Spaniard was already the wrong option for the team and had to work twice as hard to try and win over the fans, the players and everybody behind the scenes.
Battling against a tide of widespread opinion that didn’t seem to value his appeal made it an upstream struggle straight away, and that can’t have helped how comfortable he felt in the imposing surroundings of the Santiago Bernabeu.
Rumours and whispers of unrest, insubordination and clashes of personalities in the dressing room, fleshed out in the national press with the clatter of keys week after week, even forced Benitez to call out what he deemed to be a media-fueled agenda against him. Whether or not the force of dislike against the manager was even partly real or fabricated, it certainly underlined how much the odds were stacked against him.
In many ways, there is a long and tall wall of dislike confronting Rafa wherever he goes. Despite the titles he has won and the success he has brought to many of the clubs he has been at, climbing over the barrier of preconception has often proved a challenge and nowhere was it more evident than when he took up the gig in Spain’s capital.
Rafa has a winning mentality, despite his critics
Although plenty of people still like to critique the 56-year-old and his approach to coaching and management, his resume remains a rather glittering one.
Most notably of all, he is the only man in the history of football to have taken the UEFA Cup, Super Cup, FIFA Club World Cup and Champions League. Somehow, though, he still continues to provoke a disapproving feeling among so many.
Having been denied the chance to impose his own identity and brand of football on Los Merengues, he couldn’t do his best at the club simply because he was limited in what he was allowed to do.
In total, he has won 12 major titles as well as guiding two teams to promotion from the Segunda division in Spain. Moreover, he is in an exclusive club of two for winning the UEFA Coach of the Year gong in two consecutive years.
Undeniably, he has received some real criticism from the likes of Jerzy Dudek about a ‘cold’ approach but for anyone else outside the confines of the dressing room to suggest anything more sinister than that without any actual proof would be nothing short of speculative. The fact of the matter is that bar Madrid, he has claimed silverware as well as working his magic down through the years at every club he’s been at the helm of.
His conquest of Europe with Liverpool is obviously the highlight of his career to date but as his ability to lift teams into the top flight underlines he is not purely a flashy coach who likes to go for the top prizes, but also a man who likes to roll up his sleeves and accept a rough-and-tumble challenge.
Slumming it with the Geordies for the upcoming domestic season will be seen through cynical eyes as his chance to pick up a pay packet so soon after his untimely departure from the Madridistas, but it could also be viewed simply as a coach looking to get back into the game he loves as quickly as possible.
It might just be the perfect opportunity to prove himself once again.
Manning an underdog will suit Benitez better
Now that the opportunity to take charge of the Magpies has finally presented itself, the former Reds boss can pour all his efforts into putting his mark on the way they play. He might not have managed to avoid relegation but he looks like he’s sticking with the club and he has shown improvements in their form, as shown by their six-game unbeaten league run finish to the season.
The SkyBet Championship is a notoriously difficult league to compete in. Winning it is not easy, never mind figuring out how to do so by a large margin, but that will suit Benitez more so than taking charge of a global superpower. While he has plenty of experience managing big guns, as already mentioned he knows what to do with the minnows, too.
Frankly, Newcastle are an ideal mix of both sides of the game Benitez has dealt with – they’re a big club looking to rediscover their mojo – and that should work strongly in his favour. Also, they are an English club and the country has often been a more comfortable destination for him than most others.
Clearly, much will depend on how big the funds he is given turn out to be. More important than this, though, will be the degree of freedom he is given in pursuing the transfer targets he really wants. He has made no secret that this will be a key factor in how smoothly his tenure runs over the next few months.
At the end of the day, if Mike Ashley and those behind the scenes at the club really want Newcastle back in the Premier League as promptly as possible, they will need to trust their man in the dugout, have faith in his ability to ideate and get behind the decisions he wants to make.
Undoubtedly, the experience, expertise and knowledge their new manager is going to bring will far outweigh any of the thought processes that are already in place.
The club needs a new direction, they just need to let Benitez steer them through the rocky waters and remember to retain the faith they showed in him when he was initially appointed.