Liverpool FC Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread

Villain wrote: »

Anyone hear where the Rumour is coming from?

eagle eye wrote: »

I mentioned that Rafa tried to sign and I know he turned them down for money.
I personally think Arbeloa is a good right back too, but I don't see him as top notch. He is steady though, I'd rate him similar to Hibbert in many ways. Hope you pool fans aren't offended by that comparison.

Rafael Benítez was born in Madrid, grew up in Madrid and was schooled in Madrid. He went to university in Madrid, married in Madrid and did military service in Madrid, barely a hundred yards from the Santiago *Bernabéu. He played and coached Real Madrid and lays claim to spotting Madrid's captain Raúl. He even commentated on football for Telemadrid. So, when Benítez reveals that "my childhood dream was to play for Madrid", it comes as no surprise; when he says his return to Madrid tonight will provoke few emotions, it is harder to believe him.

"Above all Rafa is supremely professional and he hides his feelings well," says José Luis San Martín, who worked with the Liverpool coach at Madrid, the club he has served for more than 30 years. "But I have no doubt this match is special for him." Special is not the half of it. "Madrid saw the birth of Benítez", says the Spain coach Vicente del Bosque. Almost half his life has been spent at Real Madrid and rumours of a return for a prodigal son persist. For one member of the technical staff, Madrid should never have let him go in the first place.

Benítez was only 35 when he left "home" but 23 years had passed since he joined the club when his Atlético-supporting father Francisco got him a trial. He had progressed through the club's youth set-up – infantiles, cadetes, and juveniles – before reaching Real Madrid C in Spain's amateur Third Division. "I would have been an average First Division player," he admits, "but I wasn't good enough for Madrid." He never got the chance to find out: playing for Spain at the World Student Games in Mexico in 1979, he suffered a knee ligament injury that effectively ended his hopes of a *professional career at 20.

But Benítez had always been a coach, even when he was a player. His father still has the notebook Rafa kept when he was 13, full of notes on his team-mates, marks out of 10, tactics, even his team talks. He was a compulsive collector of cuttings and no one could shut him up. "When I played, they said I talked too much but I couldn't help it," Benítez admits. "If I saw a problem I tried to correct it." And within six years of that Mexico injury, having finally hung up his amateur boots, graduated in PE and qualified as a coach of basketball as well as football, he got a job at Madrid.

Starting with Castilla Juvenil B in 1986, Benítez had by 1993 reached Real Madrid B in Spain's Third Division where he coached Raúl for one game only. He did not just coach him: others have their doubts and Raúl does not remember but Benítez claims: "I was the one who decided to sign Raúl from Atlético's youth team."

It mattered little that Benítez's first charges were teenagers or that he was not even 30; there were already signs of the demanding obsessive that would succeed at Valencia and Liverpool, always on top of his players. Ahead of his time he turned to videos and reports, controlled diet and recovery programmes. He carried a laptop, too – at a time when most people didn't even have one, let alone know how to switch it on. Every detail counted.

As Jesús Velasco, a former Madrid *juvenil player who reached the first team, puts it, Benítez was "pesado". Heavy. He simply never let up. "Rafa was single then and lived for football," Del Bosque recalls. A keen chess player, fan of the board game Risk, he was fascinated by tactics and had an extraordinary capacity for work. "Rafa," one friend fondly insists "is an anorak."

"What was striking was the detail," says Ismael Urzaiz, the former Athletic Bilbao striker who began his career at Madrid. "I was only with him for a week," agrees Raúl, "but I had never seen a coach study every little detail so profoundly." Velasco adds: "We were only 17 but Benítez was extremely demanding, very systematic. On long coach journeys to games we would watch videos and the amount of information he provided was incredible."

Some called him "Arrigo Benítez", such was the attention to detail and – in particular – the obsession with playing by zones. Moves were perfected in training without a ball. "Conceptually we had to imagine we were connected by a rope," explains Velasco. "No-one could go too far one way without the others accompanying him. We learnt so much from Benítez. You could tell he was going to go a long way. In fact, wWhen I see Liverpool play now, I see something of our team from back then."

When Real Madrid sacked Benito Floro mid-way through the 1993-94 season, Del Bosque was promoted in his place. Impressed by Benítez's methodical, dedicated approach, he took Rafa as his assistant. The experiment, though, did not last for long. At the end of the season Madrid signed Jorge Valdano as coach and Benítez was returned to the B team. And that was the beginning of the end.

One problem stood out above all. Valdano had called Carlos Alejandro Sierra Fumero, "Sandro", into the first-team squad and considered him a star, albeit one who was not yet fully ready. He told Benítez to play him for Real Madrid B; Benítez refused. He did not consider Sandro to be as talented as Valdano claimed. More importantly he did not like the way he trained. He had, Benítez argued, lost focus; he did not have the application or mentality to make it.

Sandro's subsequent career has proved Benítez right but few backed him. In fact, the pressure built against him. Madrid sided with Valdano and for the first time in his life Benítez, determined to remain faithful to his ideas, took the reluctant decision to build a footballing career away from the club that was his club and should have remained so. "Rafa going hurt," admits San Martín. "He had so much to offer. It's such a shame that they didn't see it at the Bernabéu." Tonight, at last, they might.

A return to Real Madrid as first-team coach figures at some point on Rafael Benítez's career map but the Liverpool manager, his contract unsigned and his employers irritated as a result, has insisted his future at Anfield must not be determined on the outcome of the Champions League tie against the club he supported as a child.

Benítez revisits the Bernabéu Stadium where he served 16 years as a player, youth-team coach and assistant manager, with Europe again appearing Liverpool's most likely salvation given the seven-point gap that Manchester United have established at the top of the Premier League. The Spaniard will make a late decision on Steven Gerrard's availability to face Real Madrid, the captain having taken part in a light training session at the stadium last night, and will take advice from Liverpool's medical team and influential midfielder before finalising his plans.

Victory over two legs would enhance Benítez's reputation at the expense of a club that still covets his services. Defeat, however, will only intensify the scrutiny on his long-term position, particularly given his reluctance to commit to a new deal at Anfield almost four months after negotiations began.

"I don't think this game is important for my contract. It is an important game for us as a club, that's it," said the Liverpool manager. "You know the situation and we have to wait. We have a lot of important games coming up. You have to judge a manager on his career, not one or two games. That is my idea. If you have to decide on a manager on the basis of one or two games that is not the best decision."

Benítez refused to be drawn on whether he would consider any offer to return to Real and preferred to discuss an opponent in resurgent form, but one that has not reached the quarter-finals since 2004. "They have 11 good players and are very dangerous so it is more important to focus on them than other things," he said.

"They are my friends here and I have good memories with them. The delegate on the door is the same delegate as when I was here as a player and a coach. But I am a professional so I want to win with my team. It is just about winning a Champions League game against a top side in Europe."

Jamie Carragher, who would captain the side in Gerrard's absence, insisted Liverpool could copewithout the midfielder. "When we won the Champions League in 2005 there were plenty of games when Steven Gerrard didn't play but obviously we are a better team with him in it," said the defender. Carragher's pressingconcern tonight will be curtailing the remarkable form of Raúl, the leading goalscorer in Champions League historywith 64 goals and now in Real's history having taken his total to 311 against Real Betis on Saturday and having surpassed the great Alfredo di Stefano's record.

"To play for Real Madrid so long, a club where there is constant pressure and criticism like at Liverpool, shows outstanding quality and character," said Carragher. "People were writing him off a few years ago but he has come back and broken Di Stefano's record, one of the greatest players ever. When you think of Real Madrid now you think of Raúl, in the same way as you think of Steven Gerrard when you mention Liver*pool. It will be a privilege to be on the same pitch as him."

The tie presents Juande Ramos, the Real coach, with an opportunity to repair a reputation damaged in English eyes by his inglorious 12-month spell at Tottenham Hotspur, although his standing remains elevated in Spain. Real are tonight seeking a 10th successive victory under a coach who is only under contract at the Bernabéu until the summer. "I don't think I have to prove anything," insisted Ramos. "I have been coaching for a long time and people know what I have done as a coach. I am just happy that things are going well for Real Madrid."

Such is the confidence in the Real ranks that Ramos claimed his pre-match instructions will barely touch on the threat posed by opponents who have reached two Champions League finals plus one semi-final in four seasons under Benítez. He said: "When I talk to my players, I don't talk that much about Liverpool – I talk about Real Madrid. I don't know anything about how they'll line up. The only thing I know for sure is that Liverpool will play with 11 players."

Those hoping for a defiant retort to Sir Alex Ferguson's assertion that Real have "no chance" of winning the Champions League this season were to be disappointed by Ramos' diplomacy. "I am not going to reply to Ferguson. I'm not interested in responding to him," he said.