Rafael Benitez – His Liverpool Legacy Laid Out
[LEGACY: Something handed down from an ancestor or a predecessor or from the past.]
Liverpool have experienced a rocky voyage from leading and competing against Europe’s finest clubs and battling for the domestic cup, to hovering just above the relegation and playing teams such as FC Utrecht in the Europa league.
Just where has this sudden change come from?
Well, Rafael Benitez joined the club in the summer of 2004 and firstly convinced Steven Gerrard not to join rivals Chelsea, then managed to reach the Carling Cup final and recover from a poor start to win the Champions League.
There was no doubt that Benitez’s decline from 2009 onwards and their failure to win silverware was because of his inefficient and bad spending in the transfer market.
Benitez spent £240 million throughout his reign at Anfield, during which he captured over 80 players and the majority were simply not good enough for the squad.
The club suffered after the Spaniard’s relationship with American owners George Gillett and Tom Hicks collapsed after reports revealed that Jurgen Klinsmann had been offered the post before Rafa but had rejected it for Bayern Munich.
Financial backing had always been a problem for Benitez during his time on Merseyside as numerous expensive signings such as Robbie Keane, Alberto Aquilani and Ryan Babel all failed to deliver at Anfield.
An abundance of transfers for under £10 million saw Liverpool cross names off their squad-sheets faster than they could keep up with. From the 60+ transfers that Benitez made during his helm, only four can be recognised as substantial – Reina, Mascherano, Alonso and Torres, all for multi-million pound deals and perhaps the most obvious signings for any top club, but nevertheless quality additions to Liverpool.
The Latin quarter had been added to Melwood, which sparked a Spanish revolution within the camp. However this all changed very quickly when Xabi Alonso, Liverpool’s pivotal playmaker and the only Premier League player to reach 1,000 completed passes in a single season, left the club for Real Madrid on a £30 million deal in 2009.
Alonso’s departure signalled not only the decline of Liverpool in the years to come, but the eventual demise of the Rafa Regime on Merseyside.
Despite reports suggesting that Alonso was happy to say, he left the club following a disagreement with the manager. It was a combination of Alonso’s departure and Benitez’s failure to competently replace him with suitable quality which pushed Liverpool to its limits in the 2009-10 season – finishing 7th in the league, crashing out in the FA Cup 3rd round to Reading and finishing bottom of their Champions League group.
Perhaps just a poor season? No.
When you sell Alonso for £30m you expect to buy a player of equal or potential talent, to not suffer a loss of quality within the squad. Looking back, Benitez’s replacement, injured Alberto Aquilani, comes to no surprise when analysing the Spaniard’s previous transfer list. He halved the Alonso funds on the Italian and on bringing Glen Johnson in from Portsmouth, and played Brazilian Lucas Leiva in his place whilst Aquilani recovered.
Rafa defended his legacy after leaving the club saying that:
“When I left the club, (Javier) Mascherano, (Yossi) Benayoun and (Albert) Riera were there, along with Carra (Jamie Carragher), (Steven) Gerrard, (Jay) Spearing, (Stephen) Darby, (Emiliano) Insua, (Diego) Cavalieri and (Jonjo) Shelvey.”
Despite starting the season with Liverpool, Mascherano left the club in destination of Barcelona for an alleged £23 million, reducing Rafa’s era to just Fernando Torres and Pepe Reina, as Yossi Benayoun left for Stamford Bridge on a reported £4m deal in the summer.
When Benitez left the club “by mutual consent” (aka sacked) in June, so did his tactics.
Man marking was abolished by Hodgson as early as the first pre-season games, and players which Benitez signed and failed were either sold or sent out on loan: Insua (Galatasary), Aquilani (Juventus), El Zhar (PAOK), Degen (VfB Stuttgart), Riera (Olympiakos), Dalla Valle (Fulham) and Plessis (Panathonaikos) all left on loan, whilst Ryan Babel completed his recent move to Hoffenheim in January.
Fernando Torres’ £50m deadline day transfer to Chelsea, and the club’s acquisition of two young forwards in Andy Carroll (English, 22) and Luis Suarez (24) marks the end of the Benitez era at Anfield (Pepe Reina is still there, but he is expected to leave in the summer as he has no mates left), and it was very much a case of poor scouting and lack of support and communication from both parties which eventually pushed the Spanish era out of Merseyside.
It only took 6 months, two managers, a double-defeat to Blackpool, and another Europa League campaign, but the Reds are finally grating the last of the Benitez cheese, and with Kop-legend Kenny Dalglish back at the helm alongside a proper scout like Damien Comolli and some proper American businessmen, Liverpool are set to remerge themselves with Europe’s elite, or are they?
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The Americans’ lack of support for Rafa was the main reason. Their pack of lies left Rafa needing a sell-repay debt-buy policy. Rafa was using the same transfer chest from season 2 till season 5. Some of the transfers, especially Keane, wasn’t Rafa’s idea. To blame Rafa for his poor transfer history is simply unfair.
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£100m+ returned for 3 players costing £50m – Champions League winners & finalists + FA Cup winners, despite despised owners, incompetent execs & poisonous media + no money in the kitty when he took over. More failures like Benitez will do the Reds. ps Kenny is doing a fantastic job.
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Your article is crap. You are blaming Benitez for a lot of failings but nowhere do you blame the owners. You also fail to mention the success he brought to the club. Yes he bought a lot of players under 10 million because he could not afford to buy the players he actually wanted. Simao, Dani Alves, to name a few. Ah what the hell, it’s like I’m talking to the wall!!
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des Reply:
February 4th, 2011 at 3:59 pm
benitez is a lousy coach. the champions league victory was a fluke; liverpool wouldn’t have won if he didnt mess up the lineup for the first half and had to radically change it for the second. liverpool wouldve finished better than second in the league had he not famously mouth off at alex suckerson and distracted his team to a string of lousy performances that christmas. and if he only gave alonso some love instead of dissing him for barry. it was all him. plus his dogmatic ‘murbarak’ approach to always insisting that all victories are his doing whilst all losses are caused by the failings of his players. he was a cancer to liverpool and they were justified in sacking his rear. to wit: inter, knowing what he did at liverpool, did themselves a massive favor by sacking his before he could destroy their team. after all, he had dragged a european and league champion from the heights of glory to a pathetic position in serie a in just a few months. mourihno he aint.
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lolo Reply:
February 4th, 2011 at 4:48 pm
You’re clearly a fool
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AMWhy Reply:
February 4th, 2011 at 7:30 pm
If the Champs league victory was a fluke, how come we got there twice in 3 years? Why did FIFA rank us as the No1 team in Europe over a 5 year period? These things were quickly forgotten under Roy and it’s sad how we’ve fallen so far so quickly. Just hope KK can revive us!
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Worst article ever. Written by a manc?? No basis for any arguments so I’m not going to make any here as it would constitute a waste of time.
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des Reply:
February 4th, 2011 at 4:03 pm
great article. only dumbass rafa suckers think it is a bad article. true liverpudlians would understand that rafa suckitez was and is a lousy coach. like i said, even inter saw through his character (within months of signing him) and fired his ass. i pray that we never see his stupid face here ever again.
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lolo Reply:
February 4th, 2011 at 4:49 pm
Fool
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You don’t really like Rafa do you? You certainly gloss over his (by any standards) successful first five years at Anfield in a few sentences and then assassinate him. Brilliant!
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the sale of torres left a net profit for benitez – tying up torres to a long contract enabled the sale, the best youngsters in the country if not europe are his biggest legacy.
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The drain of funds by and constant fighting with the two tumours led to Rafa’s demise. The SKY fuelled witch-hunt and clamour for a now proven no-mark like hodgson also had an influence, epsecially on decisions taken by Purslow.
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Absolute nonsense! Rafa’s legacy lives on in the excellent youth policy and development program that he put in place at the club. This was recently highlighted by our king when he publicly thanked Rafa for it. Also may be worth bearing in mind that Rafa’s legacy will always be a part of the club as he delivered the Champions League in 2005!! Muppet!!!
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Well said Macca – the media do not like foreign managers (other than Jose, but he is ‘Special’) and this type of one-sided ‘analysis’ is typical of the nonsense that drove Rafa demented at times. I, like many Liverpool supporters, am very grateful to Rafa for putting our club back at the top table of World football. That he couldn’t keep them there indefinitely, was in many ways a direct result of the lack of backing he had from H&G. That’s not to ignore the mistakes that he made but show me a manager who doesn’t make any. I’m trusting in Kenny to put the club back in its rightful place, and to do so with style and intelligence, two qualities the author of this drivel totally lacks.
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This article is crap. You quickly despise Rafa with baseless statements. The fact is under Rafa, Liverpool returned to being recognized as a European power house. We won a champions league title, made it to the finals and guaranteed that we were always contenders in Europe. We defeated all the top European clubs right from Barca, Real, AC Milan, Inter milan, Juventus, etc. We managed to obtain the highest ever league points finish in the premiership than any other manager in the history of the club. He won the FA cup, attracted top players to the club like Torres, Reina, Mascherano who would never have joined without him. His demise was the fact that the owners demanded that he sells before he could buy new players. You mention the total amount of money he spent but u dont point out how much was recouped. With the sale of Torres it’s a positive return on the balance sheet. With zonal marking we conceded the least goals from set plays in the league season after season. It’s this kind of baseless arguments that led to the appointment of Hodgson just because he was English. If Rafa had the current support the owners are giving, we would have won the premiership and more champions league titles.
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