As the tactical discussion continues, it's only natural to ask if we've reached the pinnacle of tactical evolution in the modern game. Just how much more advanced can the thinking develop? After all, many of the staples such as pressing, a high defensive line and zonal marking were in fact proposed or instituted by Victor Maslov, famed for his work with Dynamo Kyiv in the Sixties. "It's not the same systems they were using in the past, similar systems but there's now more pace, more intensity," said Benitez. "I remember an article when they talked about the time you had when you received the ball, I don't remember the exact figures but I think it said it was 4 seconds for Garrincha, 3.5 for Cruyff, 2 for Maradona, 1.5 seconds for the lowest etc.
"So it means you have less time and you have to do things quicker, you don't see as many people dribbling and running with the ball because the opposition are on top of you so quickly you have to pass the ball -- nowadays there's more emphasis on collective technique more than individual technique."

The conversation inevitably drifts to what Benitez is looking for in his next management job. He's certainly not been short of offers since leaving Inter, but he's in no hurry and is waiting for what he sees as the ideal project, a team that matches his desire to win trophies and a team that doesn't necessarily have to be in the Premier League. With his daughters happily settled in at school in the Liverpool area, Benitez is accepting of the fact that he might have to move on his own and commute when possible if his next job falls outside England. It's also no secret that Benitez would consider returning to Liverpool if he were ever asked at some point in the future. It's not something he is keen to discuss and he is quick to emphasize his respect for the job that incumbent Kenny Dalglish has done, but there's a sense of unfinished business on Benitez's part, of the inability to complete his project at Anfield.
There continues to be a pervading myth in some quarters that Benitez had vast transfer sums at his disposal during his time at Liverpool. While it's true he spent around £223 million during his six-year tenure, in actuality, according to calculations by Paul Tomkins, author of Pay As You Play, his approximate total net spend was only £62M, a figure that puts Liverpool below the likes of Aston Villa, Sunderland and Tottenham over the same period. The figure drops further to £20.5M (if you include the subsequent sales of all players Benitez bought such as Torres and Mascherano).
"To be fair, everyone has had bad signings," said Benitez. "But if you analyze the current squad of Liverpool -- [Pepe] Reina, [Glen] Johnson, [Daniel] Agger, [Martin] Skrtel, Lucas Leiva, [Dirk] Kuyt, Maxi -- a lot of these players that are doing really well, they were signings that we did. So the people that talk about [Philipp] Degen or [Andriy] Voronin who were free, how you can compare them to the signings of [Fernando] Torres and [Xabi] Alonso? Even with Torres, Alonso, [Javier] Mascherano and the money brought in [with their sales] and still they talk about the other signings, the majority [of which] were not too expensive. "
We debate some of those moves that didn't pan out as planned at Liverpool such as the signing of Dutch forward Ryan Babel in what seems to be Liverpool's never-ending search for a potent winger. "Babel played in a 4-3-3 system at Ajax, " said Benitez. "But he didn't do well as a winger at the end, we were trying to find his best position but it was not going well. Babel was a young player that needed to understand the English game and he didn't." Benitez admits he had searched extensively for wingers while at Anfield, in hopes of replicating his use at Valencia of dangerous widemen Vicente and Rufete. One deal he confirms, which almost came to fruition, was that of Brazilian Dani Alves, then at Sevilla. "Daniel Alves was our first option on the right side," said Benitez. "The problem that we had -- I had to decide to bring Alves as a winger when he was an offensive fullback. It was a difficult decision as we had money at the time for only just one striker or a winger/fullback. We signed a striker, the striker was Kuyt, who to be fair has turned out to be a fantastic contributor to the club."
As for the much criticized sale of midfielder Alonso in the summer of 2009, Benitez explains that his plan had been to bring in both Alberto Aquilani and Stevan Jovetic. "Jovetic was our target but we didn't have the money," said Benitez. "My idea was to play Mascherano, Lucas, [Steven] Gerrard, Aquilani -- two of these four players in the middle and Jovetic between the lines, but we didn't have the money."
In theory, weren't the funds from the sale of Alonso more than enough to cover the purchase of both Aquilani and Jovetic? "You are right. In theory," is Benitez's response.


The other stick which is often used to beat Benitez with is his relationship, or supposed lack of, with players. Too cold, too dour, too calculating say those same critics. It's a gross misrepresentation if ever there was one. In person, for those who know him, Benitez has always been warm and friendly. He explains his philosophy thus. "Normally the manager has to do his job, he cannot be the close friend of the players, it's an old style that does not [necessarily] work now. You have to do your job, you have to improve your players, you have to teach them, you have to coach them properly. At the end they will realize and see the difference. You cannot say there's no relationship -- every day we train, you can see managers that don't train for 3-4 days. I train every day with my players and talk to them every day, trying to improve them. "
As for not getting along with players, Benitez says it's simply not true and reels off a list of players he's still in close contact with, including several stars who some media outlets have falsely claimed to be estranged from him. Benitez might not text his former players as frequently as certain other managers do -- largely out of respect to their current mangers -- but as he shows me, he's clearly viewed fondly by many of his former charges.
By now, Benitez is running late to pick up his daughters from school -- as he's dashing out the door there's only time for one last question, one that has bothered the masses who've been reading the tactical blogs on his website. Why then does he include the goalkeeper when he's mentioning formations, why 1-4-2-3-1 instead of 4-2-3-1?
"I was saying 4-2-3-1, but if you go to coaches' schools they say 'oh you have to play with a keeper,'" smiled Benitez. "I've also had this conversation with some goalkeeper coaches and they all say 'listen, the keeper also plays' so I have to say it to keep all the goalkeepers happy!"


Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/soccer/news/20120322/rafa-benitez/#ixzz1qGpwHsvr

god I love Rafa

Nothing but respect for the dude, great football mind...his stuff is fascinating to read

Went for Kuyt instead of Dani Alves, doesn't regret it

Like a bus

I thought it was very interesting the point he made about the amoutn of time people get on the ball nowadays.

Kuyt....despite his alarming averageness, has been an amazing buy from Rafa.He has done Liverpool proud.

i think i could have read 3 more pages of that interview. Great football mind, i hope he finds a club soon. If a 3rd club was rising in Spain via outside investment, in a larger way than Malaga, he would be the man to lead it. Spanish football need people like him.

Painted as the pantomime villain with Inter for no good reason other than he wasn't Mou. It was shameful and disgraceful honestly because he's such an excellent tactician.

Great read, Dani.

Inter played genuinely entertaining football when Benitez was in charge, before he lost the entire squad to injury, and even then they were nowhere near as painful to watch compared to Ranieri's side. I hope a side does invest time in him in the near future, I'd even like an Italian side to give him another chance, though I can only think of Lazio as a side who might just interest him, unless Guidolin leaves Udinese.

rafa
pretty much rules out a move to chelsea when he said he wants to be given time in his next job

So charismatic.

Rafa is class.

meanwhile unai emery - "we lacked intensity"

Wow... so glad people are finally coming around to what I've been saying for years. It only took two nonsense sackings and near-Administration for LFC to make people understand the larger issues.

----------Mascherano--------Gerrard------------

xxxxx------------------Jovetic------------xxxxx

-----------------------Torres--------------------

With Aquaman and Lucas as depth.....

Niiiice

You never know what you have until it's gone

but why wouldnt coaches build good relationships, personal relationships, with the players? why?

The Madrid One wrote:but why wouldnt coaches build good relationships, personal relationships, with the players? why?

This is something you will learn when you get older and have to administer people. When you are an employer you can't have a personal relationship with the employees. You have to treat then good, but you shouldn't be their friend.

Tigole wrote:

The Madrid One wrote:but why wouldnt coaches build good relationships, personal relationships, with the players? why?

This is something you will learn when you get older and have to administer people. When you are an employer you can't have a personal relationship with the employees. You have to treat then good, but you shouldn't be their friend.

Well that's debatable specially the part where you state that you shouldn't be their friend. Different things can be applied to different situations, and i personally believe that every manager and coach should build at least some kind of good relationship with their players, where trust and respect is garnered, whether they are "friends" or not.

Look at what happened to villas boas and a whole lot of other managers, from what i have read a big part in the decision of his firing were probably his players. You don't have to be their friends but if you can't build something good enough in which you can co-exist then the work might not reach it's true potential.

So that's what i meant when i asked the question, didn't really mean "oh why don't they all just become friends", just want to make the point that to be successful i think some kind of good relationship is needed.

Valencia should sack Emery and go for Benitez.

somebody send this to Dalglish..

I know we got Wenger who can be tactically naive, but Dalglish's technicalk errors sometimes makes Wenger look like Mourinho

I'm not a huge fan of Benitez mainly because of his time at Inter, but seeing how things never changed after he left it can be said that his failure wasnt entirely his fault. One can argue that Leonardo surpassed Benitez when he took over but then again Inter signed 4 new players that winter and Leo had a healthier team at his disposal.

Benitez came to Inter with new ideas, and if the reports are correct, and i have a reason to think they are, he was promised 3 signings that never came, and that fractured the relationship with the management. However it can also be said that Benitez was too stubborn for his own good, electing to implement his own ideas on a squad that wasnt ready for them. Maybe it was the shadow of Mourinho, but then again Mou played in the shadow of Mancini in his first year and dropped his fav 433 formation after just a few weeks when he realized it wouldnt work, something that Benitez failed to do and he paid the price for it.

Another concern was Benitez's relationship with the players, once things started going south everyone started complaining, Eto'o wasnt tracking back and chivu was complaining about it, something you'd never see under Mou, and the senior players were so indifferent and unmotivated that i was painful to watch. It's true that Inter had huge injury problems, but we lost a home game against Brescia with 7 triple winning starters for example and it wasnt because of tactics but because no one really cared.

Not sure if these had been posted or not, but I thought I'd share:

Part 1 http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/clubfootball/news/newsid=1608542.html
Part 2 http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/clubfootball/news/newsid=1608576.html

nice read as always, if he was playing a more attractive brand of passing football he would be by far my favorite coach because it's so easy to buy into the things he says and the way he expresses his ideas.

"I’ll be watching with my wife and I’ll say ‘goal’ then two seconds later it’s a goal. Because you can see the positions of the defenders, the winger may be free or the full-back goes late or something like that. So without thinking too much, you are just analysing."




"I was an admirer of AC Milan, when they were playing with [Marco] van Basten and [Ruud] Gullit and all these players, with [Arrigo] Sacchi as the manager. They were doing really well, they were very dominant at that time. Barcelona has been more or less the same, and you can see now Bayern Munich or sometimes [Manchester] United or Real Madrid can challenge. I remember Real Madrid was a fantastic team and they couldn’t do anything against AC Milan so it was a big difference. But Barcelona are a great team to watch."

Interesting

Nice read. Rafa's such a boss