Although Rafael Benitez is a
famous man & doesn’t require any introduction but for those who don’t know
about him may read the paragraph mentioned below.
Mr. Benitez is a Spaniard who
played football in Spain but eventually became a football coach. He coached
several big clubs like Valencia (Spain). With Valencia he won La-Liga in
2001-02. He also coached Liverpool (UK)
& guided them to win the UEFA Champions League in 2004-05. That game was
played in Istanbul a city that is a part of Asia & Europe. It’ll remain a
memorable match as it was the 50th UEFA Champions League & a
total of 6 goals were scored 3 goals by AC Milan in the 1st half
& 3 goals by Liverpool in the 2nd half. Mr. Benitez’s tactics
did wonders as Liverpool did a great comeback, scored 3 goals didn’t allow any
goals from AC Milan & eventually won the game on penalties. He even guided
Liverpool to win a FA cup in 2005-06 & reached the finals of UEFA Champion’s
League Finals in 2006-07. He even managed Internazionale & then joined
Chelsea Football Club as an interim manager in November 2012.
He became Chelsea’s interim
manager as their manager Roberto Di Matteo was sacked as Chelsea wasn’t
performing well under him but in my personal humble opinion it wasn’t Chelsea
that didn’t perform but it was striker Fernando Torres who wasn’t scoring
goals. As Fernando Torres performance under Mr. Benitez in Liverpool was
excellent, Mr. Benitez was made the coach so that Roman Abramovich’s (owner of
Chelsea) £50m Fernando Torres could play better.
When Mr. Benitez took over
Chelsea, Chelsea weren’t at a good position. There were chances of existing
UEFA Champion’s League in group stage which they won in their previous season. Chelsea
fans even had fears of Chelsea not being able to play next season’s Champion’s
League as they were doing poor in the English Premiere League & weren’t
amongst the top 4 clubs. Mr. Abramovich wanted Chelsea to play attacking
football which had made their defence poor. Mr. Benitez had to quickly repair
Chelsea’s defence system.
Mr. Benitez unfortunately wasn’t
able to save Chelsea from existing the group stage even after defeating FC Nordsjælland
6-1 in Champions League. He gradually made Chelsea players play better football.
Chelsea had won FA cup in their previous season but lost in the Semi-Final. The
positives were Chelsea defeated the best team of English Premiere League Manchester
United in the Quarter-finals & reached the Semi-Final where they eventually
lost to Manchester City a team that was technically more stable than them.
Although he did well & lasted
longer than some of the previous Chelsea coaches under Mr. Abramovich like Luiz
Felipe Scolari, Guus Hiddink, Andre Villa-Boas & Di Matteo, he never got
any support or fair treatment from Chelsea fans. The fans abused him badly in
all matches & called him “Fat Spanish Waiter”. Maybe that happened as he
was Chelsea’s rival Liverpool’s former coach. He preferred to remain serene when
the fans abused him during the match. The rants of Chelsea’s fans didn’t deter
his concentration during matches. He looked unperturbed & fully focussed on
winning the ongoing matches. Even his own players didn’t openly appreciate his
work.
Try to imagine what a coach may
be going through when he gets abused & asked to get lost around twice a week
even after performing well & doing his duties nicely. It indeed takes
tremendous resilience which Mr. Benitez showed all the time.
Yesterday Mr. Benitez won the Europa
League cup against Benfica in Amsterdam. I hope the Chelsea fans would
understand that it isn’t easy managing a big team like Chelsea & he
deserves respect, praise & thanks from all the Chelsea fans for his good
service & for not showing his anger against Chelsea fans. He started managing
Chelsea when they were in danger & out of control because of a lot of
issues. Also if big players don’t perform it’s not the fault of the coach
always.
