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Thursday, 16 May 2013

Rafael Benitez’s resilience

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.

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