Liverpool FC Forum

A.B. wrote:Source: Red and White Kop (translated article)

Rafa's centre for operations

When it was time for the penalties in the final of the Champions, Rafa took out of his pocket a sheet of paper and gave it to his goalkeeper. He had written down 'where' the Milan players took their penalties. The night before facing Chelsea, he only slept two hours analyzing the rival. He eliminated them. This is how he does it...

Rafa Benitez never steps on the pitch without his sheet of notes since, on it, he has the keys to beating the rival that he is facing and behind all the handwritten scribbles, there are hours of work and tape watching. For example, before the Champions final, all of the penalties that Milan players had taken during the past years were watched, be it with their own club or the national team.

And it's that the European Champion manager hates to improvise and he tries to reduce to the minimum every single detail. That is why he accumulates many more working hours in his office than on the pitch, so that when he talks to his players, they only get most concrete information, the basics. Before a match, he and his working team have looked for the weak points of every rival and reviewed training sessions and their own matches to keep on improving. For this, Benitez sleeps very little, since it is rare the day that he doesn't wake up at 6 am, something he picked up in Almendralejo, where in the preseason they had to train very early since the temperature made it impossible to do so later on. But in the eve of very selected dates, the Madrileño goes even further, dedicating 22 hours a day for Liverpool. This is what happened in the semifinals of the Champions against Chelsea, when the manager only slept from two to four in the morning watching the rival's games. In the end, he found the way to closing all the doors to Mourinho's men, being the only team to do so.

Modernized

And it's that the job of watching tapes, now dvds, is something that's always being considered "basic Benitez", who from the very first teams he managed was in charge, personally, of collecting the images of his rivals when this was a more difficult job. This way, he has amassed a collection of over 1,500 tapes that today he keeps at his parents home, who have a spare room just to keep them. But the more recent ones he keeps in his office, where he has around three hundred tapes of players and matches. In his little ‘bunker’, as well as at home, there is a huge plasma screen, with video and dvd player, and tens of television channels. This and a powerful PC that allows him to work with specialized programs and this way he prepares short sequences that he later shows his players.

Without a doubt, the reds manager is the kind that believes that an image is worth a thousand words and a bunch of them, well you can imagine. For this reason, he has elaborated various dvd's for his players to take as homework and for them to watch the movements that they should make at determinate situations, like the way they should press or what way the defense must be coordinated. This way, Carragher, called upon to be the leader of Liverpool's defense, took home a dvd with the selected images of Sacchi's Milan, where Baresi gave lessons of how to push the defensive line forward, that way making the rival go offsides repeatedly.

He wasn't the only one to take homework. Benitez elaborated another dvd of the way the team should play zone and press all over the pitch. For this, the reference was Maturana's Valladolid and his own. There were more, for strikers, strategic plays...all with hundreds of hours of tape analyzing behind them.

To the margin of match images, Rafa accumulates a lot of information in his office, starting for the most basic. In a table, a huge cardboard allows him to see all the season ahead of him. Every match is highlighted in a different color depending on the competition that it belongs to. There he sees the days destined for traveling, and the ones that are left over for training. In this sea of colors, Benitez tries to find space to put the re-scheduled matches and he 'sweats ink' thinking of how they're going to be able to play the World club championship in December.

As the hours go by at the office more working tools begin to surface. Inside a drawer he keeps a laser pen that he uses for the tactical talk with his players. Of course a huge blackboard can’t be missing in the precinct and it’s because the coaching team mixes the most unorthodox methods with the ones of all time. But when it’s time to talk to his men, Benitez demands participation when he presents a problem that could come up on the pitch, during this chat he asks for a solution from his players. All of this to involve them in every decision and erase the old image of the player ‘short of lights’ who would be limited to his own assignment on the pitch, not wanting to know the rest. And this Liverpool is breaking barriers, in terms of results and the way to achieve them.

Preparing the matches

Before the match, Benitez has already done it mentally and virtually (videos). Once the aspects of the other team are compiled, he explains them to his players in the pre-game chat.

The block is important

Benitez doesn’t concede privileges on his squad, there are no stars. He believes in the work of the group and not on individualities. That’s why he’s never asked, at Valencia or Liverpool, for the signing of a ‘galactico’.

Defense starts up front

Benitez shares the work and effort amongst all. His teams move like a block. The defense starts with the strikers and any defender can attack. They just need to choose the right time to do so.

Pressure and variants

Sacchi’s great Milan was one of his mirrors. This is why all of Benitez’s teams press on all parts of the pitch. Doesn’t always stick to a scheme and he’s used 4-4-2, 4-2-3-1 and 3-5-2…

He ‘invents’ strikers

The ‘9’ is not a position that worries him. If he has it good and if he doesn’t, he invents one. Angulo was his striker for Valencia’s first league, Mista for the second one and Luis Garcia his top scorer for the Champions.

meelan#5 wrote:Thanks for the read ANOTHERSPANISHRED