Topic: Rafa Benitez - no longer at Celta Vigo

[cptrios]

If he doesn't want to retire, why not go somewhere out of the spotlight where the pressure's off? I'm sure he's got enough money to keep his family set for life. He should just find a Spanish 4th division club and have some fun.

One thing I wonder about is why more managers, when they've run out of steam in Europe, don't take a crack at an American college team. It seems like it'd be enjoyable and pretty low-key, not to mention a totally different experience with player turnover and recruitment, etc. Not sure it'd be ideal for Rafa, but you never know.

[DangerScouse]

Ireland job please!

[Clayton Bigsby]

The hardware he has won will always mean that somebody will give him a chance but I think his time has passed now.

[The Kuyt Runner]

[oojason]

Classy from Rafa - as usual...




^ from https://twitter.com/rafabenitezweb/status/1767878479180152915

[bird_lfc]

Classy from Rafa - as usual...




^ from https://twitter.com/rafabenitezweb/status/1767878479180152915

Would expect nothing less from the man

Sucks it hasn’t worked out, echo those that thing he should call it a day but the man loves football and is a workaholic so I just can’t see it.

[Bread]

Out of curiosity, how did Vigo fans feel about Rafa? Did they actively want him out? Did they back him to keep them up? Are there others to blame for their current predicament?

[paulrazor]

Ireland job would make sense in a lot of ways, his family are based in Liverpool so he's only a short hop away, many flights a day

Plus being based in England most of the time wouldnt be an issue.

But I cant see it happening

The FAI are a fucking farce but then again he seems to go for jobs like that.

[Suareznumber7]

Funnily enough, him at Newcastle right now would probably work out quite well for him and them.

It would work out well for the rest of the league maybe.  Unfortunately, all evidence points to Rafa being passed it as a manager. 

[The North Bank]

They sacked him after losing to real madrid… and they’re fighting relegation but above the relegation zone. A mental decision, unless the fans forced it. Clubs under pressure do some batshit crazy things at times.

[Redley]

Since Liverpool its just been trainwreck after trainwreck. Inter, after Mourinho. Chelsea, as Interim. Napoli with their loon owner. Real, after Ancelotti. Saudi Arabia with their previous loon owner. Then China for a couple of years. And then the fucking Bitters. And then a lower table Celta Vigo who were selling their best players.

Great manager back in the day but absolutely dreadful at picking jobs.

He's got a terrible combination of being very high profile still but with a withering reputation, which is getting worse every job he takes. His great successes are now nearly two decades ago, the players he's coaching are mainly going to be too young to even remember when he was seen as one of the best coaches in the world. There's a lot he can give to football....but I do wish he'd just fuck off being a manager now.

[paulrazor]

He really does make some very bad moves, his agent must be Estelle from friends.

Fag hanging out their mouth "Rafa I have got this job, perfect for you, its a big club but they are a mess with loon owners and no money"

[Betty Blue]

Unfortunately the game has evolved past Rafa now. He's no longer the one coming in and upsetting the status quo with fresh ideas on how football can be played. Unlike some other managers who can eke out some relative success on their man management style, Rafa's achievements were built on the tactical innovations he brought to the game some 20 or so years ago. 4231, zonal marking, in-game flexibility, squad rotation etc. Most of these are now standard fare and/or not relevant in today's game. At his peak, he was the best in-game manager I've ever seen at Liverpool. Adore Klopp as much as I do, this is the one area Rafa had over him IMO. But his time at the top has passed now. It's a hard watch seeing his career wind down, like a boxer on his last legs, but he'll forever go down as one of our greatest ever.

[paulrazor]

Great but sad post

I do feel time has passed him by

I hated the way he was treated at some clubs

Including here of course.

[Legs]

They sacked him after losing to real madrid… and they’re fighting relegation but above the relegation zone. A mental decision, unless the fans forced it. Clubs under pressure do some batshit crazy things at times.

Correct and they probably knew they were going to sack him but made sure the new guy didn’t start with the Madrid game so let Rafa take the hit as they would lose that game regardless.

[B0151?]

I'm the first one to criticise some of Rafa's hon decisions but I don't think it's desperately sad or anything. Whatever job he's taken you can bet he's been compensated handsomely. I'm not saying it's the only reason he will have taken jobs, clearly he's football obsessed. But I think he will be OK.

Look at Hodgson, Moyes. I think there is still clubs he could be a success at. Just a win or two more at Celta and he probably would have been OK, but it's very cut throat at that end of the table. I'm sure there's a right job out there for him. It's true it's difficult when you're on a run of jobs that have been failures but there's worse managers than Rafa that still pop up in jobs. Maybe a step down in a division, an interim job etc, who knows. He's good pundit too as has been said.

[Betty Blue]

I'm the first one to criticise some of Rafa's hon decisions but I don't think it's desperately sad or anything. Whatever job he's taken you can bet he's been compensated handsomely. I'm not saying it's the only reason he will have taken jobs, clearly he's football obsessed. But I think he will be OK.

Look at Hodgson, Moyes. I think there is still clubs he could be a success at. Just a win or two more at Celta and he probably would have been OK, but it's very cut throat at that end of the table. I'm sure there's a right job out there for him. It's true it's difficult when you're on a run of jobs that have been failures but there's worse managers than Rafa that still pop up in jobs. Maybe a step down in a division, an interim job etc, who knows. He's good pundit too as has been said.

I don't think anyone here is saying Rafa won't be okay financially, but from the perspective of fan of him (what he did for this club transcends football) it's a hard watch to see him slide lower and lower down the job market. The fact he's now being mentioned alongside such elite names as Hodgson and Moyes says it all. There was a time when those two would feel lucky to be shit on the sole of his shoe. But in all truth I don't think he'd get a lower Premier League job with where his reputation is right now. Now, part of that may be down to the way the English media treated him in the past, but the reality is he's not had any managerial success since getting Newcastle promoted in 2017. Maybe that's a hint that dropping down a division could work for him? I'll always love the man and I'll always follow his career, but like others I hope he settles into punditry or even has a go at international management.

[Red Beret]

Should try his luck at Tranmere.

[Black Bull Nova]

Should try his luck at Tranmere.

That's not a bad shout once Adkins goes, they like him and the family over on the Wirral (Well reds and blues over there my be divided) and he can live at home, walk the dog and be a local hero. Does not need the money anymore.

[oojason]

.
Well, I started so I'll finish - even as Rafa is no longer there, Claudio Giraldez is the new coach, and only 10 matches to go - I'll put up the rest of the matches this season in this post...


Celta's matches live on TV around the world (+ great for IPTV etc): www.livesoccertv.com/teams/spain/celta-de-vigo

Celta's remaining fixtures: www.flashscore.co.uk/team/celta-vigo/8pvUZFhf/fixtures


Sevilla 1 - 2 Celta Vigo : 15th vs 17th : League Match 29 : Sunday 17th March : 3 minute highlights - www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7wrNlGWTtE
Celta 0 - 0 Rayo Vallecano : 17th vs 16th : League Match 30 : Sunday 31st March : 3 minute highlights - www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxpUXMdBoto
Betis 2 - 1 Celta Vigo : 7th vs 17th : League Match 31 : Friday 12th April : 3 minute highlights - www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM2mwr6Axw4
Celta 4 - 1 Las Palmas : 17th vs 12th : League Match 32 : Saturday 20th April : 3 minute highlights - www.youtube.com/watch?v=DccEJckecoo
Alaves 3 - 0 Celta : 15th vs 16th : League Match 33 : Saturday 27th April : 3 minute highlights - www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoGW8dre1U4
Celta 3 - 2 Villarreal : 17th vs 10th : League Match 34 : Sunday 5th May : 3 minute highlights - www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4nZvFld1Uk
Atl. Madrid 1 - 0 Celta : 4th vs 16th : League Match 35 : Sunday 12th May : 3 minute highlights - www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJZsmbsk4kM
Celta 2 - 1 Ath. Bilbao : 17th vs 5th : League Match 36 : Wednesday 15th May : 3 minute highlights - www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhKf2wqHH2M
Granada 1 - 2 Celta : 19th vs 15th : League Match 37 : Sunday 19th May : 3 minute highlights - www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAbHyrW8sBk


next up... 

Celta vs Valencia : 14th vs 9th : League Match 38 : Sunday 26th May, 3.15pm ko : live on Premier Sports 1

[JP!]

19 years since Istanbul, thank you Rafa.

I was a fully paid up 'Rafa apologist' and will probably always be one.

[Keith Lard]

I’d love to see Rafa get a job at one of the Italian giants, like Juventus.

In my eyes, still a top manager deserving of one of the top jobs. Needs to be the right profile of club though - one which will benefit from an evolved version of his style of play.

Just hope he doesn’t accept another job that’s beneath him or a journeyman job. He needs to follow the Ancelotti path and ensure his next role is blue chip.

Remember, people also thought the game had passed Ancelotti by. Clearly it hadn’t. The world doesn’t value wisdom and experience enough.

[9 kemlyn road]

19 years since Istanbul, thank you Rafa.

I was a fully paid up 'Rafa apologist' and will probably always be one.

I second this .
Rafa gave me the greatest night of my football supporting life on the 25th of may 2005 and we’d had some great days and night previous to that .
If that had been a Hollywood movie you would thought what a load of corny old crap ,as if that would happen but by god it was real .
I just watched a 3 minute clip of it and it still gets me teary eyed .what a game ,what a night ,what a man.
Thank you Rafa Benitez .

[rafathegaffa83]

Remember, people also thought the game had passed Ancelotti by. Clearly it hadn’t. The world doesn’t value wisdom and experience enough.

I was listening to Simon Kuper's Heroes & Humans podcast the other day, which has an excellent episode about Ancelotti. I really like Ancelotti and you can definitely discern from the episode why he has been so successful. He initially started as a Sacchi acolyte. Very disciplined, very rigid in his tactical thinking. And then when he was at Parma he turned down the chance to sign Roberto Baggio because he had no place for a number ten in his system. Baggio went on to score 22 goals for Bologna the next season. He also sold Zola to Chelsea for similar reasons. The podcast posits not signing Baggio  is the key moment in Ancelotti's managerial career. Thereafter, when he goes to Juventus he decides to find a system that can allow for Zidane and took on the approach used by his former manager at Roma Nils Liedholm. He puts a premium on the idea of the club as a family. He occasionally gives senior players the opportunity to have input on tactics.

Rafa has never been like this. He's always been the tactical mind. He belongs to a specific style of coaching that is now passe. It's similar to why Mourinho has become yesterday's man. Ancelotti has continued because he's the warm friend who'll placate and accommodate talent and the egos of figurheads like Perez and Berlusconi. He doesn't get in spats in public or private with players, owners or executives. He's apparently one of the few people in football that Zlatan Ibrahimovic has ever gotten along with and considers a friend. Chelsea's senior players took him out for dinner the night he got sacked.

If Rafa wants to continue in management, I'd think managing a national team might be the best bet for him these days, even though it would remove some of the day-to-day tactical work that he's placed a premium on.

[Hestoic]

A genuine legend who should never have been sacked. I think he would have done far better under FSG than that 2010 season. We challenged for the league the season before, lost a couple of key players, then came in 6th with a semi final, then he got sacked. I also still think we got robbed in that semi with a Benayoun goal wrongly chalked off.

Similar sort of story that we gave Jurgen time and money for and he fixed a woeful season by getting us 3rd and a trophy.

Of course, you do then wonder how things would have played out had we kept Rafa on and backed him and he won us the league, which I think he would have done for us if given a few more years. Would we then miss out on getting Klopp?

Because we have had a superstar for the past 9 years who will go down as more legendary in our history than Rafa, I feel like there's a lot of shared sentiment of that it turned out alright in the end and way better than we could have hoped for in Klopp, so whatever has happened was worth it.

To me, Rafa is the manager version of "what if x player never had all those injuries". Except he just needed the right backing at the right club and we were that right club for him. He just never got the backing - and the list of players that is commonly shared around that we missed out on shows the eye for talent that he had. The other clubs he managed weren't right for him.

I also think that if we had the fan media that we have now back in 2010, then there's no way we'd have had half the fanbase regurgitating the London press by saying we needed Roy Hodgson to come in and steady the fucking ship!

[stoa]

The thing is, he had the backing of the club at the start of his tenure and we saw where he could have been taking us had that continued. The issue was that the club weren't financially strong enough to make a lot of things happen. With Gillette and Hicks coming in the backing was gone and the financial situation got even worse. I have no doubt in my mind that Rafa could have achieved a similar trophy haul to Klopp had he had FSG as owners from the start, but it just wasn't to be, which is a shame.

[FiSh77]

[rafathegaffa83]

The thing is, he had the backing of the club at the start of his tenure and we saw where he could have been taking us had that continued. The issue was that the club weren't financially strong enough to make a lot of things happen. With Gillette and Hicks coming in the backing was gone and the financial situation got even worse. I have no doubt in my mind that Rafa could have achieved a similar trophy haul to Klopp had he had FSG as owners from the start, but it just wasn't to be, which is a shame.

Agreed. Liverpool win the league in 2008/09 with a bit better squad depth and a better striker alternative than Robbie Keane.

[Samie]

Rafa is a football dinosaur now. He is still okay at a cetain level but he was elite at Valencia and with us. After that it's a car crash bar Napoli.

[Keith Lard]

Rafa is a football dinosaur now. He is still okay at a cetain level but he was elite at Valencia and with us. After that it's a car crash bar Napoli.

You’re doing one of our legends down. He’s not a dinosaur and it’s disrespectful to one of our legends that fought for us so hard to call him that.

People just don’t have respect for wisdom and experience as they once did.

[Samie]

You’re doing one of our legends down. He’s not a dinosaur and it’s disrespectful to one of our legends that fought for us so hard to call him that.

People just don’t have respect for wisdom and experience as they once did.

That is not doing him down, it's what they are in 2024. Rafa is not elite manager in how football is being played currently and will be going forward.  The Rafa Benitez of the 00's is elite. He is not going to get a job at a top club anymore.

[Keith Lard]

That is not doing him down, it's what they are in 2024. Rafa is not elite manager in how football is being played currently and will be going forward.  The Rafa Benitez of the 00's is elite. He is not going to get a job at a top club anymore.

Well, I think it’s easier to take your position and I’m sure the majority would agree with you.

I still think he’s elite and would excel and prove a few people wrong in the right top job. Feels unlikely it will happen though. He’s chosen some really dud jobs since leaving us and did himself a disservice.

[JerseyKloppite]

I love the bloke and he had some rotten luck at Celta but i cant see him ever being given a “big” opportunity again. It’s hard to know what he’d do at a big club now. Madrid went wrong because of the off field stuff (though if he’d been more successful on field he’d probably have stayed), you feel that was his last swing at the big time.

[9 kemlyn road]

Rafa was an elite manager in 00s ,his problems started with the arrival of the cancers .he was in a fight with them almost from the off.
After Athens he was planning for the next season and was fobbed off and quickly realised who and what  these two charlatans were about.Rafa began exposing them to everyone and the battle commenced.
He spent the rest of his time with us fighting them and was unable to concentrate doing the good job he’d started.
He called them out from the off unlike certain players who sided with them to rafas detriment.

[Keith Lard]

Rafa was an elite manager in 00s ,his problems started with the arrival of the cancers .he was in a fight with them almost from the off.
After Athens he was planning for the next season and was fobbed off and quickly realised who and what  these two charlatans were about.Rafa began exposing them to everyone and the battle commenced.
He spent the rest of his time with us fighting them and was unable to concentrate doing the good job he’d started.
He called them out from the off unlike certain players who sided with them to rafas detriment.

Well said. When I see the flag on the kop of our great managers, Rafa means so much to me. The part he played in driving out the cancers can never be underestimated … and that team with Masch and Alonso at the heart of midfield, it was immense.

[scouse neapolitan]

Well said. When I see the flag on the kop of our great managers, Rafa means so much to me. The part he played in driving out the cancers can never be underestimated … and that team with Masch and Alonso at the heart of midfield, it was immense.

Absolutely. We'll said Keith. Rafa means so much to our club. The guy is fundamental to where we are now.

[MBL?]

I'd absolutely love it if he was offered the Ireland manager's job. International football would suit him to a T. Getting a team of limited footballers organised defensively, a couple of training sessions every month, Andrew Omobamidele in the Hyypia role, Evan Ferguson in the Torres role, Sammie Szmodics in the Gerrard role. Live on the Wirral, short trip to Dublin, beat England in the Nations League and become as popular here as Jack Charlton.

Been saying this for ages and it makes far more sense now he is out of a job. Can't believe it's not been mentioned on the second captains podcast.

[Black Bull Nova]

Evans to Houllier to Benitez were steps that kept this club alive and with the soul that was almost lost (and has been lost by others)

[stevieG786]

Still can’t believe he managed Chelsea and Effin Everton

[kasperoff]

Great but sad post

I do feel time has passed him by

I hated the way he was treated at some clubs

Including here of course.

I feel the same. Deserved far more after leaving Liverpool, but seems to take make some daft career decisions with the clubs he chose to manage. Lots of sliding doors moments that just didn't go his way.

Absolutely love them man though. 2005 is still the best moment I've had supporting Liverpool.