“If I say Istanbul, he says Athens.” Rafa Benítez smiles. It is almost 18 years since Liverpool’s comeback against Milan in the 2005 Champions League final, but everywhere he goes, everyone he speaks to, it is always there. Well, almost everyone. “When I see Carlo Ancelotti we don’t talk about it much,” the former Liverpool manager says. “He doesn’t like talking about it and I don’t like talking about the final two years later. In Athens we were better and didn’t win; in Istanbul they had a great team and didn’t. That’s football.”
For Benítez, it is the moment and it helped form Ancelotti, who often cites that night as a lesson. “Experience is a rank,” Benítez says, a recurring theme soon revealing itself: the defence of a generation. Two years later, Ancelotti’s Milan team defeated Liverpool in the final. The Italian then won Madrid’s 10th European Cup, rescued by a 94th-minute goal, in 2014. And he travels to Anfield on Tuesday for the first leg of their last-16 tie defending probably the most extraordinary Champions League campaign there has been, a collection of ridiculous comebacks last season that lacked only an Istanbul at the end.
“One thing that’s not up for discussion is that Istanbul was the best European Cup final in history in emotional terms and probably will be for many years,” Benítez says. “All those things. The atmosphere, the fans singing. [Gennaro] Gattuso: did he touch the cup? The turnaround. The amount of times I have been asked about half-time. That can never be repeated. And for both of us, it was an experience. I’m a better coach for it; a better coach now than I was years ago.”
There is a warmth as Benítez talks about Ancelotti, one year his senior and with a career path that crossed his, coaching at Madrid, Everton and Napoli. There is also a warmth for the clubs that meet this week and that made the greatest impact on him. There is an analysis to be made too, of course: there always is with him, coach by vocation, a man unable to sit still, a picture drawn up of the game he anticipates. It is only nine months since Liverpool and Madrid met in the final, but things look different now, especially at Anfield. Why? Context, Benítez says first: everything has to be analysed in context.
“This is a Liverpool team with injuries, not getting the results expected,” Benítez says. “Players like [Roberto] Firmino or [Diogo] Jota, who connected with [Mohamed] Salah, have been missing. The departures, especially [Sadio] Mané, change the structure. Signings should compensate for that but Darwin Núñez or [Cody] Gakpo are different – especially Núñez, who moves into space more. No one expected Firmino and Jota to get injured at once and maybe that obliges you to accelerate a process.
“Sometimes that’s good: I had Raúl at 17 and he went straight into the first team at Real Madrid. But there are other players who need time to mature. The demands are there though. They have to perform now and sometimes that pressure is too great, which can affect everything.
“Jürgen is still a great coach, but if you take away a series of important elements like [Virgil] van Dijk who gives you defensive solidity or Mané then add the absence of Firmino and Jota, that’s going to be felt. The midfield has had to take on greater responsibility, a more central role. [Stefan] Bajcetic is playing very well and there are players who bring a freshness but you want veterans for them to develop alongside – like the transition with [Toni] Kroos and [Luka] Modric at Madrid. [Dani] Ceballos and [Federico] Valverde are fundamental too and maybe Liverpool lack those players having the time to develop.
“At the same time Arsenal, [Manchester] City, [Manchester] United are growing, your objectives become harder to meet, and that can create nerves, doubts, a lack of confidence. Players start to commit errors and that brings insecurity. When you lose Van Dijk who was the player upon whom the defence was sustained, you start to doubt and when you start to doubt …”
So how do you fix that? “The only way to solve that problem is a good game, a good result. I think Everton was a key game that could be the starting point, the beginning of growth.
“Klopp is a great coach who will recover the team and no one can question Ancelotti,” Benítez says. For a while, though, it appeared that they could question him. It is remarkable to think that, past 60, coaching at Everton, Ancelotti seemed lost to the European elite where his career had unfolded. A chance phone call about something else entirely brought him back to Madrid. Now he is a European champion with a record no one can match and even Brazil want him.
“Ancelotti is a good coach wherever you put him,” Benítez says. “If you put him in at Brazil, with the tools they have, his ability and capacity to manage a group, he’ll do well. Of course he will be good for them. You say ‘disappeared’ before, but if you have coaches with experience – Ancelotti, Klopp, [Manuel] Pellegrini, [Luciano] Spalletti – and you give them the tools, they get results. Young coaches: maybe 5% can do it but others need time. That’s natural. Ancelotti has shown repeatedly that experience is a rank, a quality. There are so many good coaches we don’t value because they’re not in big leagues or [talked about] on social media.”
Coaches like you? There is something in what Benítez says that feels as if it applies to him too, some sense that he has slipped from those conversations or the public eye, no longer seen as one of those managers linked to the biggest clubs: a little like Ancelotti a couple of years ago. Their shared club offers an example: Everton have not exactly improved since their departures. Does he feel like that? Yes, he does.
“Look, when I left Everton they were six points off relegation with two games in hand having spent £1.7m,” Benítez says, referring to his pre-season outlay. The spending started to become far more generous shortly before he was sacked and a year later, despite an outlay of more than £100m, the club were in the relegation zone. “Where we had never been,” Benítez says. “They had signed 11 players. People said: ‘Yeah, but the errors of the past …’ What errors of the past? Eleven signings is a new team. So, the feeling is that what was done is not valued enough because there isn’t a proper analysis.
“You have the image of Istanbul, say, but there’s loads of work to get there. People say it was lucky. It’s not lucky. We had beaten Juventus, we had beaten Chelsea, we beat Milan, who were the best team around. You don’t win all those games through luck: you win through work, ability, tactical analysis, etc.
“The problem is that everything moves on fast, [people say] you have to get a modern, attacking coach. I have the latest software and I analyse every game. I look at players and I learn every day. I am up to date with big data. Experienced coaches have more chance of being successful. Young coaches can succeed of course – I did at Valencia – but older coaches have more because they’re learning all the time. I am better than 10 years ago.”
Talk returns to the Champions League and to the accusations faced by Juventus and Manchester City. Benítez suggests that financial fair play has offered control and protection but has to be looked at and “done differently so that the teams at the bottom can get closer to the teams at the top, “rather than having that distance growing all the time”. That, he suggests, creates a race and he adds: “If you go very fast with the car, OK, but if the police get a radar they can catch you. We have to let justice follow its path; we don’t have all the details.”
City will of course be among the favourites, while the winner between Liverpool and Real, his former clubs, will be there too. Who then does Benítez see winning it? “I like Napoli,” he says. “People talk about Madrid, the usual teams. But Napoli are confident, playing well, strong in the league, so that’s not so much of a distraction, and the further they progress the more they will grow. And why not? I’m not saying they will win it, but why not?” Why indeed? After all, anything is possible and Rafa Benítez knows that better than anyone. Except Ancelotti.
