Grand master Benitez has right moves
IGOR BISCAN, Djimi Traore, Antonio Nunez. Rafael Benitez is known to love chess; in 2005 he defeated Chelsea using pawns. Now he faces Jose Mourinho in a Champions League semi-final again and history makes the Kop crow. “If you’re going to win trophies, you have to beat the top teams. And Chelsea, too,” said a posting on a Liverpool message board.
The confidence is not necessarily backed up by figures, yet there is a feeling Benitez has Mourinho’s number. Since arriving at their clubs in 2004 the pair have gone head to head 13 times and Mourinho has won six, but he has enjoyed the greater resources and began with the better players. Over time, through squad-building and shrewd tactics, Benitez has chipped away at those advantages and shifted the power balance. Of the sides’ past four meetings, Liverpool won three. Benitez’s total of victories against The Special One is four - twice that of Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger combined - and he defeated Mourinho in two of their three biggest contests to date: last year’s FA Cup semi-final and that Champions League semi-final in 2005. “We were good friends until we started winning, then he started changing his mind,” Benitez said. “It’s the same with managers of the top sides. He has good relationships with managers of the teams he beats.”
Were Benitez not so mild-mannered such a remark would be incendiary, for it disparages Ferguson as well as the Chelsea manager. Benitez normally avoids stirring the pot, but he has found it useful in his contests against Chelsea. Before the 2005 semi-final he began a campaign of getting under Mourinho’s skin when his then assistant, Paco Herrera, sent a message to the Chelsea manager through a mutual friend: “Let him know they are better than us. They’ve proved themselves in the league and if they played five matches they would win four. But also tell him they are going to win 1-0 in the first game but we’ll win 2-0 at Anfield.” Mourinho sent a reply — that Liverpool would win 1-0 at Stamford Bridge but Chelsea would triumph 2-0 at Anfield. It was supposed to be cheeky, but the Benitez camp believed a flaw in Mourinho’s approach had been exposed — he would be content to play safe at home, believing the tie could be won in the second leg. Benitez, who sent out a cautious side at Stamford Bridge, was happy to accommodate him. Bringing the semi-final down to one match at home suited Liverpool too.
Before the second leg, Benitez used the newspapers as his chessboard. “We were playing on Chelsea’s overconfidence by saying in the media, ‘We are not the favourites, they are the favourites’,” he recalled. He also used psychology with his players. Steven Gerrard wrote in his autobiography: “A touch of arrogance accompanied Chelsea and Benitez played brilliantly on it. ‘Chelsea’s players think they are in the final’, he told us. ‘Chelsea think they have beaten you. Now show them how wrong they are’.”
Expect Benitez to try something similar in 2007. He will be happy to just play Mourinho at football, Champions League football, that is, where his win percentages are far superior to those of Mourinho — and Ferguson and Wenger, for that matter. In Europe, Benitez is the master at chiselling out the right score, especially away, where he sets up Liverpool in such opposition-smothering fashion.
Chelsea have not only not beaten Liverpool in four Champions League contests, they haven’t scored, although Mourinho would retort that nor have Liverpool. On the subject of Luis Garcia’s “ghost goal” in the 2005 semi-final second leg, Gerrard wrote: “Chelsea moaned about it. Mourinho still does. I laugh. Chelsea’s complaints are ridiculous. If it wasn’t a goal Petr Cech would have been red-carded for bringing down Milan Baros. What would Chelsea have made of that? Down to 10 men, facing a penalty. Liverpool could have won 4-0. Chelsea got off lightly. They should keep quiet.”
There is no chance of silence from Mourinho or those at Stamford Bridge on April 25.
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