Rotation, rotation, rotation
by Jonathan Northcroft
Rafael Benitez has been mocked for changing his team in 94 consecutive matches. But is he on the right track?
They pulverised opponents and were dubbed the Crushing Machine. When winning the Primera Liga in 2003-4, Valencia were relentless. Taking 26 points from 10 matches to power past Real Madrid, they clinched the title away to Sevilla. So tirelessly did they attack that a Sevilla defender, Pablo Alfaro, was heard to exclaim: “What a pain in the neck they are, let them score the goal and leave us alone once and for all!”
Valencia, managed by Rafael Benitez, had won a previous championship, in 2001-2, with a similar burst of energy over the run-in. On the bench against Sevilla were two star players, Ruben Baraja and Pablo Aimar. Despite the game’s decisive nature, Benitez wanted them fresh for a Uefa Cup final against Marseille, another match in which Valencia’s pep and fitness overwhelmed the opposition. Throughout his reign, Benitez husbanded players’ energy levels by changing his line-up, even when Valencia won, a policy that prompted one critic to scoff: “You might as well experiment with lemonade.” Yet the manager and his methods brought champagne.
A lot of spin is produced by rotation. At Liverpool, Benitez finds himself pilloried after failing to choose the same starting XI twice in a row over a sequence of 94 games. Listening to his critics, you might be led to believe that resource-shuffling is a practice favoured by one Spanish eccentric, and that tinkering is an anathema to successful football managers. News just in: “Never change a winning team” is a maxim that went out years ago.
If squad rotation was introduced by foreigners, Ruud Gullit and Gianluca Vialli, who used it at Chelsea after drawing on their experience of the Italian game, it was refined by one of our own. Midway through 1998-99 Sir Alex Ferguson was being attacked by the likes of George Best for the alterations he kept making to Manchester United’s line-up, especially the forward line. An unprecedented Treble was won. Bayern Munich need no reminding how fresh two substitute strikers were when Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer came off the bench in the European Cup final.
Arsène Wenger was next, becoming a convert when Arsenal began regularly competing in the Champions League. Dennis Bergkamp once complained about being left out of the side after playing well, and being substituted in those games he did start. Calmly, Wenger produced a sheet of diagrams and statistics. “Look, Dennis,” he said, “after 70 minutes you always play badly and you are not as fast.” Jose Mourinho, albeit with a more luxurious squad than other managers, has become rotation’s master. His 123 games in charge at Chelsea have seen him change the team 117 times. The past four English titles were won by teams employing rotation on a serious scale. Benitez is no maverick.
It may be true that he takes modification to extremes. When Mourinho alters his XI, one or two amendments are usually involved; Benitez often makes three or more, as he did before the disastrous loss at Bolton. That Peter Crouch was omitted demonstrated the manager’s dogmatic streak. Crouch’s aerial abilities and bravery seemed to make him ideally suited to the unique test of an away day against Bolton, and his confidence, after brilliant goals against Galatasaray, was higher than his own hat. Mark Lawrenson was among several former Liverpool players to criticise Benitez. Crouch also ventured a mild- mannered rebuke. “We’ve grown up in England with English managers, where, when you play well and score, you play the next week,” he said.
Benitez will not change.
At the age of 13 he was training a children’s football team in the morning and acting as a fitness instructor to their mothers in the afternoons. He has a diploma from the National Physical Education Institute in Madrid, completed the first year of a medical degree and was once sports director of a gym used by the Spanish royal family. He is entitled to believe that he and his assistant, Paco Ayestaran, a fellow PE graduate, know a thing or two about conditioning. His philosophy with football teams is that you stay in contention through the first two- thirds of the season, then prevail over your rivals in a survival of the fittest during its final phase. Chelsea’s ability to churn out wins from August right through until May could make this a questionable strategy for becoming English champions. But Benitez can point to winning the Champions League and FA Cup with Liverpool, hunting down glory on each occasion after going the full distance of 120 minutes and penalty kicks in the season’s final game.
“If you want to prepare the team properly, it’s always better to manage the amount of games players play,” Benitez says. Aston Villa used 14 players in all competitions when they were champions in 1980-81, but played only 46 matches. Not only do modern players have heavier schedules; football is getting harder, faster and more physically intense. ProZone analysis showed that in 2005-6, Premiership players performed almost double the amount of “high-intensity activities” per match than four seasons previously. In all games this season Steven Gerrard will cover about 400 miles: can a fellow be expected to run from London to Edinburgh without a break?
ProZone demonstrates that wide and attacking midfielders such as Gerrard work hardest, followed by central midfielders, strikers and defenders, which may be one reason Benitez rotates Jamie Carragher, Steve Finnan and Sami Hyypia less than Gerrard, John Arne Riise, Xabi Alonso and Luis Garcia. And he knows all about Crouch. Steve McClaren recently marvelled at the ProZone data: figures show the giant striker covering record-breaking distances, sometimes as much as 14km (compared with about 12km for Gerrard) in a single game. If you have seen the scars and bruises on Crouch’s ankles, you will know he is as much a target man for opponents as for his own team. That Crouch is so sharp at the moment, compared with previously, is the very fact Benitez would cite to demonstrate how he has protected, nurtured and motivated this player by using (and dropping) him judiciously.
Like Wenger at Arsenal, Benitez tests his players’ blood to find indicators of fitness at any given time. At points during the season he measures their output with physical trials including jump, sprint and stamina tests. Sometimes he even waits for the pitch inspection before finalising his selection. Liverpool’s players never know the starting team until 90 minutes before kick-off. Their manager believes that this keeps everybody on their toes.
Mourinho’s approach is more like Ferguson’s in that some players are more equal than others in his view. Therefore special cases such as John Terry and Frank Lampard are generally spared rotation. Mourinho will tell players they are playing on the day before a match. Helped by Rui Faria, Chelsea’s fitness coach, Mourinho draws up individual schedules for players, decreeing when they will train, play and be given 90 minutes off.
Rotation is staying. Even Championship football clubs field second strings in the Carling Cup. By it, Benitez will live and die. “There is a rotation system for managers,” said his predecessor, Gerard Houllier. “It’s called the sack.”
The online version of the article doesn't include a table that appears in the paper. In the 94 matches since Fulham on 5 Feb 2005, these are the most frequently picked players:
Carragher - 82 starts, 3 subs
Finnan - 78 and 2
Gerrard - 72 and 8
Hyypia - 76 and 1
Riise - 62 and 13
Garcia - 48 and 25
Alonso - 61 and 8
by Jonathan Northcroft
Rafael Benitez has been mocked for changing his team in 94 consecutive matches. But is he on the right track?
They pulverised opponents and were dubbed the Crushing Machine. When winning the Primera Liga in 2003-4, Valencia were relentless. Taking 26 points from 10 matches to power past Real Madrid, they clinched the title away to Sevilla. So tirelessly did they attack that a Sevilla defender, Pablo Alfaro, was heard to exclaim: “What a pain in the neck they are, let them score the goal and leave us alone once and for all!”
Valencia, managed by Rafael Benitez, had won a previous championship, in 2001-2, with a similar burst of energy over the run-in. On the bench against Sevilla were two star players, Ruben Baraja and Pablo Aimar. Despite the game’s decisive nature, Benitez wanted them fresh for a Uefa Cup final against Marseille, another match in which Valencia’s pep and fitness overwhelmed the opposition. Throughout his reign, Benitez husbanded players’ energy levels by changing his line-up, even when Valencia won, a policy that prompted one critic to scoff: “You might as well experiment with lemonade.” Yet the manager and his methods brought champagne.
A lot of spin is produced by rotation. At Liverpool, Benitez finds himself pilloried after failing to choose the same starting XI twice in a row over a sequence of 94 games. Listening to his critics, you might be led to believe that resource-shuffling is a practice favoured by one Spanish eccentric, and that tinkering is an anathema to successful football managers. News just in: “Never change a winning team” is a maxim that went out years ago.
If squad rotation was introduced by foreigners, Ruud Gullit and Gianluca Vialli, who used it at Chelsea after drawing on their experience of the Italian game, it was refined by one of our own. Midway through 1998-99 Sir Alex Ferguson was being attacked by the likes of George Best for the alterations he kept making to Manchester United’s line-up, especially the forward line. An unprecedented Treble was won. Bayern Munich need no reminding how fresh two substitute strikers were when Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer came off the bench in the European Cup final.
Arsène Wenger was next, becoming a convert when Arsenal began regularly competing in the Champions League. Dennis Bergkamp once complained about being left out of the side after playing well, and being substituted in those games he did start. Calmly, Wenger produced a sheet of diagrams and statistics. “Look, Dennis,” he said, “after 70 minutes you always play badly and you are not as fast.” Jose Mourinho, albeit with a more luxurious squad than other managers, has become rotation’s master. His 123 games in charge at Chelsea have seen him change the team 117 times. The past four English titles were won by teams employing rotation on a serious scale. Benitez is no maverick.
It may be true that he takes modification to extremes. When Mourinho alters his XI, one or two amendments are usually involved; Benitez often makes three or more, as he did before the disastrous loss at Bolton. That Peter Crouch was omitted demonstrated the manager’s dogmatic streak. Crouch’s aerial abilities and bravery seemed to make him ideally suited to the unique test of an away day against Bolton, and his confidence, after brilliant goals against Galatasaray, was higher than his own hat. Mark Lawrenson was among several former Liverpool players to criticise Benitez. Crouch also ventured a mild- mannered rebuke. “We’ve grown up in England with English managers, where, when you play well and score, you play the next week,” he said.
Benitez will not change.
At the age of 13 he was training a children’s football team in the morning and acting as a fitness instructor to their mothers in the afternoons. He has a diploma from the National Physical Education Institute in Madrid, completed the first year of a medical degree and was once sports director of a gym used by the Spanish royal family. He is entitled to believe that he and his assistant, Paco Ayestaran, a fellow PE graduate, know a thing or two about conditioning. His philosophy with football teams is that you stay in contention through the first two- thirds of the season, then prevail over your rivals in a survival of the fittest during its final phase. Chelsea’s ability to churn out wins from August right through until May could make this a questionable strategy for becoming English champions. But Benitez can point to winning the Champions League and FA Cup with Liverpool, hunting down glory on each occasion after going the full distance of 120 minutes and penalty kicks in the season’s final game.
“If you want to prepare the team properly, it’s always better to manage the amount of games players play,” Benitez says. Aston Villa used 14 players in all competitions when they were champions in 1980-81, but played only 46 matches. Not only do modern players have heavier schedules; football is getting harder, faster and more physically intense. ProZone analysis showed that in 2005-6, Premiership players performed almost double the amount of “high-intensity activities” per match than four seasons previously. In all games this season Steven Gerrard will cover about 400 miles: can a fellow be expected to run from London to Edinburgh without a break?
ProZone demonstrates that wide and attacking midfielders such as Gerrard work hardest, followed by central midfielders, strikers and defenders, which may be one reason Benitez rotates Jamie Carragher, Steve Finnan and Sami Hyypia less than Gerrard, John Arne Riise, Xabi Alonso and Luis Garcia. And he knows all about Crouch. Steve McClaren recently marvelled at the ProZone data: figures show the giant striker covering record-breaking distances, sometimes as much as 14km (compared with about 12km for Gerrard) in a single game. If you have seen the scars and bruises on Crouch’s ankles, you will know he is as much a target man for opponents as for his own team. That Crouch is so sharp at the moment, compared with previously, is the very fact Benitez would cite to demonstrate how he has protected, nurtured and motivated this player by using (and dropping) him judiciously.
Like Wenger at Arsenal, Benitez tests his players’ blood to find indicators of fitness at any given time. At points during the season he measures their output with physical trials including jump, sprint and stamina tests. Sometimes he even waits for the pitch inspection before finalising his selection. Liverpool’s players never know the starting team until 90 minutes before kick-off. Their manager believes that this keeps everybody on their toes.
Mourinho’s approach is more like Ferguson’s in that some players are more equal than others in his view. Therefore special cases such as John Terry and Frank Lampard are generally spared rotation. Mourinho will tell players they are playing on the day before a match. Helped by Rui Faria, Chelsea’s fitness coach, Mourinho draws up individual schedules for players, decreeing when they will train, play and be given 90 minutes off.
Rotation is staying. Even Championship football clubs field second strings in the Carling Cup. By it, Benitez will live and die. “There is a rotation system for managers,” said his predecessor, Gerard Houllier. “It’s called the sack.”
The online version of the article doesn't include a table that appears in the paper. In the 94 matches since Fulham on 5 Feb 2005, these are the most frequently picked players:
Carragher - 82 starts, 3 subs
Finnan - 78 and 2
Gerrard - 72 and 8
Hyypia - 76 and 1
Riise - 62 and 13
Garcia - 48 and 25
Alonso - 61 and 8
.
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