Someone on RAWK started a thread about rafa's last season in charge at valencia and some of his training methods. It offers some brilliant insights into his mindset and how senior players dont always agree with his 'kaizen' approach to football.
ALL liverpool fans should read this buts its really long.
Here's the start.
Quote from: Rafa Benitez
There are players with no drive and they contaminate the rest of the team. You need enthusiasm. There are players who work but the problem is that they only do so now and again.
...We've only got a couple of months to put up with each other.*
Harsh words from Rafael Benitez when you consider that the media spotlight is trained both on his ability as a manager, and on the overall plight of the club he manages, while the domestic football establishment sharpens its knives in anticipation of the impending kill.
The team is underperforming. It lags painfully behind the leading group in the League, and is perilously close to exit from European competition. The fans want answers: stars playing well below the level we all know they're capable of; basic mistakes and a lack of collective concentration undermining their efforts; team selections and substitutions that at times seem to defy logic; and an increasingly fractious relationship between the manager and his counterparts in domestic and European football.
The backdrop for his latest outburst is the ******* offspring of Munch and Dali*: the club teeters on the brink due to precarious financial instability and mismanagement; ownership wrangles hit the headlines and demean the club's name on a regular basis; senior players are all too eager to add their disruptive tuppenceworth for their friends in the gathering throng of media vultures. The squad is seemingly divided and sulking. Some felt it was on the brink of greatness last season, while some felt it performed well above its true level. The general consensus was that with just a couple of quality reinforcements, the club would make the full transition to greatness this term - a return to the level of its birthright.
The management team are frustrated, aware of their squad's potential, while painfully aware (and arguably far too aware) of its limitations.
Propping the whole shooting match up, a political house of cards plays out behind the scenes, threatening to collapse and undermine half a decade's progress at any moment.
The club: Valencia CF
The time: the closing stages of season 2002-03.
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It's an argument that's been thrown into the debate from time to time during the last few weeks. Paul Tomkins notably went down this route in a recent blog.
ALL liverpool fans should read this buts its really long.
Here's the start.
Quote from: Rafa Benitez
There are players with no drive and they contaminate the rest of the team. You need enthusiasm. There are players who work but the problem is that they only do so now and again.
...We've only got a couple of months to put up with each other.*
Harsh words from Rafael Benitez when you consider that the media spotlight is trained both on his ability as a manager, and on the overall plight of the club he manages, while the domestic football establishment sharpens its knives in anticipation of the impending kill.
The team is underperforming. It lags painfully behind the leading group in the League, and is perilously close to exit from European competition. The fans want answers: stars playing well below the level we all know they're capable of; basic mistakes and a lack of collective concentration undermining their efforts; team selections and substitutions that at times seem to defy logic; and an increasingly fractious relationship between the manager and his counterparts in domestic and European football.
The backdrop for his latest outburst is the ******* offspring of Munch and Dali*: the club teeters on the brink due to precarious financial instability and mismanagement; ownership wrangles hit the headlines and demean the club's name on a regular basis; senior players are all too eager to add their disruptive tuppenceworth for their friends in the gathering throng of media vultures. The squad is seemingly divided and sulking. Some felt it was on the brink of greatness last season, while some felt it performed well above its true level. The general consensus was that with just a couple of quality reinforcements, the club would make the full transition to greatness this term - a return to the level of its birthright.
The management team are frustrated, aware of their squad's potential, while painfully aware (and arguably far too aware) of its limitations.
Propping the whole shooting match up, a political house of cards plays out behind the scenes, threatening to collapse and undermine half a decade's progress at any moment.
The club: Valencia CF
The time: the closing stages of season 2002-03.
-------
It's an argument that's been thrown into the debate from time to time during the last few weeks. Paul Tomkins notably went down this route in a recent blog.
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