Hooked by whole new ball game

May 21 2007 Nick Smith, Liverpool Daily Post

IN the first of a two-part special, Rafael Benitez’s biographer Paco Lloret tells Nick Smith the secrets of his friend’s success

Lloret says: “He was always very hard with the players, always very insistent and heavy with his workload.

“He would always be repeating things so the players knew exactly what they had to do.

“I remember one former player saying that he was very tired because he was working hard every day and it was the same work every day under Rafa.

But when the game came round he said all the work he had done during the week made playing the game easy and he enjoyed his football more because he was winning matches.

“He found he was always in the right place because he followed what he’d been working on in the week and that made it all worthwhile.”

It was Javier Subirats who was certainly in the right place at the right time when it came to Benitez’s progression.

The Valencia director had spotted the potential of the coach to end their 30 years of hurt waiting for another Spanish championship title.

Benitez duly stepped into the job – and finally out of Michael Jordan’s shadow...

TOMORROW: The Valencia years