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Newcastle manager Rafa Benítez
The Newcastle manager, Rafa Benítez, says his club can still win trophies despite the financial power of their rivals. Photograph: Stu Forster/Getty Images
The Newcastle manager, Rafa Benítez, says his club can still win trophies despite the financial power of their rivals. Photograph: Stu Forster/Getty Images

Rafa Benítez: ‘Create a good atmosphere and you can win trophies’

This article is more than 6 years old
As the Newcastle manager faces his former club in an emotional reunion, he insists money is not everything in search for silverware

Rafa Benítez likes to list the very real similarities between the cities of Liverpool and Newcastle and their respective football clubs. He relishes the hallmark, often razor‑sharp humour common to both sets of supporters, appreciates the broad socioeconomic parallels and understands shared fears that their teams are in peril of turning into perennial also-rans.

If such worries are markedly more pronounced on Tyneside, it is approaching six years since Liverpool last won a trophy – the 2012 League Cup, under Kenny Dalglish. Accordingly their supporters head to St James’ Park for Sunday’s meeting with Benítez’s Newcastle United anxious about the balance of Jürgen Klopp’s often thrillingly attacking yet defensively vulnerable side. With memories of Liverpool’s 1980s hegemony increasingly distant, the days when the Spaniard lifted four trophies – most notably the 2005 Champions League – at Anfield are now a source of nostalgia.

Before kick-off, Liverpool’s former manager – whose still lives on the Wirral and whose wife, Montse, runs a local charity foundation – is expected to receive an ovation from all corners of the ground as his past and present collide. It seems fitting that he and Klopp are good friends. “It will be a really special day,” says Benítez. “Very emotional.”

If much has changed since he parted company with Liverpool in 2010, quite a lot has stayed pretty much the same. This explains why a man desperate to deliver Newcastle’s first major trophy since the Fairs Cup in 1969 sympathises with the challenge confronting Klopp. “When I arrived at Liverpool, the budget was £20m gross,” says the Spaniard whose narrow failure to win the Premier League in 2009 remains an itch he cannot scratch. “When I left it was £17m, but still people said I must win the title. Manchester United had around £50m more every year, but they said I must compete against them.

“After United you had to compete with Chelsea and Arsenal. Now you have Manchester City and Tottenham, too. But it’s always been similar. There are massive clubs with massive amounts of money and Liverpool were always a little bit behind. But if you create a good team, a good atmosphere and work hard you can get there. You can win trophies.”

Cups are one thing but titles quite another. “We had 86 points one year and finished second behind United,” says Benítez. “You can be Leicester and win the title because the three or four top teams were not performing but probably 90% of the time the title winners have the most money.

“It’s quite difficult for Jürgen Klopp and Mauricio Pochettino. They have to build teams good enough to compensate for the difference. They can win the title but it’s hard. The only way is to be really good one year and hope two or three of the others have bad years at the same time.”

Benítez’s memories of Liverpool are dominated by seasons that were so sunny there seemed a time when the 57-year-old envisaged staying at Anfield until retirement. “In the days when David Moores and Rick Parry were in charge it was really, really good. They were people who really understood football. It was like a family, very close. Then the club had to be sold and everything changed, they changed directors and the new owners ran it more as a business.”

An increasingly cordial relationship with Mike Ashley has recently involved Benítez talking to Newcastle’s distinctly business-minded owner on the phone and discussing a prospective dinner date that is expected to prompt potential negotiations over a contract. Even so, few close observers expect a manager much admired by West Ham to end his career at St James’ Park. There may be an apparent air of harmony but he will not forget this summer’s transfer market failures. Meanwhile, the presence of Keith Bishop, Ashley’s PR adviser, at Benítez’s media briefings in recent weeks could be interpreted as an unwelcome attempt to neuter his messages to the media.

Yet if there is a sense he can glimpse a life beyond Tyneside, Benítez has undeniably developed powerful bonds with his latest club, city, public and players. When asked if Newcastle can win trophies, his reply is instructive. “Yes, for sure,” he says. “It can happen but it depends on a lot of things. Our young players can improve but you also need experienced people to help them develop. If in January or whenever, we sign three or four players and they’re good players that would be massive.”

Like the supporters he meets in the city, Newcastle players frequently talk about Benítez’s warmth but some of his old Liverpool squad recall a much cooler figure and suggest he is now a different character. “When you’re a young manager and trying to build something, you work very, very hard,” he says, looking slightly sceptical. “Little by little you have more staff and more experience and then you can manage in a different way. When that happened my relationship with players like Stevie [Steven Gerrard] or Carra [Jamie Carragher] was normal.

“There was difference in age so I couldn’t talk about PlayStations but you have to understand players and talk normally to them about football and families. Nowadays, I have more experience and I sometimes give them more space. If they play golf, I ask them about their handicap – but it’s not a big difference from Liverpool.”

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