Rafael Benitez returns to Real Madrid

first off, i'm not a fan of rafa benitez, not sure how this is a step up, granted he'll have more talent than he did at valencia, liverpool, or napoli, but i'm not sure he's what we need.

secondly, this was what worried me about the "ancelotti out" threads. my concern was, we (madrid fans) were all yelling carlo out but nobody was raising any suggestions as to who to take over and why. i posed that question mainly to see if people understood what any other manager would bring or whether our frustrations and emotions were just getting in the way of reason

there were suggestions about klopp and what he could implement, but with the "news" or rumors about rafa, its almost like if marca put up a headline saying "(insert name here) is the next coach of madrid" everyone will jump for joy, like (insert name) is the chosen one.

now i ask again, with those heralding beintez, is there something he has done (more recently; not valencia nor pool) at napoli, in terms of tactics, and don't just say "rotations" because our problems this season aren't limited to rotations or lack of rotations alone

if these rumors are indeed true, i just hope fans and the board have the necessary patience to at least, for the sake of stability give the guy time. it baffles me that fans try to critique florentino, when they have similar mindsets with respect to managerial merry go-rounds, signing players that aren't needed (based on international tournaments, hype, "super star" status) and selling players the squad actually needs (to accommodate the new toy).

whilst i don't like him, and i'm not sure what positives he'll bring in order to unseat barcelona, if this is true, for the sake of the team i love i wish rafa luck, and hope we can do better this time

EcoDiario | Benitez will want a more defensive style of play from Real Madrid if he is coach.

Diego López: "Ancelotti does not deserve the treatment that he is being given in Madrid."

Sky Sports | Ernesto Bronzetti will meet tomorrow with Florentino Perez to terminate the contract Ancelotti with Real Madrid.

Cuatro | Ancelotti feels hurt because he wanted to comeback and believes in the team, but Perez hasn't shown the support for him.

Cadena SER | Ancelotti is very upset with Perez because he has not made his intentions clear to him in person about coaching next season.

ABC | Perez has told Bale that he doesn't want to sell him and believes he is the successor of Cristiano.

etc.

Fußball wrote:
ABC | Perez has told Bale that he doesn't want to sell him and believes he is the successor of Cristiano.

My condolences to Nick, Chad, Freeza, Thimmy, Valk etc

Man i love flo.

titosantill wrote:first off, i'm not a fan of rafa benitez, not sure how this is a step up, granted he'll have more talent than he did at valencia, liverpool, or napoli, but i'm not sure he's what we need.

secondly, this was what worried me about the "ancelotti out" threads. my concern was, we (madrid fans) were all yelling carlo out but nobody was raising any suggestions as to who to take over and why. i posed that question mainly to see if people understood what any other manager would bring or whether our frustrations and emotions were just getting in the way of reason

there were suggestions about klopp and what he could implement, but with the "news" or rumors about rafa, its almost like if marca put up a headline saying "(insert name here) is the next coach of madrid" everyone will jump for joy, like (insert name) is the chosen one.

now i ask again, with those heralding beintez, is there something he has done (more recently; not valencia nor pool) at napoli, in terms of tactics, and don't just say "rotations" because our problems this season aren't limited to rotations or lack of rotations alone

if these rumors are indeed true, i just hope fans and the board have the necessary patience to at least, for the sake of stability give the guy time. it baffles me that fans try to critique florentino, when they have similar mindsets with respect to managerial merry go-rounds, signing players that aren't needed (based on international tournaments, hype, "super star" status) and selling players the squad actually needs (to accommodate the new toy).

whilst i don't like him, and i'm not sure what positives he'll bring in order to unseat barcelona, if this is true, for the sake of the team i love i wish rafa luck, and hope we can do better this time

look, i have my issues with Carlo, he ruined two liga campaigns with poor decisions dow the stretch, no rotations, no change in terms of tactics, etc... Does he deserve to be sacked? No, he won la decima, not even mourinho could do that. Post mou we could have hardly found a better man to manage the squad and to close the wounds mou had open with the players.

Can we sack him and move on to something else? in my opinion, yes, it's not entirely fair to what he has achieved, but he is sackable. I am not sure how you defend a manager making the same mistakes two years in a row with very little reaction. But then again, this stopped being an argument about what he actually did as a coach, but whether we as fans, and the players like him

What has happened in the past few days is Carlo's being elevated to places he should never be at, as the best manager we can possibly have, because the guy touted to replace him is extremely disliked. If it was Klopp the favorite, RM fans would be singing kumbaya and dreaming of gegenpressing, RM signing Reus and so on... fickle to the highest degree.

Just as there was life after mou, who was once the best thing under the sun, there is life after carlo. Is Benitez a good choice on what's available? yes.

Ironically, a manager who spent his time growing up in Madrid, and is a declared madridista is hated before being even given a chance. Benitez has plenty of faults, he is confrontational, he can make some bad signing, he rotates a lot, and he hasnt coached a top team since Chelsea ungracefully sacked him.

Yet he is still an extremely competent manager, why would that have changed. How many years passed between Carlo winning the CL with Milan and Madrid? the guy had disappeared from public opinion for a while, and as soon as he won, he was back as a top 3 manager.

Look at the entirety of his body of work. By all accounts, he puts in a ridiculous amount of time and effort into his work, he is extremely competent tactically, and i believe he won his share of big games with napoli in serie A, mostly losing to smaller sides (correct me if im wrong), which is another aspect carlo failed at, La liga top5-6 battered him.

From the outside, i like what i see. He is opinionated, he actually has political support within madrid (to my surprise), he has a strong tactical sense, great in cup, speaks spanish, madridista, is a great teacher as well as a great coach, and has obvious qualities in cup competitions.

Whether or not he coaches us next season is not yet decided, but he is a good choice in my opinion.

M99 wrote:

Fußball wrote:
ABC | Perez has told Bale that he doesn't want to sell him and believes he is the successor of Cristiano.

My condolences to Nick, Chad, Freeza, Thimmy, Valk etc

Doubt Perez ever said that, kind of hard when you've got Bale's testicles stuck in your mouth


Also Perez has zero tolerance when it comes to coaches but a shitbag like bale has a thousand chances while failing every time. It's disgustig that we're stuck with him as president.

growing up a madridista imo shouldn't be a requirement for being madrid coach, its a good feeling and all, as the person knows the ins and outs of the club, guti and iker are probably more madridista than most, considering they also spent their youth and early childhood years at the club but i won't want them as coaches

obviously benitez is heralded for more than just being a madridista, he's heralded for his tactical outlook as well, but the pessimism isn't misplaced, i'm sure even you can agree with that, his last big break was the 05 ucl with liverpool, in subsequent years he made a ucl final and pushed utd for the title (or rather lost the title to utd considering i think utd beat them to it late on, similar to our team's debacle in closing stages of this campaign).

but i can't help but look at his last two years at liverpool and the failures therein, okay, give him benefit of the doubt, torres lost form and later left, xabi alonso also left, i think masch also left (i cant remember if rafa left before him), at madrid, obviously we aren't a selling club so he might not have that problem. but people CONVENIENTLY forget that he failed at inter. if people can criticize pep guardiola (who i do not like, admire, nor respect) for not following up juup heynckes treble, what about rafa? who completely destroyed a treble winning inter side and got booted out

whilst on the subject of inter, rafa had issues there with the players, including materazzi (who mind you was a bench player under mourinho, so it couldn't be because he wasn't starting ), he also had issues with the liverpool board, and whilst he was coaching madrid's youth set up he had a testy relationship with then madrid first team coach jorge valdano.

once again, if he is to come, then i just hope we have patience with him, i dislike managerial merry go-rounds more than i dislike rafa . i won't even say i dislike him, he hasn't done anything to earn my dislike yet, someone like pep has earned it...i'll say i just don't think this is a step up. and due to the love i have for this club i pray he proves me wrong.....but if he succeeds next season, and the season after things get shaky, i hope we allow cool heads prevail and have patience with the man and his work.....we have been too trigger happy, and believe it or not that's one of the primary reasons we have only one league title in 7 years

Again, as i said he is not perfect, and if you look at anyone who has coached 15+ years or so, you will find some skeletons in their closet. What i chose to focus on are the competences, and whether or not he has the qualities to coach us. Jupp was given his chance at bayern after a hiatus and became elite after one season in charge. There is Guardiola genius of the universe getting whooped two years in a row by spanish sides. Mou here was embarrassed by a nobody dortmund team. There is Wenger who has been scrubbing it up for years. I would say that it's more important to look at whether Benitez to that group of highly competent coaches who needs a big team to have result, and i think the answer is yes.

As far as us winning the title once in 7 years, i think you can look back individually at each season and see the mistakes that were made and that has little to do with changing managers. I can look at this season and the mess carlo made, overplaying guys to injuries, not rotating, losing big games, etc... same as last year, and in both season we were leaders and crumbled in the last stretch. Mou in his last season lost the title in december. first season Pep Manita'd him and that was it.

Not saying that changing manager is not an issue, but there were more concerning problems.

Carlo Ancelotti is the only manager in the history of Real Madrid to win 4 titles in a year , yet they want to sack him

Disgraceful

Freeza wrote:

M99 wrote:

Fußball wrote:
ABC | Perez has told Bale that he doesn't want to sell him and believes he is the successor of Cristiano.

My condolences to Nick, Chad, Freeza, Thimmy, Valk etc

Doubt Perez ever said that, kind of hard when you've got Bale's testicles stuck in your mouth


Also Perez has zero tolerance when it comes to coaches but a shitbag like bale has a thousand chances while failing every time. It's disgustig that we're stuck with him as president.

i'm not sure if there's a socio available that can replace florentino, and do a decent job. the bale issue is extremely complicated. honestly, i don't believe there's a team that can and wants to buy him.....at least, not at the price florentino will ask for. it will be ridiculous for florentino to ask for anything less than 150 mill, after all, the club is not running a charity. i doubt its a case of wanting or not wanting to sell, investing in bale would mean a club parting ways with over 200 million euros, in the space of 5 years. his 12 million euro wage bill isn't a walk in the park, and the transfer fee (with the aim of making profit) is extremely hefty.

i doubt united are as interested in this move as the british media say they are, i think the dailymail, sky sports et al just want to sell papers. investing 200 million on a player who hasn't had a stellar season and basing such investment on potential is ridiculous, regardless of how much oil money you have. even florentino won't go that far, he probably knows this and thus puts up the 'we are not selling' mantra, rather than 'nobody's really upbeat about buying'. the

Viru wrote:Carlo Ancelotti is the only manager in the history of Real Madrid to win 4 titles in a year , yet they want to sack him

Disgraceful

u count the club world cup ans the supercup as titles? are you serious?

titosantill wrote:

Freeza wrote:

M99 wrote:


My condolences to Nick, Chad, Freeza, Thimmy, Valk etc

Doubt Perez ever said that, kind of hard when you've got Bale's testicles stuck in your mouth


Also Perez has zero tolerance when it comes to coaches but a shitbag like bale has a thousand chances while failing every time. It's disgustig that we're stuck with him as president.

i'm not sure if there's a socio available that can replace florentino, and do a decent job. the bale issue is extremely complicated. honestly, i don't believe there's a team that can and wants to buy him.....at least, not at the price florentino will ask for. it will be ridiculous for florentino to ask for anything less than 150 mill, after all, the club is not running a charity. i doubt its a case of wanting or not wanting to sell, investing in bale would mean a club parting ways with over 200 million euros, in the space of 5 years. his 12 million euro wage bill isn't a walk in the park, and the transfer fee (with the aim of making profit) is extremely hefty.

i doubt united are as interested in this move as the british media say they are, i think the dailymail, sky sports et al just want to sell papers. investing 200 million on a player who hasn't had a stellar season and basing such investment on potential is ridiculous, regardless of how much oil money you have. even florentino won't go that far, he probably knows this and thus puts up the 'we are not selling' mantra, rather than 'nobody's really upbeat about buying'. the

Nah, if you tell United Bale is available they will very very aggressively try to sign him. THey will pay at least as much as we signed him for +20-30 mils maybe.

Thing is Bale is 25, his numbers are great, and Perez made a commitment.

As for other people that could run the club, of course there are, like the Sanz family for example, but how can we know those socios. Perez is just too powerful atm

titosantill wrote:growing up a madridista imo shouldn't be a requirement for being madrid coach, its a good feeling and all, as the person knows the ins and outs of the club, guti and iker are probably more madridista than most, considering they also spent their youth and early childhood years at the club but i won't want them as coaches

obviously benitez is heralded for more than just being a madridista, he's heralded for his tactical outlook as well, but the pessimism isn't misplaced, i'm sure even you can agree with that, his last big break was the 05 ucl with liverpool, in subsequent years he made a ucl final and pushed utd for the title (or rather lost the title to utd considering i think utd beat them to it late on, similar to our team's debacle in closing stages of this campaign).

but i can't help but look at his last two years at liverpool and the failures therein, okay, give him benefit of the doubt, torres lost form and later left, xabi alonso also left, i think masch also left (i cant remember if rafa left before him), at madrid, obviously we aren't a selling club so he might not have that problem. but people CONVENIENTLY forget that he failed at inter. if people can criticize pep guardiola (who i do not like, admire, nor respect) for not following up juup heynckes treble, what about rafa? who completely destroyed a treble winning inter side and got booted out

whilst on the subject of inter, rafa had issues there with the players, including materazzi (who mind you was a bench player under mourinho, so it couldn't be because he wasn't starting ), he also had issues with the liverpool board, and whilst he was coaching madrid's youth set up he had a testy relationship with then madrid first team coach jorge valdano.

once again, if he is to come, then i just hope we have patience with him, i dislike managerial merry go-rounds more than i dislike rafa . i won't even say i dislike him, he hasn't done anything to earn my dislike yet, someone like pep has earned it...i'll say i just don't think this is a step up. and due to the love i have for this club i pray he proves me wrong.....but if he succeeds next season, and the season after things get shaky, i hope we allow cool heads prevail and have patience with the man and his work.....we have been too trigger happy, and believe it or not that's one of the primary reasons we have only one league title in 7 years

looool

yea Rafa's 4 months at Inter is the reason they have finished 6th, 9th, and now most likely 8th, nearly 5 years since he was sacked

Inter treble winning team's average age was 29. They all peaked at the same time, won it all with massive drainage and almost all of those players headed to the World Cup straight after. The only way that team was going was down. It was never going to be a dynasty team. Yes, Rafa didn't manage them well by laying into their hero, Mourinho and not getting on with fan-favourites (Materazzi), but to blame Rafa for DESTROYING Inter and their current state is nothing but a lazy opinion

And if Carlo is to be sacked (questionable decision at best)....who'd madrid fans want ? I assume you'll say Klopp. But other than him, anyone you can think of ?

You guys were wanking to Michel (Olympiacos Manager), Zidane (has loads to prove),

In the past decade you've had likes of Schuster, Ramos, and Pellegrini manage you for yeas all of whom are massively inferior to Rafa. You've tried some of all time greats (VDB, Capello, Mou, Carlo)...fact is: in a club like RM when the manager has a life span of 2 years maximum, at one point you'd run out of flavour of the month manager to hire because you've sacked all the high profile ones. Benitez easily is the most proven manager on the market this summer for Madrid.

Also....most Juve fans wanted Allegri dead when he was announced as manager in July ...Barca fans wanted to send Luis Enrique to a Siberian Gulag back in fall...

both teams are a game away from the treble. The fans know *bleep* ALL ...because most make up their mind by agenda driven media like sheeps, as opposed to looking and analyzing facts.

carlo being a nice guy isn't enough, he is a coward end of story, they were tactical changes he could've made and he flopped out, again ramos as dm, iker starting and bale.

what the point of forcing these idiots to the team when their clearly costing points and now costing him his job, carlo could've shown some tactical insight and made the changes, if the team still doesn't win anything at least he can say he tried, instead of running straight into the firing squad

i like carlo but he messed up 2 seasons in a row, doing the same exact thing, plus watching bale suck every game and played him in hopes of securing his job is stupid and he deserves to get fired

To be fair to Carlo, he couldnt benched Bale and 442 is the only way you can use CR nowadays without him being a huge liability for your team. That's also a problem that we have with the way that the team is built, and that will be a challenge for whoever comes after Carlo as well.

@Natalie Portman

i never suggested klopp, as a matter of fact, i posed the question who do the fans want earlier on when tempers where still flaring after the champions league loss. i don't know much about dortmund to have suggested klopp. i would never suggest zidane as i am skeptical about his experience, frankly, i'm not sure if there's anyone out there to replace ancelotti, we know his problems and i would hazard a guess to think he does too. its more difficult to make huge changes in the middle of a season than at the start...and i never suggested michel either

as far as rafa goes, his inter career is there, all i did was point it out, why should we gloss over it. you say the team peaked, but if he took the team and they continued winning, i'd bet people would say "oh he took mourinho's team". you bring up schuster and ramos (i agree both inferior to rafa), but you wisely don't take context into account. schuster took over from capello, capello was practically told he won't continue in december when sevilla, barcelona, valencia, and zaragoza were all ahead of madrid in the standings. it was a surprise the team came back, schuster had already been sounded out long before the season ended. if we had been beasting the way we did at the end of the 06/07 season earlier on, they would never have gone for a scrub like schuster to take over capello (even then i thought that firing was foolish but i understood it because nobody could foresee a miracle happening that season)

finally you said "beintez is the most proven manager in the market this summer for real madrid". i am looking beyond one season, and in the establishment of a system. papering the cracks doesn't help. if he succeeds next season, and the following season doesn't and thus gets fired again, we are not achieving anything. my posts have been made to encourage reason, rather than emotions

i'm skeptical about rafa, you want him in, then give me those facts (no pun intended) or systems of his that would be employable at madrid and why we should be happy to have him......

the devil i know is better than the angel i don't, so bestow some knowledge on me why i should be welcoming. i have a feeling if tomorrow the rumor's change to "Julen Lopetegui to coach madrid" or "blanc to coach madrid" everyone would jump for joy even though the day before we were all hailing the last name the rumors associated us with

@ mr nick, when you say the sanz family, i hope you are not talking about former president lorenzo sanz. his time as president wasn't a cake walk, we were financially shaky and even though people can look and say "but we won this and that" it wasn't straight forward, our worst league run was in the last 20 yrs was with him as president, we won ucl simply cos of guys like raul, carlos, redondo, than sanz....oh and just ask parma fans about the financial issues they had with him recently. the guy has had controversy follow him everywhere, from his work (or lack thereof) at malaga (which only enriched his pocket) to parma, a very shady individual....the guy isn't the caliber of guy to take over from florentino.....i'd rather have florentino than have sanz back again any day of the week. we won IN SPITE of sanz not because of him

Nick making a HELL of alot of sense in this thread.

Can I also say add that I am kinda tired of hearing Carlo is a "coward". How unfair that is to say.

He is trying to keep one of the best jobs in football and on top of that, he knows winning alone wont get it done...imagine that pressure.

The way I see it, as a coach who is getting interference in team selection (be it directly or not) you have 2 ways to g about it.

You keep the crucial people happy by doing what they say and you work around the impediment in any effort to win things and keep your position.

Or, you do it your way and if it fails you know your on the way out.

Now, you can say no matter what he is on the way out from the day he came in so he should do it his own way. That's fair. But its not cowardice to pick the other method. Its easy to sit here and say coward, but its not your job on the line, its not your career.

@tito

You're saying you see beyond this season.

Hands on my heart, Real Madrid will NEVER EVER have a manager for more than 3 years in my life time (I am 24, and on average expect to live another 50 years)...we'll see.

It's an institution that DEMANDS excellence season after season. Hiccups aren't tolerated. If you want a long-term vision being implemented and dynasty built...I don't think Real Madrid is the club for that. They could hire mixture of SAF-Michels-Paisly-Saachi and they'd find a way to sack them within 3 seasons maximum.

fair enough, i have been watching this team for years and its been long we had that level of consistency and happiness, from a managerial standpoint (we had the consistency with mourinho who stayed 3 years, but had animosity within the squad). the institution demands excellence and rightly so, but it doesn't mean my hope for consistency n happiness is unrealistic. the last time we had it was with del bosque, and that was our most successful period in resent time, 2 ligas and 2 ucl's in four years. we need to break the cycle of finding a way to fire people and aim for that consistency.....i hope whoever comes in can at least be given time.

i'm yet to see any posts on what tactical experiments we are to expect from rafa if the rumors are indeed true. i would at least like some positive insights rather than blind support on how he can take us to the next level.....

The Franchise wrote:Nick making a HELL of alot of sense in this thread.

Can I also say add that I am kinda tired of hearing Carlo is a "coward". How unfair that is to say.

He is trying to keep one of the best jobs in football and on top of that, he knows winning alone wont get it done...imagine that pressure.

The way I see it, as a coach who is getting interference in team selection (be it directly or not) you have 2 ways to g about it.

You keep the crucial people happy by doing what they say and you work around the impediment in any effort to win things and keep your position.

Or, you do it your way and if it fails you know your on the way out.

Now, you can say no matter what he is on the way out from the day he came in so he should do it his own way. That's fair. But its not cowardice to pick the other method. Its easy to sit here and say coward, but its not your job on the line, its not your career.

He sticks to his superstars too much. He lets management dictate the players he gets without question... and then he forces that group to fit his tactics the best he can... and then he refuses to rotate much AND often goes for experience over youth despite youth showing better performance.

It's not new to Madrid... since Milan he's been like this. I wouldn't call him a coward. He's an old school company man. ALL of his teams have faded in the last 2-3 months of a season. I really can't remember a year it hasn't happened in league for him.

I agree with all of that, those are his flaws. But like you said, I dont think he is a coward.

The Franchise wrote:Nick making a HELL of alot of sense in this thread.

Can I also say add that I am kinda tired of hearing Carlo is a "coward". How unfair that is to say.

He is trying to keep one of the best jobs in football and on top of that, he knows winning alone wont get it done...imagine that pressure.

The way I see it, as a coach who is getting interference in team selection (be it directly or not) you have 2 ways to g about it.

You keep the crucial people happy by doing what they say and you work around the impediment in any effort to win things and keep your position.

Or, you do it your way and if it fails you know your on the way out.

Now, you can say no matter what he is on the way out from the day he came in so he should do it his own way. That's fair. But its not cowardice to pick the other method. Its easy to sit here and say coward, but its not your job on the line, its not your career.

and im saying that what the point of trying to keep bale in the line up, if the team loses and also lose your job anyway, that a lose a lose situation, unless flo told carlo different then why play a donkey over and over it makes no sense to me

@nick yeah i agree cr is also a similar problem, that why im saying as long as bale also remains in the team, then the chances of winning are lowered by a lot, it's one or other and its cr not the donkey

I understand, but they won the CL with Bale..I am sure he thought he could win with (in spite?) og Bale again.

fair enough its just hard to see a player sucking so much and clearly costing the team, a team in which if you win nothing you lose your job, and if carlo is still getting fired for playing the donkey, maybe flo didn't promise him anything and he is just an idiot, no matter which way you take it he has to leave

tbh i know the club is run by politics, that why pos like ramos and iker play week in and out, but i still feel if carlo showed some backbone, which was clearly needed and drop them, then go onto win something. im pretty sure he would our manager next season

so im not sorry for him in the least tbh and i like carlo a lot, but he disgusted me in last couple of games of the season, subbing better players but giving the worst player on the pitch by a mile 90mins, that yes man coward stuff and still get fired

The Franchise wrote:I understand, but they won the CL with Bale..I am sure he thought he could win with (in spite?) og Bale again.

I would say that we won despite Bale. Bale did everything in his power to give the games away... everyone talks about his 2 goals but forget to mention the 184732 opportunities he squandered.

Di Maria was the biggest reason we overcame the issues and a lot of luck tbh. But you need luck to win cups.