Liverpool
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The imposing iron gates standing between the West Derby streets and the Melwood training complex might have shifted some 500 yards or so off Melwood Avenue ??? and onto ?????? since the last time Liverpool contemplated a trip to a European Cup Final but outside the scenes are exactly the same.
Five or six kids who dont look old enough to remember a time before foreign managers at Anfield stand on tiptoes on the wall of the house opposite the entrance to the most famous training ground in English football. Theyve been here all day claims the steward manning the gates. Never mind the fact that their parents probably think theyre in school, theyre here, mobile phones poised at the ready, to snap Djibril Cisse leaving in his Hummer. Twenty yards away, leaning against another wall, are two men hoping to collect autographs from players who, with the exception of possibly Maurico Pellegrino, are probably younger than their sons.
Inside the foyer, Luis Garcia, decked out in long black shorts and a black Reebok sweatshirt, looks up from inspecting the contents of a large cardboard box sitting on the floor and smiles. He says hello, turns to the new receptionist, asks a question in perfect English and then scans the names in the signing-in book to see if he recognises any. It doesnt seem that long ago that Spaniard had to call in an interpreter to help him answer questions in an interview for this website.
Elsewhere, coaching staff, players and members of the medical team go about their business. The Premiership season ended yesterday and while departure lounges all over the country are probably packed with footballers waiting to jet off to Dubai, Florida and anywhere in Europe with a lush green golf course and fully stocked 19th hole, the only flight the players here will be boarding in the immediate future is a non-stop chartered one to Istanbul.
Liverpool might have finished one place and two points worse off than last season but youd never guess it from the mood inside and outside of Melwood. The small matter of the clubs first European Cup Final to contest in 20 years has probably got something to do with it but even before Bayer Leverkusen, Juventus and Chelsea were dispensed with en route to the Ataturk Stadium, the mood was bristling with positivity and a feeling that, in what could only be described as Liverpool most bizarre season ever, anything could happen.
Almost 12 months ago to the day, the writing was, quite literally, on the [Melwood] wall for Gerard Houllier. The team might have secured fourth place and, with it, Champions League qualification three days earlier when Newcastle failed to beat Southampton, but no one was celebrating. Attendances were down, belief and optimism had long since deserted the Kop and substitutions, never mind defeats, were sparking groans from all four corners of the ground.
Six years after Gerard Houllier had first walked into Melwood, the Liverpool training ground was not a happy place to be.
Up the stairs, past the office once occupied by Houllier, through the doors past the players canteen and down the corridor past the coaches meeting room now staffed by Pako Ayesteran, Paco Herrera, Alex Miller and Jose Ochotorena, and next door to chief scouts office vibrating to the sound of an unanswered telephone, we sit and wait for Rafael Benitez. We wait some more. The video camera and lighting rig, set up to film the managers weekly interview for the clubs overseas TV channel and official website, was turned off over an hour ago to preserve its batteries. Rafa is running late.
When he does finally bounce through the door, he throws his hands up to apologise and laughs, So much to do, so little time. He actually talking about media commitments in the run up to Liverpools most important game in two decades but hes probably been thinking the same thing ever since he was appointed Liverpool boss on June 16 2004, just weeks after breaking down in tears during his farewell press conference at the Estadio Ciudad de Valencia. Find somewhere to live in a foreign country, learn a new language from virtually scratch, check out schools for his eldest daughter Claudia, convince the clubs captain to reject Chelseas advances, scour the transfer market for emergency reinforcements, plan for a season with Englands most prolific striker, rip up plans for a season with Englands most prolific striker on the eve of the opening day of the season and, somehow, try to work out some way of getting the best out of a squad of players built up over six players by the previous manager; so much to do, so little time.
The fact that many of the same players who only last season were knocked out of the FA Cup by Portsmouth, dumped out of the Carling Cup at home to Bolton and sent crashing out of the UEFA Cup by Marseille are now heading to Turkey to face AC Milan in the biggest game in club football speaks volumes for Benitezs time-management skills never mind his motivational and tactical abilities.
Benitez, who Jamie Carragher recently claimed is so obsessed with football that hes never spoken to him about anything else, prefers to deflect some of the praise onto his most loyal confident, his wife Montse.
“She has helped me so much since we moved to England,” he says once the cameras are finally rolling. “She is delighted now with this situation for us. When she goes to Anfield she is always happy, joining in with the supporters, singing the songs she has learnt and when I have some problems, when I lose or when we lose some games, I go home and she says, Come on, you can do it. Its so important to me to have my wife behind me all the time. In return,” he smiles, “for her support, I buy her a watch when I win a cup.”
While Benitez has been staying late at Melwood discussing tactics with his staff, studying videos of future opponents, analysing past defeats and scrutinising reports from his network of scouts in Europe and further a field, Montse has been stocking up on books for her crash course in Liverpool FCs illustrious history both here and abroad. Everything she learns about the Kop, Shanks, Bob and the rest in passed on in detail to her husband.
Benitez ingests every last drop of Liverpool folklore because he needs to. Hes the first Liverpool manager since Bill Shankly to have neither supported the club as a boy or worked his way up through the ranks of playing or backroom staff to land the top job. Even Gerard Houllier, the first foreign manager in 106 years at Anfield, once stood on the Kop to watch the Reds thrash Dundalk