Rafa Benetiz: A title winning soccer manager who codes(soccernet.espn.go.com)
soccernet.espn.go.com
Rafa Benetiz: A title winning soccer manager who codes
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story/_/id/1041950/richard-jolly:-the-forward-thinking-rafa-benitez?cc=5901
16 comments
Things have been changing really fast in the last couple of years in the football world and nowadays most clubs use all kinds of tools at their disposal. Some examples I can think of: GPS technology to track the training sessions, relying on OPTA to provide detailed statistics about matches/opponents/players and even using the database of a game such as Football Manager for their scouting network. Rafa Benitez is an example of a coach who takes it one step further but there a loads of other coaches who rely heavily upon statistics. It's an industry where there are still a lot of opportunities for entrepreneurs.
Prozone (http://www.prozonesports.com/index.html) is a big factor as well. (And as much as I love Football Manager, I'm dubious of its value as a scouting tool. It seems more a compilation of conventional wisdom, and is just plain wrong often enough that it's hard to manage any team you follow or know well in real life.)
Prozone! When I was typing the comment I was also thinking about them but couldn't remember the name. They're also a major player.
Football Manager relies on a network of 1000 scouts in 50 countries monitoring 20,000 teams. It's a useful first step in the search for the next star. Everton are the first club who signed a deal to get access to the full database.
Football Manager relies on a network of 1000 scouts in 50 countries monitoring 20,000 teams. It's a useful first step in the search for the next star. Everton are the first club who signed a deal to get access to the full database.
I'm sure they do, but the flaws in the database are very noticeable to the observant fan. I haven't gotten around to buying FM12 yet, but in FM11 they got a lot of big things wrong: Philipp Lahm is rated as a natural right-back even though he's a natural left-back, Gareth Bale's pace is underrated, Lionel Messi is rated almost as a pure right winger even though he plays effectively in a more central role, Sergio Busquets is underrated (Sergio Busquets is always underrated though), and a lot of wingers are very underrated playing in inverted positions compared to their real-life counterparts.
He's actually a poster-boy for the limits of tech: despite all his whiz-bang technowizardry, he's a crap, overrated manager.
What little he won, he bought it with millions and an incredible stroke of luck in one Istanbul night. His Liverpool was terrible but had a few charismatic players at the absolute top of their game. No wonder Benitez lasted only a few months in his next high-flying job (although to be honest, it would have been a poison chalice for almost any manager).
I predict he will keep doing badly as long as he insists in being a coach. His skills in tech do not compensate for his evident lack of footballing knowledge.
What little he won, he bought it with millions and an incredible stroke of luck in one Istanbul night. His Liverpool was terrible but had a few charismatic players at the absolute top of their game. No wonder Benitez lasted only a few months in his next high-flying job (although to be honest, it would have been a poison chalice for almost any manager).
I predict he will keep doing badly as long as he insists in being a coach. His skills in tech do not compensate for his evident lack of footballing knowledge.
10 trophies, including the champions league, in his last 9 years of management. I wish I could be that crap
He bought a new level of professionalism and analytics to management (before Mourinho), as well as his own tactical style that changed a lot of the game.
I have heard him be called a lot of things, but 'crap' definitely isn't one that fits.
Edit: see 'Rafa, footballs forgotten man': http://www.footandball.net/rafael-benitez-forgotten-man/
He bought a new level of professionalism and analytics to management (before Mourinho), as well as his own tactical style that changed a lot of the game.
I have heard him be called a lot of things, but 'crap' definitely isn't one that fits.
Edit: see 'Rafa, footballs forgotten man': http://www.footandball.net/rafael-benitez-forgotten-man/
Two of those trophies were single-match competitions (2010) which are little more than friendlies: one is played at the very beginning of the season, and the other after a brutal flight to Japan (and with no pressure whatsoever: nobody cares for that particular trophy, it's just a commercial opportunity for Asian markets).
At Liverpool, considering the money spent, he underachieved every year except the very first season (which, as I said, was really blind luck, and again it was a team he did not even build). He benefited from a situation where he basically had to compete with only three other clubs in the EPL, and still never managed to win a league; except for La Liga (which is really a minor league when compared to the EPL or the Italian Serie A), his victories always came from cups, where luck has a much larger role than his vaunted statistical and managerial skills. His football was terrible to watch. The more he asked for total control, and the more he would get it, the worst it got; a pattern he started in Valencia and also repeated at Inter. His successors were even worse but they also got much less money to spend, thanks to all the money he did not leave in the coffers.
His only real achievements were with Valencia, a project he did not start.
I wouldn't hire Rafa Benitez to manage a fourth-rated club, let alone a top-flight property, and I must not be the only one to think that if he's still unemployed after more than a year.
At Liverpool, considering the money spent, he underachieved every year except the very first season (which, as I said, was really blind luck, and again it was a team he did not even build). He benefited from a situation where he basically had to compete with only three other clubs in the EPL, and still never managed to win a league; except for La Liga (which is really a minor league when compared to the EPL or the Italian Serie A), his victories always came from cups, where luck has a much larger role than his vaunted statistical and managerial skills. His football was terrible to watch. The more he asked for total control, and the more he would get it, the worst it got; a pattern he started in Valencia and also repeated at Inter. His successors were even worse but they also got much less money to spend, thanks to all the money he did not leave in the coffers.
His only real achievements were with Valencia, a project he did not start.
I wouldn't hire Rafa Benitez to manage a fourth-rated club, let alone a top-flight property, and I must not be the only one to think that if he's still unemployed after more than a year.
do you have any idea where Liverpool ranked in both net spend and wages from 04/05 to 09/10? total net spend in that period was £75M. How much do you think Manchester United and Chelsea spent in that period? Have a guess.. Liverpool were 5-7th in wages spend in that period.
Liverpool were torn apart financially by a leveraged buyout where even the deposit paid for the club was on 14 points of interest. Rafa couldn't move in the transfer market until he sold. To suggest that he was the cause of the £300M debt that sent Liverpool broke and not the large bank loans is disingenuous at best at clueless at worse.
He won two titles with Valencia in a league dominated by the top two - a feat that will unlikely to be repeated any time soon. UEFA ranks England and then Spain second. Your much-vaunted Italian league are currently ranked 4th and about to slip to 5th behind Portugal
He is unemployed because he is waiting for the right offer. He was offered no less than the role at Chelsea and turned it down over contract roles.
I have never heard anybody with a clue argue that Benitez is terrible. Even his most ardent critics would begrudge him the respect he deserves (only two other managers have won more trophies than Rafa in his last 9 years).
You can attempt to devalue the trophies he has won as much as you like, but he won silverware that has eluded clubs who have invested billions of pounds (which makes his +£75M at Liverpool look like peanuts).
Liverpool were torn apart financially by a leveraged buyout where even the deposit paid for the club was on 14 points of interest. Rafa couldn't move in the transfer market until he sold. To suggest that he was the cause of the £300M debt that sent Liverpool broke and not the large bank loans is disingenuous at best at clueless at worse.
He won two titles with Valencia in a league dominated by the top two - a feat that will unlikely to be repeated any time soon. UEFA ranks England and then Spain second. Your much-vaunted Italian league are currently ranked 4th and about to slip to 5th behind Portugal
He is unemployed because he is waiting for the right offer. He was offered no less than the role at Chelsea and turned it down over contract roles.
I have never heard anybody with a clue argue that Benitez is terrible. Even his most ardent critics would begrudge him the respect he deserves (only two other managers have won more trophies than Rafa in his last 9 years).
You can attempt to devalue the trophies he has won as much as you like, but he won silverware that has eluded clubs who have invested billions of pounds (which makes his +£75M at Liverpool look like peanuts).
I'd say it's harder to win La Liga against Real Madrid and Barcelona any given year than it is to win the Premier League or Serie A. In fact, beating Real Madrid and Barcelona to win La Liga is about as difficult as, say, beating Rangers and Celtic to win the Scottish league--and the last manager to pull that off turned out to be quite talented, though it took a few years for him to start consistently winning titles in England.
Rafa Benitez has only won La Liga, the Champions League, FA Cup to name a few. Sounds really crap and overrated!
Apparently, the algorithm behind his rotation policy is NP-complete.
For a while I was convinced he was basing his strategies on Football Manager (the PC game).
Benítez.
He always was in control of the tech:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F98Dss5f8o0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F98Dss5f8o0
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