RAFA BENITEZ THE MAN BEHIND THE MANAGER
How Judo, some Clint Eastwood westerns and his beloved dogs are keeping Benitez calm as he bids to keep relegation at bay
RAFA BENITEZ grabbed a reporter’s collar, jammed his forearm into his neck and showed off his killer judo throw.
“My moves now are not as good as they were,” he says with relish. “But I can fight if I have to fight. I’m ready, I have done it all my life.”
Benitez is hosting an allconsuming training break in Spain, with 12 days to fill between drawing against Wolves and the crucial visit of Huddersfield tomorrow.
And he is romping through the untold tales of his life and what made him one of the world’s best managers.
Judo? He is a brown belt. But a five-bout battle to win a black sash ended in failure. Playing football weakened his arms and he came up against a giant. But clearly the muscle memory is still there.
He is intense, driven and relentless in his stamina for the job. Two sessions a day at La Finca resort near Alicante, no shirking on the beach.
How does he cope with the stress and angst of a relegation fight? “I have experience,” he said. “You have to stay calm, do things well. Our team is fine. They can compete against anyone, like beating Manchester City.”
Before Christmas he said they “needed a miracle” but now says: “I believe in them 100 per cent.”
But who is Rafa Benitez away from his obsession with football?
Picking up his mobile phone, the Spaniard shows a picture of his dogs: “Red, the German shepherd, Goofy, a springer spaniel, who is my wife’s dog and the boss, and then Clem, the Labrador.
“I take the train home. I like to go back, walk the dogs – and to fight with my daughters!
“In Newcastle I play cards with my staff in our quieter moments, the Spanish game Mus. Playing and competing. We are not thinking about football all of the time.”
In fact, Benitez reveals a liking for cowboy films: “The teenagers, what they watch now is rubbish. If I want to relax, I like to watch films about cowboys. I like action.
“Clint Eastwood, I like him. A lot of the spaghetti westerns were filmed in Almeria, here in Spain.”
Always a man to spot the finer detail, he adds: “Those films are not so good because you can see the Indians still wearing their wristwatches! You can see the telephone cables in the background!”
But there’s more. He loves dogs. He used to take his animals to dog shows, and was a winner at that too.
“All my life. We were training them. I had one dog, a Doberman, and he was very good. We would have competitions. He was the grandson of a champion dog in the United States.
“When I was training, I’d go running with him. I was living on the fourth floor, so I’d have to take him out for a pee and he’d be pulling me down the stairs. My sister, my brother, my two uncles, they are vets. We have always had animals around.”
Benitez is wearing a protective cast on his right wrist. Why? An intense bout of solitaire. Trying to beat his wife’s score left him with repetitive strain injury. Ever the fierce competitor.
Benitez likes to learn and to win. That’s not happened enough at Newcastle, but one story he tells illustrates his mentality.
He takes off his wrist cast and says: “I was on the phone, competing against my wife. She was playing solitaire, I wanted to beat her. I asked: ‘What is your record?’ I spent one month on that game. But I beat the record.
“I’ve had this six months now, the doctor has given me an injection.”
Give Benitez a challenge – solitaire, or managing Newcastle United – and he does everything to come out a winner.