So, Rafa, what DID attract you to the billionaire Chinese League?
Hotels like European palaces, massive wages, a new £230m training ground...
‘IT WAS A BIG PROJECT OR NO PROJECT... THE DECISION WAS EASY’
IT SEEMS the obvious place to start, with apologies to Mrs Merton, as we sit in the opulent Castle Hotel in Dalian where Rafa Benitez now lives in a serviced apartment: What exactly did attract him to the mega-riches of modern Chinese football? The interior of the hotel would bear comparison with Versailles. Twin palatial staircases sweep into the entrance hall adorned with huge chandeliers and an ornate glass roof, gilded with immaculate decoration in a vast reception area.
It echoes a royal European palace in the manner in which the 19th century British Empire once aped Roman and Greek architecture as a nod towards the military and intellectual mantle it felt it had inherited. The statement being made here is similarly clear.
Benitez knows that question is coming. It is unavoidable. Some lists have him down as the third best-paid coach in the world, behind Pep Guardiola on a reported £20million a year and Diego Simeone on £17m.
‘You cannot deny this is a big investment,’ says Benitez. He means that it would be foolish to deny that money isn’t a factor. ‘But at the same time this is project.’
He had offers from Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and another club in China when he left Newcastle last summer, but nothing in Europe. So he chose this one.
‘When I went to Liverpool — and it was a difficult decision to leave Valencia — it was because they were talking about five years, a project, build something.
‘When Aurelio De Laurentis, the Napoli chairman, came to see me, he flew at 6am on his private jet to see me in London. And if you analyse Napoli now, we signed Higuain, Albiol, Koulibaly, Jorginho, Mertens, Reina. We changed Napoli to build something.
‘Newcastle was another challenge. A massive club, a fanbase supporting the team, a whole city. But after a few months you could see it was a different vision. The takeover was not coming and we needed to think about other options. This was the same idea, a chance to build something, a challenge. It was big project versus no project. The decision was easy.’
It was easy for a reason. Scroll back five months and the location was more mundane: the communal dining area of Mike Ashley’s London offices.
Benitez is sitting opposite Ashley trying to negotiate his future at Newcastle. Naturally, it had been cleared of people for privacy. Broad positions had been outlined. Ashley wanted Benitez to stay for eight years but also wanted to sign Joelinton and Allan Saint-Maximin.
Benitez felt he couldn’t commit under those circumstances so offered to sign a year’s extension. He said he would leave the room while they discussed their response. He went outside to a small room and sat on a plastic chair. Eventually he was summoned back in by Lee Charnley, Newcastle’s chief executive.
But the break in proceedings meant there was now some confusion over the status of the dining area. One member of staff had strolled in to heat up his lunch in the communal microwave. It was pointed out that a meeting of some consequence was about to resume. The employee offered profuse apologies and insisted he would be a couple of minutes.
But he couldn’t work the microwave. It had a four-minute setting, but his lunch required only two minutes.
Eventually Benitez interjected. ‘You could put it on for four minutes and stop the microwave after two,’ he suggested. The employee agreed.
It was a fine compromise. But it was to prove the last achieved that day. Benitez’s Newcastle’s career could not be similarly reheated.
Recriminations about that day would reverberate throughout the summer. Yet, this is how the former Liverpool, Chelsea, Napoli, Real Madrid and Newcastle manager, the hero of Istanbul 2005 — possibly the greatest Champions League final — comes to be here, halfway around the world.
SEVEN million people live in this city the size of London but, were it not for Benitez being here, it wouldn’t register for many in the UK. That said, it is only second-biggest city in the Lianjong province.
You can see North Korea on a clear day, though there aren’t many of those in November. It has the feel of one of those imagined visions of the future.
Sweeping six-lane highways transect it, bold suspension bridges nearly a mile long bestride the bay; skyscrapers dominate the skyline.
It reeks of engineering excellence, new money and authoritarian vision.
Construction projects here continue throughout the night, not least the extraordinary £230million training ground that the football club, Dalian Yifang, are building. It will have 23 pitches and mimics Real Madrid’s, except it is bigger and better.
Benitez shows photos of it from June, when he arrived. Back then it was a cow field with a flurry of building activity. You might have imagined, if this was the UK, it would be ready in a year or two. It will open in January.
There was a time when an interview with Benitez meant a trip to West Kirby and lunch overlooking the Dee Estuary. Now it means a lengthy visa application, subject to approval from the Chinese authorities.
Dalian Yifang, who only came up to the Super League two seasons ago, is in the process of being transformed into the Benitez blueprint. Later in his office, he runs through the vision.
They have appointed 10 Spanish FA coaches to work in local primary schools, recognising that most of the young players they get at 12 aren’t proficient enough to make the top professional level compared with their European counterparts.
‘Football is like learning a language,’ says Darko Matic, the sports director, a Croatian who played in China as far back as 2007. ‘If you learn it before the age of 12, you’ll speak without an accent like a native. After that, it will always show.’
They are investing for generations.
There is the training ground, the academy, the medical facilities. Benitez has input into all of it. And being Benitez, he is obsessing over details. He does not give the impression of a man shuffling off to a quiet retirement and a final pay day. He asks for something and ‘they’ make it happen, notwithstanding the odd bureaucratic problem.
‘They’ are Wanda, the £27billion construction, real estate and entertainment conglomerate who sold their 17 per cent stake in Atletico Madrid to divert their energy here back home.
It is run by Wang Jianlin, the 90th richest man in the world. It’s fair to say, even if they had ever reached a compromise over that microwave meal in London, it wouldn’t have been quite like this at Newcastle.
But coming thousands of miles can demonstrate just how highly Benitez is regarded. As we wander in the park outside the hotel for our photoshoot, a security guard with a red Communist party armband bounds up towards him. The all-seeing eye on the Chinese state is about to swing into action.
Turns out he is a Liverpool fan. Please, please could he have a selfie? Naturally Benitez agrees. The guard whoops with high-pitched delight and literally jumps a foot in the air with joy. Photo secured, he rushes to bring his boss over to do the same.
They escort us around the park, enthusiastically suggesting locations, politely declined by the photographer. The reach of Liverpool, the power of Benitez and iconography of Istanbul is demonstrated in that moment.
AFTER leaving Liverpool, Benitez joined Inter Milan but left after just six months in December 2010, having won the World Club Cup.
Offers came but not from clubs of similar stature. The perfect job, it seemed, was the enemy of a good job. Eventually Chelsea called in November 2012 with what became an infamous
‘interim’ position. That came after a twoyear hiatus. Benitez contends that it was worth the wait but you suspect that period affected him and weighed heavily on his decision to come here. You can wait and wait for something that never comes.
Of course, last week the manager’s job at Tottenham became available, something that seemed highly unlikely in May.
‘They [jobs] are coming up now but you cannot predict that will happen,’ says Benitez. ‘Normally Tottenham will be winning, Arsenal will be winning. Leicester are a good team, West Ham, Everton are good teams. So these teams that are likely to be in the top 10 and have good teams, they have managers. So you cannot predict that this thing will happen.
‘Then if you wait and wait and then time is passing, people will say “Why can’t he get a job?” So you have to make a decision. This was a great opportunity. Obviously it was a big investment, obviously it was another challenge in a different part of the world, but that is the challenge: to try to improve things.
‘Here it is not just the first team, because they know the first team has just been promoted and will need time, but they know they have to improve everything around the club. Me and my staff analyse things and we can see that football is changing. People can say this league is not blah blah … of course.
‘We know this league is not as strong as the Premier League or the Spanish or German League, whatever. But at the same time it is an opportunity for you to come here and see something.’
He clearly still aspires to return to Europe: ‘If I finish my contract here I will not be 70 years old. I will be 61. That is still young for a manager. It is not an issue.’
He is intrigued by his old rival Mourinho returning to work this weekend. ‘From here we are monitoring the situation of all the teams and watching the games.
‘Pochettino was doing a great job, as we know. Mourinho is a manager of experience. Now it’s a big challenge for him. The last jobs [the last year at Chelsea, Manchester United] were not like he was expecting and now he has a very good team and he can prove that he is a very good manager. It’s a challenge. We will see what happens.’
He spends some time recalling their past battles. They arrived in England together in 2004, shining young coaching stars of European football.
‘Obviously he knew Italian football, Spanish football. What he was doing, he was strong and aggressive. He liked strong and big people. That is why we beat Chelsea so many times when they were much better than us, because we were analysing them tactically and we knew where to challenge.’
For now, though, his focus is here even if his wife, Montse, and his daughters, Claudia, at university in Paris, and Agata, completing A Levels in Liverpool, are adopted Scousers. West Kirby remains the family base. So there was some trepidation when it became clear this was
‘I COACHED MY KIDS’ SCHOOL TEAM. WE WON AND PARENTS WERE ANGRY’
the most compelling option. He says: ‘After the meeting in May, it was very clear, they don’t want us to stay [Ashley disputes this and agreement on this point is unlikely any time this century].
‘We had to start thinking about the future. We were talking about this and [that] China is too far. “Oof, do you know how many hours on the plane!” It was a little bit difficult at the beginning. But we said: “We have international breaks, we have the winter break, we have time where you come to China and we go to Spain”.’
Benitez feels he has struck a work-life balance. ‘When I have some time I go there,’ he says. ‘I go ice-skating with them. They have to also understand it is your passion. I try all the time to be with them.’
HIS problems now are different. On Friday morning, the day before Dalian play Hebei at home, the hunt is on for Yannick Carrasco. The Belgian wide player is not just the superstar of Dalian Yifang, but of the entire Super League.
Carrasco played and scored for his country in Cyprus on Tuesday night, which was breakfast time on Wednesday in Dalian.
International players are key to any Chinese team. Four are allowed in the squad but only three can play. But international breaks mean they arrive back jetlagged. This is no fault of Carrasco’s. It just takes time and a personal issue meant Benitez knew he would be delayed. Fortunately, Carrasco will emerge soon after and there is relief all round. Yesterday he played and scored in the 3-3 draw against Hebei China Fortune.
It wasn’t the best evening to show off the club’s progress. Often they get 55,000. Yesterday on a cold winter’s day, at the end of the season with the team safe from relegation, it was about 15,000.
The federation has suspended domestic transfers, which is a problem for Benitez and Matic, who had some aces up their sleeve for next season. The key to success is not necessarily foreigners, but the eight Chinese nationals who have to play.
Guangzhou Evergrande, for whom ex-Tottenham midfielder Paulinho is the star, are the Bayern
Munich of China. Immaculately connected and well resourced, they have won seven of the past eight league titles.
Dalian aren’t like that yet but the city is a footballing hotbed. Russian sailors brought the game at the turn of the 19th century. They won eight league titles dating back to the Nineties. But ownership issues culminating in a recent relegation mean this is now a rebuild with Wanda in charge since the beginning of the year.
Rules are plentiful. An under-23 player must be in the starting XI. But that simply meant teams would field a sacrificial youngster and humiliatingly sub him in the first minute. So there must be an under 23 player on the pitch for 90 minutes; no more than three foreigners can be on the pitch, so one must always be on the bench. Initially Benitez required a club official on the bench to check his substitutions were legitimate.
IT is a crisp winter’s day as players gather for training. Not quite the freezing windswept chill of the north-east of England, but it is extremely cold and Benitez is in shorts, as he always was in Newcastle. He has a special greeting, a broad smile and hand clasp, for Salomon Rondon, the former West Brom and Newcastle striker. ‘The hero of Venezuela,’ beams Benitez. Rondon scored a hat-trick in 34 minutes in Japan last week in a 4-1 win for his country.
Now Rafa is reminiscing about his sports science degree at University in Madrid. This was when he played for Spain at the World Student Games in Mexico.
After graduation, he worked in a gym by day, coached at Real Madrid by night and dated Montse, a lawyer specialising in aid work in the developing world. Benitez later recalls a story from that two-year hiatus in his career, the period between Inter and
Chelsea. It was a time to reconnect with his family while his daughters were still at primary school. He did the school run.
‘The children were playing football and one of the parents was coaching them,’ he recalls. ‘I was watching the training sessions and after a couple of weeks they said: “Do you want to help?” ‘The first training session I was doing passing drills, talking about “pass and move”, I was very Liverpool, no? Pass and move. Then we played a game. The other team had a big keeper and they threw the throw-ins very long and the keeper was kicking it long. They were stronger. Our team, one of the best players was a winger, a left footer. And because he was one of the best he was playing nearly as striker.
‘But the opposition had a very small right-back, so at half-time I said to the coach: “If we move this one to the left…” He did well and we won. Parents of the other team were complaining. “Oh you have a professional coach!” It was a nice time.’
How satisfying was that? Benitez beams, recalling the memory as if it were Istanbul in 2005.
‘Massive!’ he says.