Rafa Benitez has given a fascinating insight into his spell as Liverpool boss, revealing how Steven Gerrard took an unusual approach as he prepared for life as a manager.
Benitez, 59, enjoyed six successful years at Anfield in which he guided Gerrard and Co to a memorable Champions League crown in 2005.
The Spanish boss left the club in 2010 and has since gone on to forge a glittering coaching career which has taken in spells with the likes of Chelsea , Napoli, Real Madrid and Newcastle .
But it is his Anfield spell for which he is best known for – and Benitez has revealed which Liverpool players were always destined for managerial success.
(Image: Daily Mirror)
“We were together for six years and you could see that every year he was learning a bit more and his understanding of the game was becoming a little better,” he wrote in The Athletic .
“He and Carra were close and Carra liked to talk about Juventus or Barcelona or Real Madrid. It’s not like Stevie took notes or anything but when you work under a lot of different coaches from different nationalities, you learn and he was clever enough to soak information up.
“With Mauricio Pellegrino, it was just obvious. He played for us at Valencia and then Liverpool, and he always took a keen interest in what we were trying to do and why.
“You could see how important it was to him, how much he wanted to learn. He came back to Liverpool to work as a coach and then moved with us to Inter Milan before becoming a manager in his own right at Valencia and, amongst others, Southampton and now Leganes.”
(Image: Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo)
Benitez also singled out Sami Hyypia and Xabi Alonso for praise, but has been surprised by Harry Kewell’s career in management which has seen him take charge of Crawley Town and Notts County.
He added: “Sometimes, you get no indication. Harry Kewell was a really good player who was unlucky with injuries but he didn’t talk about games very much or about football in general and I would not have said he felt like an obvious choice to be a manager. With others, you could just see it.
“Sami Hyypia and Xabi Alonso, for example, would ask us about football and tactics and talk about our training sessions and things like that.
“Stevie was somewhere in between but, from the outside, he looks to be doing a good job (at Rangers).
