Benitez out again after losing power struggle at Inter Milan

LONDON — Many predicted replacing Jose Mourinho at Inter Milan was the impossible job and so it proved for Rafa Benitez. After just six uncomfortable months in charge of the current Italian, European and now world club champions, the Spanish coach was fired shortly after a “back me or sack me" rant at the Inter board. The public spats with higher powers that marred his final seasons at Valencia and Liverpool have followed the Spanish coach to Italy, and Inter president Massimo Moratti has never been one to accept having his authority questioned. Benitez’s track record undoubtedly makes him a successful and talented coach but the manner of his approach toward employers often leaves much to be desired. Keeping his counsel and making his gripes behind closed doors has never been Benitez’s way. His three years at Valencia, between 2001 and 2004, earned him a reputation as a demanding coach but one that ultimately got results. At the end of his first season in charge, the club won its first Spanish title in 30 years and in 2004, Valencia completed the La Liga-UEFA Cup double. But it proved to be his final year at the Mestalla stadium. Benitez had clashed with Valencia sporting director Jesus Garcia Pitarch over transfer matters, angered that he had little control over possible signings and that the club had failed to bolster the squad with players he wanted. “I asked for a table and they bought me a lampshade," was Benitez’s parting shot. He also felt unloved by the end of his spell at Valencia—“It seems they think more of me elsewhere than they do at home," he said—and bade farewell with tears in his eyes. By guiding Liverpool to the 2005 Champions League title in his first season in England, he immediately found love again at Anfield. Benitez, however, never won the trophy all Liverpool fans craved—a first league title since 1990—and many of his numerous signings failed to deliver. The last three seasons (2007-10) saw him stuck in the middle of a power struggle between the club’s American owners, George Gillett Jr. and Tom Hicks, who have since left. He was allowed to spend freely in the transfer market until the 2009-10 season, by which time funds had dried up at Liverpool, which was heavily in doubt. Benitez had already demanded greater authority over transfer policy, saying in January 2009: “The owners feel that the manager’s decisions need to be subject to the chief executive but I know that I’m subject to results and to our fans and they are the best judges I’ll ever have." After his inevitable departure from the Reds last summer following a poor sixth and final season, he walked straight into the Inter job vacated by Mourinho. And into a whole heap of problems. Benitez wasn’t given money by the previously free-spending Moratti to strengthen an ageing squad that had possibly lost its motivation and drive following its Treble-winning exploits of last season. He also regularly complained about inheriting an injury-hit squad from Mourinho. The final straw was Benitez’s ill-timed outburst at a post-match news conference after the 3-0 win over TP Mazembe in the Club World Cup. He warned Moratti to strengthen the team with four or five players, or to speak to his agent about a parting of ways. It gave Moratti an easy excuse to sack Inter’s 14th coach since taking over as president in 1995. The impossible job was beyond Benitez at Inter but he can at least leave Milan having added another piece of silverware to his bulging list of managerial honors, boosting his legacy in the process. He failed to land the Club World Cup in 2005, when Liverpool lost to Sao Paulo in the final, but Inter’s victory over TP Mazembe on Saturday means he has won the Champions League, UEFA Cup, domestic league and cup titles, and both the European Super Cup and the intercontinental version. He is the first coach to win major trophies with clubs from Europe’s three biggest leagues—Spain, England and Italy. Whoever next decides to sign up Benitez will be taking on one of Europe’s more successful coaches in recent years but one who clearly has no problem speaking his mind in public. He is as far away from being a subservient ‘yes-man’ as you can find. – AP