Newcastle United manager Rafa Benitez spent six years at Anfield being Liverpool boss, and was eventually sacked in 2010 despite securing four pieces of silverware.
The Spaniard has since managed Chelsea, Napoli and Real Madrid, and is being currently linked with several jobs with his current contract at Saint James’ Park running out in the coming days.
Benitez has surely inspired many of his former charges to become managers after hanging the boots, but Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher actually opted against becoming one because of him.
The former centre-back was one of the Newcastle manager’s favourite players during their time together on Merseyside, but Carragher claims watching the Reds’ job kill and break the former Valencia boss made him reconsider going into the dugout after retirement.
“The two biggest managers for me in my career were Gerard Houllier for six years and Rafa Benitez for six years. So for 12 years of my career there were those two managers, the two biggest influences on me, love them, great respect for them, but I always say the man who came into Liverpool, who I was so impressed with was, not the man who left,” the former player turned pundit said on the In the Football, Feminism and Everything in Between podcast.
“The job had killed them, it had broken them, they were different men, paranoid at the end, doing strange decisions. Things they would come with in the press, you were sat at home thinking “Oh my God, no”.
“You know they’re just not the same person, and I just think it’s what the job does to them. I think a lot of managers become bitter, and then they get the love for the game, they go back into being a manager, have a year or two out, but towards the end when things aren’t going well you just see a bitterness.”
Benitez became the Magpies’ manager in March 2016, but was unable to prevent them from going down.
However, the 59-year-old immediately helped them win Premier League promotion after leading them to victory in the Championship, and has successfully kept them up in last two campaigns.
The former Liverpool boss hasn’t been supported well-enough in the transfer market by Newcastle owner Mike Ashley as he would have desired, but with talks of a £350 million takeover making the rounds, Benitez will be looking forward to a successful change of ownership, and that could see him lead the club back to the top of English football.
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