Lescor
yet SAF(the only other of the top 3 managers to succeed in europe with their current club) sent Rafa a document-appraisal of his tactical nous of the 2005 LFC CL campaign.
Regarding the rest Les, I think your comments are interesting whilst slightly harsh. I subscribe to the now old mantra that the manager gets credit for everything, ie the good the bad and the indifferent.
Luck is half of everything and so ACM were lucky in some respect to be 3 up, we were lucky to be in the final, you need luck to get to the final of any competition, let alone win a CL final.
The Eternal Istanbulfrom "chopsy" at UKSF "Anyway, I've moved to the cuntryside so I can live in Nicholas Winterton's constituency and as a side-effect enjoy a tiny bit of quality...
further regarding the CL final, remember we were playing one of the top 5 sides in Europe who were absolutely on their game for the first 45 minutes, ok we struggled to manage to perform against them. 2nd half, changes were made AND more importantly, they worked. vindicating rafa completely, making heroes of the players.
i think part of our success in that game, certainly the second 45 minutes was down to their arrogance and belief they'd already won the game, one commentator noting that the entire ACM side came back out onto the pitch perfectly groomed, that maybe spoke volumes regarding the ACM attitude starting the 2nd half.
I think it's obvious Rafa has a lot to prove, not least because he's in his second season but because there's always pressure to deliver at Anfield. On the cyncial side there's the idea that he's bought himself time by delivering a fifth European cup, on paper we can surely only improve in the league whether that will be enough to guarantee a crucial CL place remains to be seen but what everyone surely wants is improvement week in week out in the domestic league this season, my only worry with this is that the looming World Cup games (etc) might interfere.
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