No parade, no thanks: Rafa Benitez gets indifferent goodbye from Stamford Bridge
The players gave Guus Hiddink a £200,000 watch. Poor trophy-winning Rafa got nothing. Not even a mention
Scott Heavey
In the end, he couldn’t even say goodbye.
A
European trophy, third place, despite the mayhem of 48 games in 175
days, dressing room disquiet, and an unbalanced squad, and he couldn’t
even say goodbye.
So passed the Rafa Benitez era
at Chelsea, a reign born in disgruntlement, nurtured in rising anger,
ending in a triumph of which he could not be part for fear of the
backlash.
Even Avram Grant, who took over from the Special One, joined the parade of honour at the end of the 2008 season.
But
as the sun, for once, beat down on Stamford Bridge, as the outgoing
David Moyes joked about making his now-former Everton players buy him a
beer on the train back to Merseyside, Benitez stayed out of the way.
The Chelsea players, staff and their families took the accolades, revelling in Tottenham’s familiar last day misery. But not Benitez.
“It
was for the players and the families,” he tried to explain. “I received
a lot of messages on my website, more than 200, saying ‘thank you very
much’, people appreciating what we were trying to do.
“I
think the fans have changed. After the Middlesbrough press conference,
you could see a lot more support for the team. You could feel more
support for the team.
“In my opinion the majority of
them were very positive in the end, which is good. And I think I changed
the opinion of some of them. We tried to do our best.”
Even
his best, though, was not sufficient for the many. There were a couple
of small banners, a handwritten one behind the dug-out declaring ‘Thank
you Rafa; We forgive you. Good luck.’
Mike Hewitt
Yet none of Frank Lampard, John Terry or the
departing Paulo Fereira mentioned the interim when handed the microphone
in the centre-circle. Where Guus Hiddink was given a £200,000 watch by
the players, Benitez got nothing.
David Luiz did
break the mould. “We want to say ‘thank you’ to him because he was an
amazing coach for the team and for me personally,” said the Brazilian.
“I
learnt a lot from him. People said bad things about him but not many
coaches can do what he does. Next year’s coach will change but the
mentality needs to be the same.”
Luiz, it seems, was
one of the group Benitez mentioned. “A lot of them said things to me,”
he added. “It is one thing what you say in public, in a press conference
but they were telling me privately, I’m really pleased with that.”
Just one more week, in the USA, and Benitez will be free. Wherever he pitches up next, it can’t be tougher than this gig was.
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