Liverpool Manager Whines about the World Cup

August 25th, 2006 | by: WC Bob |

While the rest of the known world loves the World Cup, Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez is not too fond of the competition. With some of his players facing fitness issues following their participation in Germany this summer, Benitez has lashed out at the world’s greatest sporting event.

“The World Cup is too long, and big clubs lose their players for something like two months. They come back from the finals not fit and carrying injuries because they have been playing and working so hard. Sure they like playing for their countries, but frankly half the World Cup is not important,” he said.

“For the first 15 days you are playing teams that do not matter and matches that do not matter. Then after that you have the best teams playing for the trophy in the last couple of weeks. To lose players for two months and find them playing build-up friendlies and then games against small countries is too much.

“They return not fit, with injuries, and then they have to play very important club games straight away. At big clubs you must win every game, whenever it is.”

Benitez’s solution?

“The World Cup must be played by fewer teams, players are being expected to perform too much in poor matches that don’t mean anything.

Poor matches that don’t mean anything? Has this guy even watched a World Cup? Sure there are plenty of first round matches that might be defined as poor, but every match means something when you are playing in a tournament where one slip up could spell an early exit.

We could understand Benitez’s frustrations, but the World Cup shouldn’t take a backseat to club football just because there is a lot of pressure on club football coaches.

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Samuel Knight

The club teams pay the bills, the national teams don’t.

Letting your top players go to qualifying during the season is just crazy. You don’t think that AC Milan wasn’t happy when Seedorf didn’t get called for Oranje?

The players play far too many matches – and something’s got to give.
Luis

Exactly. The problem is where the money is. Leagues go all out for every $. Shorten the league season. Thats what grinds down players, not a few sprinkled national team matches throughout the year.
LAZARO

You got that right. There are now so many championships, qualifying rounds, 1st leg this 2nd leg that, in addition to the club season it’s no wonder so many players have more injury time than time on the pitch. Something has to give. Benitez’s frustration is totally legitimate.
bruce

I agree with the idea “The World Cup must be played by fewer teams”. It should revert to 24 nations, eight groups of three with only the winner of each group to proceed, then straight into quarterfinals by the winning eight, semi-finals, final. That would make it almost do-or-die in the first round for each match knowing that only one team goes through.
Marco Di Stefanó

The World Cup isn’t the problem. The World Cup games mean more than any other thing in sporting events. Its the only sporting event that is played for by love and love alone. Where money hardly means anything. Just representing your nation. Anyway, it only happens once every four years. It isn’t like its all the time for one month.
I think the problem lies with the regular club season. they should shorten the regular season and some of the other club championships they have. Thats where the true problem lies
vero

He is so wrong. The world cup only happens every four years and is the biggest event in the world.

Then he has the nerve to suggest reducing the number of teams to only a few big countries.

Maybe we should keep it to three teams Italy Brazil and Germany since the other countries are wasting their time and creating false hope for their fans of a chance at victory.
Adam Rupolo

I am amazed at this guys comments and I’m even further amazed at the amount of people who agree with him.

I definately agree with you here Vero. The world cup happens ever FOUR years. Im sure clubs can shut up a bit then. Its the greatest tournament ever and it lasts like a month. 1 month every 4 years is not too much to ask and when the world cup is going on, I could not possibly care less about club soccer.

Reduce the amount of teams?! I’ve thought before that there should be MORE teams! This is the WORLD cup. There are more than 200 countries in the world and only 32 competeing in this competition. The teams should represent the world.

I’m most definately wrong and 32 is probably a good number due to the talent in certain countries… but I just love the world cup atmosphere as people support their nationality’s team and perhaps it could be even nicer if even more people could be involved. When teams make the world cup for the first or second time; their fans are usally some of the most excited! Look at Ghana who created a holiday so that people could watch one of Ghana’s games!

THIS is joga bonito! THIS IS THE BEAUTIFUL GAME! They may not win the world cup ever… but to deny that glimmer of hope and that excitement of a nation because it inconveniences some club level coaches… this seems more than a bit wrong to me.
LAZARO

I find it interesting that the people writing here who write so glowingly about the World Cup and downplay the importance of the regular club season come from countries where football is not very popular and where most people only watch the sport when the world cup comes along. I love the world cup too but many fans and football professionals (players, managers, coaches, etc.) who watch the game all year round every year view club seasons as just as important, if not more important than the world cup. And the Champions League championship is quickly becoming a rival to the world cup, with worldwide TV audiences second only to the world cup.

I think one solution would be for club managers to seriously think about re-working their schedules according to the impact of the world cup on their players. Look at Chelsea — several of their players were at the World Cup (at least one of them reached the final), and the club is obviously suffering in their early games this season. Something has to give.
james

I think Rafa’s point is more valid when you think about the silly friendlies the teams play and, more immportantly, the long qualification rounds for Euro Cup and World cup. i think one could argue – although i know all europeans and sudamericanos will disagree – that CONCACAF has a clue on this one.

why should a team like italy play a team with so little success like macedonia 2 times in order to qualify. shorten the qualification process by making a play-off type format that makes the minnows show some acomplishment before the more proven teams come into the fray. Champs league does it, FA cup too and it makes sense to me.

almost everyone loves and values the world cup and as more teams havbe shown they can compete at a top level it should be 32 teams in its current format but the qualification cause many of the problems either through too many games (europe and south america) or too much travel (every where but europe but especially asia and south america).
lily

This guys comments are crazy, the world cup is like 4 times more important than some silly club games. The world cup should stay exatly like it is now. Im sure that club managers can stand 1 month out of every 4 years. I agree with you Adam Ropolo but you Vero are wrong about 1 thing- not only the best of the best should play. Everyone should get a chance. I have never watched a club game in my life and I could care less about Liverpool. so there