Benitez,calm amid turmoil, but Champions League

ouloss would be a blow

By ROBERT MILLWARD, AP Soccer Writer Mar 31, 4:28 pm EDT

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LONDON (AP)—Amid all the conflict over the ownership of his team, Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez remains calm and concentrates on nothing but his job.

Benitez has a standout record in European competitions and is loved by the fans. They sing his name while loudly expressing their hatred of American co-owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr.

If Liverpool is eliminated from the Champions League by Arsenal, however, his best hope of success is fourth place in the league. That may not be good enough to keep his job.

The Reds go to Emirates Stadium on Wednesday, with the return at Anfield six days later. It is a quarterfinal between the losing finalists from the last two seasons. Recent head-to-heads give the Gunners a clear edge. By coincidence, they also meet in the Premier League on Saturday between the two European games.
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Meanwhile, a little more than a year after buying the hugely successful club, Gillett has said his relationship with Hicks had become unworkable and he had received death threats from Liverpool fans warning him not to sell any of his stake to his co-owner.

With a rival organization from Dubai standing by and trying to buy a controlling interest, the situation clearly would unnerve most coaches. This is also something unheard of at Liverpool, which has glided through much calmer times and won a record 18 league titles and five European Cups along the way.

Benitez has stood above it all, rarely mentioning the friction and instead focusing on ways to win and get more out of his players.

Sunday’s 1-0 victory over neighboring Everton strengthened Liverpool’s hold on fourth place, which would mean another shot at the Champions League next season.

“After the (3-0) defeat against Manchester United, to beat our closest rivals means that we will go into the games with Arsenal with more confidence,” Benitez said. “We needed to respond. We needed to show discipline, which has not been a problem for us for some years now. This was the perfect comeback for us.”

In January, Hicks revealed that the owners had talked to former Germany coach Juergen Klinsmann as a potential replacement for Benitez. The manager ducked questions in that regard and stuck strictly to soccer.

“The key is to concentrate on the game,” he said at the time. “We can talk and talk about the speculation or rumors or everything, but the key for us is to win the game.”

Benitez arrived at Liverpool in 2004 after guiding Valencia to triumphs in the Spanish league and UEFA Cup and won the Champions League in his first season after a comeback from 3-0 deficit to AC Milan in the final. He also won the FA Cup in 2006 and led the Reds to last season’s Champions League final.

But the league is another matter. Play has been dominated in recent years by Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea.

Although Liverpool still holds the record of 18 league titles, the last was in 1990. United will be only one behind if it holds its five-point lead in the standings and wins the title for the second straight season and 10th time since it became known as the Premier League.

The prospect of United getting so close to its record will not sit well with fans.

But the big problem will be with Hicks and Gillett. The fact that the men who own rival NHL teams are now at odds over their Liverpool ownership is not a good sign for Benitez. They may not be able to agree on his future.

Especially if the Reds are knocked out of European play by a team from the same country.

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