Last season, Barcelona won an historic treble. Real Madrid’s season was trophy-less. The man tasked with changing that is Rafa Benitez, a controversial choice at the time of his hiring who has continued to draw questions since, especially over his relationship with Cristiano Ronaldo. Real Madrid fans have a big question on their mind: Is Rafa ready for El Clásico? The answer isn’t straightforward.
Rafa Benitez is struggling, but he was born to manage Real Madrid in El Clásico
If there’s one thing Rafa can do, it’s figure out how to scrape a result in a big match.
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Benitez is no stranger to managing big teams in massive matches. He won the Champions League with Liverpool after all, and navigated relatively impressive records at Anfield against rivals like Manchester United and Chelsea. He won the Europa League at Chelsea as an interim manager, and he even has experience winning in La Liga, having twice guided Valencia to league titles.
But for all that, Real Madrid are a very different team from anyone he’s managed before. Expectations are sky-high there -- just look at Carlo Ancelotti, fired for failing to win a trophy just one season after capturing Madrid’s long-sought La Decima, their 10th Champions League title. Even just looking at Rafa’s season at Madrid so far, it’s easy to see the weight of those expectations.
Real Madrid are in second place in La Liga, just three points behind Barcelona. They’ve scored the most goals in the league, and have the second-best defensive record. They’ve already locked up a place in the knockout rounds of the Champions League with two matches to go. But for all that, there’s still ever-growing pressure on Rafa, because fans don’t think he’s doing well enough.
For every 5-0 thrashing of a Real Betis, there's been a 0-0 sleeper against Sporting Gijon, or a flat 1-0 performance against Granada that took a random moment of quality in a match mired in mediocrity for them to win. We have yet to see Madrid consistently play up to the level of quality we know them to be capable of. After all, this team has Gareth Bale, Luka Modric, James Rodriguez, Sergio Ramos, plus that Cristiano Ronaldo guy. They shouldn't be playing 0-0 draws with Malaga.
And that, perhaps, leads to one of the biggest complaints about Rafa over the years: He just doesn’t seem to adapt or learn, ever. Ten years ago, when his tactics won the Champions League, they were original and interesting and effective. Now, a decade later, after all the world of football has emulated and dissected and broken down what he did back then, he’s still doing pretty much the same thing. The same shape, the same ideas and the same player roles -- even if he doesn’t have the players to fit those roles.
That dedication to consistency cost Rafa Benitez at Napoli, where many of the players at his disposal simply didn’t fit his ideas. He kept trying to shove square pegs into round holes to no avail, resulting in a wildly disappointing fifth-place finish last season. That such a miserable campaign for Napoli fans and players alike to endure -- and it seemed like Rafa had lost the dressing room by the end of the season -- somehow led to him getting the Real Madrid job shocked many.
But you know what? They may have hired him specifically for this kind of game.
For all the many qualms you can take with Rafa’s tactics, the one thing that stands out about them is this: He sets his teams up to not lose big games. El Clásico certainly qualifies as a massive game for Real Madrid, and it’s this kind of high-stakes matchup where Rafa tends to shine.
With the way Rafa's teams set up, defending relatively deep, looking to prevent big chances and relying on moments of individual brilliance in attack, is tailor-made for Real Madrid in this kind of game. After all, with Ronaldo, Bale and James spearheading his attack, moments of brilliance will come. The question then is whether or not his defense can do enough to slow down Barcelona's attack -- based on the form of Ramos and Raphael Varane, there's no reason to think that they can't.
So that question comes again: Is Rafa Benitez ready to manage Real Madrid in El Clásico? The answer is yes, he was practically born to manage this game. Whether or not he’s ready for the rest of the season is another matter, but a win against Barcelona to pull Madrid even in La Liga will buy him a heck of a lot of time to figure out the answer to that question.
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