So welcome to It Was What It Was with me Rob Traper and Jonathan Wilson and a welcome to a very special edition with an exceptional guest, a coach who Jonathan and I believe transformed the Premier League tactically.

Indeed, his appointment 20 years ago in June 2004 came within a week of another Southern European coach, a Portuguese coach, also young, also very confident, also very tactically innovative. And between them, we think these two coaches completely changed English football. So our guest today is going to explain his part in that

transformation. And he won two Le Liga's and a UEFA cut with Valencia. The FA and the UEFA

Supercut was Liverpool, the World Club Cup with Inter, the Europa League with Chelsea, the Copper

Italia with Napoli, the championship with Newcastle, too many Super Cups and community shields to mention,

and of course, on one memorable night in Istanbul, in perhaps the most dramatic final of all time

in 2005, he won the Champions League with Liverpool. He is, of course, the great Raffa Benitez.

Rafa, welcome to the show. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here.

That's an awful lot of trophies that you won.

Yeah, one of them.

But normally as a coach, people, they don't realize how difficult is to win.

To win is always difficult, but how difficult is to win in another country?

Because you have to adapt to a different culture and then the language and everything.

But also, I would say, to promote, so the promotion. because you have to adapt to different culture and then the language and everything.

But also I would say to promote, so the promotions and champions, if you know how difficult it is to promote, but I did also twice in Spain.

That means that you are a coach.

So you have the idea in England.

It's a manager and coach, But in Spain is a coach.

And then when you came to England, you are the manager and still you are a coach.

You go on the pitch every day.

You coach your players, your staff, everyone.

And then after you are the manager.

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