Source: Daily_Mail
Martin Samuel: Yossi is head man - Benayoun the unlikely hero gives Benitez shock victory
Real Madrid 0 Liverpool 1 The ball swung in from the right and Yossi Benayoun, slight, spindly, not the sort of person normally associated with heroic matchwinning headers in the Bernabeu stadium, was there to meet it.[LNB]Oh, stop dawdling, the lot of you. Give the man his contract and let him get on with it. Rafael Benitez wins matches against the elite clubs of Europe with the finest components of his team absent. [LNB]Find someone else who can do that, find someone else who can take this group of players and elevate them to the height of victory over Real Madrid away and it would make sense to be acting against Rafa.[LNB] High and mighty: Benayoun eludes the Real defence to head the away goal[LNB] They are made for each other, Liverpool and Benitez, right now. Liverpool do not have the wealth of their rivals but in Benitez they have a manager who works around it. He wheels and deals in the transfer market and he sends out teams with a brief that can be executed to the last detail. This was one such performance.[LNB]Without Steven Gerrard until three minutes from the end, with Fernando Torres incapacitated after a first-half injury, Benitez somehow conjured one of those old-fashioned European smash and grab raids, the teams separated by a late goal from a set-piece. It was not pretty to watch, as these things rarely are, but it was damnably effective. If Liverpool could only repeat this form at home in the League, Manchester United would not be feeling so smug.[LNB] Real Madrid 0 Liverpool 1: How the action unfolded[LNB]Anfield officials scotch rumours of Rafa exit after bookies suspend quit betting[LNB]On the road with..........Liverpool: It's not quite Beatlemania but John Lennon Airport had a busy day and Torres is mobbed in Madrid[LNB]LIVERPOOL FC NEWS FROM ACROSS THE NET[LNB][LNB]The plain facts state that Benayoun met a free-kick from Fabio Aurelio in the 82nd minute to win Liverpool the game. The reality is that Benitez's team overcame hammer blows that would have ruined a lesser team and pulled off one of the shocks of the European season. Benayoun is an unlikely matchwinner.[LNB]He does not always make the team, indeed there have been occasions when he has considered leaving for first-team football at an inferior club. He stays because Benitez's revolving door policy always gives a squad man a break. This was some break, and some way of taking it.[LNB]As the players warmed down in a stadium deserted but for jubilant Liverpudlians, each player got a polite round of applause as he left the field. It seemed to sum up the team ethic behind Benitez's success.[LNB] Thick of the action: Liverpool's Jamie Carragher tangles with Arjen Robben[LNB]He truly is a great coach, because he is a problem solver; that is why he thrives in the big games. He will pay the same attention to detail when the teams meet at Anfield, and will surely warn against thinking the tie is over, but there is an inescapable feeling that much of the work here is done. Madrid looked like a team with the stuffing knocked out of them. By the end, fights were breaking out among their own fans.[LNB]Real Madrid have always been looked upon as Benitez's club, even if he has not always been their greatest fan since leaving. There will still be those who will view this match, mischievously, as a job application. Better then that Liverpool get that contract signed, even if it means meeting him halfway on transfer matters. After all, surely the man who can come to Real Madrid and win is the best judge of what his team needs next season. And if he again produces a list of transfer priorities, this time start at the top. What is the worst that can happen?[LNB]This was not the greatest match, but it was a grand occasion. In heaven, all football is played in a celestial Bernabeu between a team wearing an all-white strip and another dressed solely in red, just because it looks right. It is in a cold corner of hell, however, that such a contest takes place with one of the best players imprisoned on the sidelines and another operating on one leg with merely 25 minutes gone.[LNB]So it was for Gerrard and Torres, who would have had a major influence on the game, had fate only allowed. As it was, when Liverpool scored, neither was on the field.[LNB]To a large extent that enhances Benitez's triumph, but it also saddens the spirit that Torres, who yields to nobody bar Sir Alex Ferguson in his distaste for all things from the white half of Madrid, was denied his big moment. After one break from a long Jose Reina kick, from which he forced a fine save from Iker Casillas, Torres was next seen seeking medical attention.[LNB] Real disappointment: Coach Juande Ramos[LNB]He lasted until the 61st minute but was rarely a threat and his frustration showed with a booking for a foul on Lassana Diarra.[LNB]Benayoun was the pick of it for Liverpool, with Xabi Alonso and Jamie Carragher not far behind, but the most dangerous player on the field, and the one Liverpool will need to watch most closely at Anfield, was Arjen Robben. He has plenty of history with Liverpool, Benitez and, most particularly, Reina from his Chelsea days, and he played here like a man with a score to settle. Like Cristiano Ronaldo in the San Siro stadium on Tuesday, however, his performance lacked its crowning glory of a goal.[LNB]A 30-yard shot was flicked over by Reina after 70 minutes and Albert Riera almost turned a cross into his own net at the end of the first half, but Robben remained frustrated. He was Real's star, though, and at the heart of all their best work. He played the pass of the match, for sure, its only fault being that it came too early, in the fourth minute, and seemed to catch its target, Raul, in repose and he wasted his chance with a weak shot.[LNB] Injury concern: Fernando Torres walks past Rafael Benitez as he is substituted[LNB]Liverpool's best moves early on came from long balls but that little ploy ended when Torres went lame. Benayoun made a game attempt to fill in and, indeed, forced a brave save from Casillas, but it was not his strong point and Liverpool became less direct after that, with Alonso working the midfield expertly and even throwing an attempt at Goal of the Season into the bargain.[LNB]It came a minute before half-time when, sighting Casillas off his line, he tried one of those extraordinary lobs from inside his half, an echo of the one he scored at Luton Town. Except this was not Kenilworth Road, but the Bernabeu, and were it not for Casillas's desperate recovery, he would have pulled it off.[LNB]What a moment that would have been. Not that Benayoun's winner was second best, mind you.[LNB] Real Madrid 0 Liverpool 1: How the action unfolded[LNB]Anfield officials scotch rumours of Rafa exit after bookies suspend quit betting[LNB]On the road with..........Liverpool: It's not quite Beatlemania but John Lennon Airport had a busy day and Torres is mobbed in Madrid[LNB]LIVERPOOL FC NEWS FROM ACROSS THE NET[LNB] [LNB] [LNB]
