How Rafa Benitez Influenced Valencia CF’s Club Culture and what Academy Coaches can learn from him.
Developing yourself into an exceptional football manager/coach is not just about having the best tactics, most talented players or the biggest budget. Nor does it have nothing to do with luck or good timing or circumstances.
Effective coaching is about persuading, and then converting, players, staff and the entire club towards your beliefs and values. This effort must travel in a positive and constructive direction and like a bus driver, you must bring everyone on board. It won’t work unless everyone is aboard. And if someone resists in a way that pulls the effort in a negative direction, then organization is likely better off without them. Tough decisions are inevitable in this kind of effort.
What we are really talking about here is Club Culture. Beyond tactics, results, the training environment and economics is the reality that whatever happens (or does not happen) is the result of Club Culture. The central role a football manager/coach plays in a Club means their influence will necessarily extend beyond the team and impact the organization as a whole – for better or worse.
When Rafa Benitez was Manager of Valencia CF (2001-2004) he achieved some remarkable results, including two La Liga Championships and one UEFA Cup trophy. His players went from somewhat obscure to wildly famous, including David Albelda, Canizares and Miguel Angel Ferrer Martinez, better known as Mista. The entire club was experiencing one of the highest points of performance and excitement in its colorful, storied history. Confidence in the players and Benitez as Manager was at an all-time high. Why?
In my view, the success Benitez brought to Valencia CF was the result of a single decision he made as part of his desire to change the culture at the club and imprint a new mentality on every person associated it. This is extremely deep stuff and requires foresight, confidence and bravery.
To make the players understand the values and behaviors he felt would lead to success, Benitez made a radical move. He ordered the dressing room stripped of all luxury appliances Gone were the jacuzzi and full-lenght mirrors. No more idle lounging in warm water and no more focusing on image or post-training outfits. He did not want the players preoccupied with themselves by constantly looking at themselves in the mirror. From now on, the focus would not be on self, but on TEAM. By removing the props that foster individualized behaviors, he brought a renewed focus on the hunger that 11 players must have in order to achieve something truly remarkable. He wanted them to focus on each other so they could fight together and achieve common goals.
The new spartan dressing room had another beneficial effect as well. The players began behaving more humbly, more down-to-earth and better identified rabid, working-class fan base. Suddenly, the players were not just football stars, but true local heroes representing their fans in truly authentic way.
Benitez’s approach paid off. Valencia’s players grew in reputation and appearing to fans and the media as a stronger team than FC Barcelona and Real Madrid who at the time had more famous and higher-paid players, owing of course to their larger budgets.
To this day, Valencia CF has kept the dressing room in the same fundamental style demanded by Benitez. It serves as a tangible reminder of the culture Benitez brought to the club during those amazing three years he served as Manager, and a reminder that the values he embedded then remain just as strong and important today.
On joining Valencia, every new player is treated to the story of the Valencia dresssing room and informed about the values, behaviors and expectations the Club has of them. This ritual serves as a concrete reminder of the deep and authentic influence Benitez had on culture that is Valencia CF.
What lessons can coaches draw from this story and use to influence the culture at their own clubs? A good starting point for understanding Benitez’s motivations is author Michael Calvin’s book entitled “ No Hunger in Paradise: The Players . The Journey. The Dream”
“But, realistically, all they would do is sit there and wait for a chance that will never come. The statistics are really sobering. Out of all the boys who enter an academy at the age of 9, less than half of 1% make it. Or a make a living from the game either. The most damning statistic of all is only 180 of the 1.5 million players who are playing organised youth football in England at any one time will make it as a Premier League pro. That's a success rate of 0.012%. Pretty much the sort of chances of you being hit by a meteorite on your way home”
This sobering statistic applies not only to football clubs in the UK. Academy players all over Europe confront the same mindblowing percentages. In the United States the figures are likely worse. Pause and let let that reality sink in for a moment.
Your focus and aim is developing future professional players. However, the odds of players reaching that lofty goal are out of step with the pro player dreams 99% of the young players hold on to. As a coach, perhaps your focus and aim should be be broader. Maybe the youth football club experience should be more than just the dream of a pro contract. Is there something else more achievable, perhaps more valuable, that we should want as an ultimate objective for your young players.
Think again about what Benitez did on arriving at Valencia. He faced the privilege of working with obviously high performing professional players. They wereen’t the best players in Spain, nor the worst. How far would they go in their football careers? No one knew, not even Benitez. So he focused on the values that would transcend football. Values that while very compatible with achieving football success, would also translate directly to other aspects of life and business, no only fort he players but fort he entire Club. In so doing, he left behind a lasting legacy of humility, work ethic, mindset and teamwork.
The reality is that the overwhelming majority of youth players need Plan B. They will likely need to find an alternative career path in society. I do not intend to discourage young players from pursuing their football dreams in a football club. To the contrary, I encourage them to pursue those dreams at clubs that offer a robust Club Culture that can educate and guide players toward their goal of being a professional player, but also prepares them to be valuable contributing members of society if a professional contract is not in their future.
So why are Club and Academy coaches devoting all of their effort into football tactics and strategies and virtually nothing into other aspects that are important for developing human beings? This is the most important change required at youth football clubs.
Building the club´s future means working with young kids to help them to find ways in fulfilling their potential. A truly great club does more than develop athleticism, tactical intelligence or ball mastery. A great club teaches and instills values the players will carry with them into the next chapters of their lives. We never separate the player from the person, so a great club works to develop the whole person. It is difficult work, but it is what distinguishes a great club, from one that is just a “player mill”.
We know what “player mills” look like. The focus there is strictly on winning at all costs, even if the cost is emotional or even physical har mto a player. Players experience high rates of burnout and injury, eventually dropping out of the sport. This is particulary damaging at the younger ages as global statistics show 70% of young players drop out of the sport by age 13.
Instead of settling for being a “player mill, work to find a better balance. For sure, coaches must provide an effective football education, rich in tactical an technical instruction. Hopefully, its an education that aligns with the club’s established curriculum and training methodology and, hopefully, with the club’s overarching vision
Like Rafa Benitez , you should want to be more than a trainer or a mere coach. Ultimately your highest and best purpose is to develop human beings within the context of football. In this way, you may develop the next Albelda, Canizares or Mista, but you will definitely develop every one of your players into valuable contributing members of society who will credit your club with instilling within them the values that made them successful. Isn’t that what we really want to do?
Are you curious about what I can do for you and your club?
I work internationally and am always happy to meet new people and talk about how club culture drives results.
Feel free to get in touch with me. Bram@bramverbruggen.com