The inside story of Rafa Benitez's most extraordinary Newcastle United presser

Writer Miles Starforth has reported on Newcastle United for 20 years. This is the latest in a series of recollections and anecdotes from his time covering the club.
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The Estadio Municipal de Braga Is like no other in European football.

Hewn into the walls of a disused quarry, Braga’s two-sided home, built for Euro 2004, is spectacular. At one end of the stadium is a rock race, while the two stands are incredibly steep.

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Newcastle United’s pre-season itinerary in the summer of 2018 would take the club to the stadium for a friendly against the Portguese team.

And that night would be memorable – for all the wrong reasons.

Dymanite had been used to blast rock from the hillside in order for the stadium to be built, and what happened after Newcastle took to the field for what was their penultimate pre-season friendly would also be explosive.

Rafa Benitez’s explosion that night, a blast aimed at owner Mike Ashley, had been a long time coming.

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It had been building since January that year, when Benitez got into the first of a series of escalating stand-offs with Ashley over transfer funds and his own contract.

Miles' Memories.Miles' Memories.
Miles' Memories.

Ashley wanted Benitez to commit before discussing transfer funds. However, Benitez – who had been looking for a long-term “project” in English football when he joined the club in 2016 – wanted to agree a transfer budget first.

Benitez’s distant relationship with Ashley had long been strained by the time he sent his team out at the 30,000-capacity Estadio Municipal de Braga. In the buildup to the game they had trained on the pitches next to the ground that had been used by Alan Pardew and his players five years earlier.

A couple of days earlier journalists in Portugal with the team had been invited to training to watch Benitez and his players train. Jonjo Shelvey – who would go on to miss a large part of that season through injury – sat out the session and the game.

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Dwight Gayle would play a full part, though Matt Ritchie did his best to put him off in shooting practice with a shout of “West Brom” when he went to strike the ball. Gayle would spend that season on loan at The Hawthorns.

Rafa Benitez at the Estadio Municipal de Braga.Rafa Benitez at the Estadio Municipal de Braga.
Rafa Benitez at the Estadio Municipal de Braga.

The team, which had impressively held Porto to a goalless draw at a packed Esradio do Dragao four days, seemed relaxed and ready.

Benitez, however, was anything but relaxed given his frustrations with the club’s hierarchy, and “everything” went wrong against Braga, who deservedly won 4-0 after an uncharacteristically shambolic performance from Newcastle, normally so organised and disciplined under the Spaniard.

After the game, I took an lift down to the press room, which was in the bowels of the stadium. There were rows and rows of chairs laid out, but only a handful of journalists.

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The players, as a group, had decided not to speak, and eventually Benitez came in, sat down in the near-empty auditorium. The first question was about the game. The defeat, he said glumly, had been a “wake-up call”.

Rafa Benitez faces journalists in Braga.Rafa Benitez faces journalists in Braga.
Rafa Benitez faces journalists in Braga.

Tellingly, Benitez added: “Things are not going well off the pitch and you can see a reflection of that on the pitch.”

Benitez’s answers were short – and to the point.

Question: What things do you mean when you say it’s not going well off the pitch?

Benitez: “Everything.”

Q: Are there any players close to coming in?

Benitez: “I have no idea.”

Q: The players told us after the game they couldn’t speak to us, why was that?

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Benitez: “As I say things aren’t going well off the pitch, and you can see a reflection.”

Q: Do you expect deals in the remainder of the window?

Benitez: “We’ll try to change things in the next 10 days. We’ll try our very best. I have no idea. We can talk and be close, but after ... we’re not so close.”

Q: Is there money to spend?

Benitez: “I have no idea.”

Asked about frustration on Tyneside, he added: “They (the fans) have to be concerned. We’re concerned. They have to be concerned. We’re also concerned.”

And so it went on. Benitez made his point. “Everything” was wrong at a club which had finished 10th in the Premier League a few months previously.

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Benitez relaxed off-camera in the eerily-quiet corridor outside, having delivered his message. We know now that summer was the beginning of the end for Benitez, whose contract was to expire at the end of the season.

United’s manager had set the tone for the final month of the transfer window, and he did the same ahead of the January window with another terse post-game press conference at Anfield, which was dubbed “Braga-lite”.

Benitez always chose his words carefully. He never swore, unlike many of his predecessors. Everything – on and off the pitch – was seemingly calculated and carefully thought through by the man who had brought the club back from the brink a couple of years later.

It was fascinating dealing with Benitez during his three years on Tyneside. He had an anecdote to illustrate every point.

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Benitez, linked with a return to St James's Park should a £300million takeover be approved by the Premier League, wasn’t as quotable as some of the club’s previous managers, but everything he said carried weight. There were few throwaway lines.

And Benitez was a master at getting his message across, often with as few words as possible, just as he did in that extraordinary presser at the Estadio Muncipal de Braga.

Read the first instalment of Miles’ Memories here