SOCCER/Chelsea v Liverpool: The glinting Champions League is as much a bright shield for Rafael Benitez as a coveted trophy. It deflects criticism, leaving him with the security he deserves while grappling with a first season in England.
Liverpool fans, enthralled by the semi-final with Chelsea, rejoice in him on the good days and keep faith with him on the all too numerous occasions when his side disappoint.
His advantage when games go wrong lies in his wholly merited status. With the exception of Jose Mourinho he was the most highly prized manager any club could have appointed last summer. With La Liga titles for Valencia in 2002 and 2004, topped off with last year's Uefa Cup, he not only overshadowed Real Madrid but hurled them into black despair.
Just as Mourinho had at Porto, Benitez shamed the galactico culture of the Bernabeu by reasserting the worth of integrated, smartly led teams. He found, however, his fellow countrymen slow to warm to him. By Spanish standards his team were too tough, too direct and too cruel in defence to be cherished.
By the end of last season his reputation had begun to rise and it is at a peak in his own country now all the La Liga clubs have been knocked out of the Champions League.
A lot of patience and adaptation has already been required in Benitez's career and there is more to come at Anfield. He is a man of tough opinions who did not hesitate to drive the popular Kily Gonzalez out of the Mestalla but he knew he would have to adjust himself to fit in at Anfield. The Valencia system was ditched at once. "We knew Milan Baros and Djibril Cisse couldn't play in a 4-2-3-1 formation and we changed to 4-4-2," he explained.
More generally he has provided the sweeping attacks at Anfield the crowd was latterly denied under Houllier. The thrill was back in the pounding of Bayer Leverkusen and, more astonishingly still, in the half-hour harrying of Juventus. The same tone is occasionally set at home in the Premiership but 10 away beatings in the league show he has no idea yet of how to repeat or replace that approach on the road.
The new Liverpool is a work in progress, as is the manager. Benitez is putting in longer hours then ever before. There might be no space for family life if the elder of his two daughters Claudia did not come and sit beside him when he is obsessively watching football videos at home. He reports, quite seriously, that she has been known to point out important details about players.
Benitez is in less need of advice when European football is at issue. The Champions League is his true country, where the customs and the terrain are understood instinctively. It must be admitted Juventus are so humdrum a team as to shame Serie A by contesting its leadership so forcefully but Liverpool's aptitude in Turin was still a revelation.
They never fell into the Premiership sloppiness for which Fabio Capello's team had been waiting and Liverpool's crammed five-man midfield exposed the lack of imagination in Juventus ranks when gaps had to be created. Liverpool grew even more sure of themselves when all their defence faced was long balls thumped in the general direction of a moody Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
That night was Benitez at his best, with his influence and the progress he is making both indisputable. John Arne Riise was back in form after two indifferent years, Djimi Traore never demolished his team-mates with any self-destructive episode and Igor Biscan was an effective midfielder at the highest level.
Xabi Alonso was the greatest joy, with his perfect passing and flawless analysis of the match as it swarmed around him.In 2002 he promised his wife Montse he would eventually win the Champions League. To Chelsea's unease it is the ambition he is best equipped to realise.
