Istanbul Miracle worker could not do it on a cold windy night at Vigo

Rafa is probably one of the most well respected names in football for the past 15 years and is admired by clubs across all strata and fans across multiple generations alike. He has been around the block for about 4 decades now and has been on the books of Real Madrid, Valencia, Liverpool, Inter Milan, Napoli, Newcastle United. He has seen considerable success at each of these clubs.

But ever since his ill fated move to Everton, who happen to be bitter rivals of his most memorable club Liverpool, things have not been the same. Although in his mid 60s and said to be past his best. One may try hard not to be ageist here but his recent stints in China and Everton did not inspire much. And this move back to Spain seemed more likely that they were relying on the reputation he had built as a club saver at Newcastle United to come true and saw it as a shrewd acquisition as his tock was not at his highest.

Even though in the end, Celta Vigo has finished well above the drop zone, Rafa has not been the one to steer the ship clear of drop zone. In fact he is the one on whom the blame is thrown for let them sink that low in the first place. Though it would not be fair to squarely blame him as Celta were at the end of the road as far as their journey with their talisman Iago Aspas. They were generally feeding of scraps due to the recruitment not being in line with their general tactical identity. Him being a better cup manager in his prime makes it all the more of a mismatch that he ended up accepting a survival battle. 

Though they were expected to be in 13th on expected points, the fact that many claim he is stuck with what worked for him at Newcastle might be the reason of his downfall along with just plain old lack of luck. The board hoping for a new manager bounce to help them stay up did not help Benitez either as in hindsight that ended up working out better than expected. Claudio Giraldez has exceeded expectations and done better result wise than his far illustrious predecessor on paper. One can only hope that the rest of his career has better timing and he rides of into the sunset on a high note. As these few years have been rough on a man as tactically astute as he was for the majority of his career.

Cover Credits - BBC