Rafa Benitez opens up about his Madrid sack and the impact of club president Perez's constant presence on the squad

Rafa Benitez who cried at his unveiling in the summer was sacked just six months later in January from his position as Real Madrid head coach and was replaced immediately with club legend, Zinedine Zidane.
In his explosive revelation, he also regretted that the constant presence and press statements of club president Florentina Perez had a choking impact on himself and his backroom staff, causing them not to have as much freedom with the squad as they would have loved to.

Speaking on BT Sport, Benitez said: “Obviously as someone who has come from the Academy of Real Madrid, I was really proud to be there every time that I was.
“It's a pity because we qualified [for the knockout stages of the Champions League] without losing any games and scoring a lot of goals.
“We were really pleased with the team and it's a pity that we're not there.”

He added: “It's difficult to explain. You need to know exactly what happened in Real Madrid in the last years.
“You could see Camacho, Del Bosque, Pellegrini, Mourinho, Ancelotti [all hired and fired as Real boss]... so it's not easy to be there manager there.

“You have to do everything perfect. As soon as something is wrong or the chairman thinks that it's wrong then you're used to having problems.
I think that we were quite good, as I said before. I think that we could do really well but they were a little bit nervous and the fans were a little bit nervous and the chairman was a little bit nervous then they change the manager.”

Benitez eluded to the claustrophobic atmosphere of having to work under club president Florentino Perez.
He said: “My assistant Fabio Pecchia said there is a permanent presence of the chairman. He's around, he's talking with players, he's talking with the press.

“He's always around, it's not easy for a manager, especially coming from England, to see the chairman talking with players or talking with the press every single day.”
Benitez added: “When you talk about consistency it is the key word because to win the league you have to be consistent.

“You have to fight against Barcelona and Barcelona has a style of football, a model of football and then Real Madrid is changing managers every year so you have to start again.

"That is the reason why Real Madrid has won one league title in the last seven, Atletico Madrid one and Barcelona five. Barcelona now has been in six cup finals in the last eight years.

"They've won more than double the trophies of Real Madrid in the time that the chairman is there, so I think it is because they are consistent and that is the key to win the league title.”

Asked whether Perez was the problem, Benitez sighed and said: “He did a great job in terms of business. Real Madrid needed to improve the business part of the club and he did really well.

“In football the problem is that Barcelona is still winning and winning, so he's changing because he's trying to find solutions but still Barcelona is winning more every year. That is the big problem for Real Madrid now.”

He added: “I'm frustrated a little bit because I was sacked.

"As someone who for 20 years worked at Real Madrid as a player and a coach to go there and see the players who you could see were really competitive, good professionals; to see that you couldn't control things in the way that you would like to do it and then improve the team as a team is a little bit frustrating, yes.”