Rafa Benitez will forever be remembered as one of the all-time great managers of Liverpool Football Club.
Having made the move to Anfield from Valencia in the summer of 2004, the Spaniard guided the Reds to the pinnacle of Europe less than twelve months later as he defied the odds to topple one of the game's most remarkable sides, AC Milan, in the 2005 Champions League final.
In doing so, Benitez cemented his legacy alongside those who had reigned before him and accomplished similar feats as his face was illustrated onto a famous Kop banner alongside Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan, Kenny Dalglish and most recently Jurgen Klopp.
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But for all the joyous moments he brought supporters during his six-year spell at Anfield, Benitez's final years coincided with the club's downfall towards the end of the 2000s as American duo Tom Hicks and George Gillett took ownership of the club in the summer of 2007 from the late David Moores.
While Moores' decision to hand over the privilege of owning the then five-time European champions was one taken with the club's best interest at heart, as Roman Abramovich's purchase of Premier League foes Chelsea four years earlier had all but ended the success of local businessmen owning an elite-level club, Gillett and Hicks' time at Anfield was riddled with financial irresponsibility that saw the club almost run into administration only to be saved by New England Ventures (Fenway Sports Group) wiping out the club's rapidly-increasing debt at the eleventh hour in October 2010.
Yet despite the once-in-a-lifetime memories the 62-year-old Spaniard provided the travelling Kop with, as he reached two Champions League finals in three seasons, it was his bizarre attempt to force midfield maestro Xabi Alonso out the doors of Anfield in a bid to lure Aston Villa midfielder Gareth Barry to the club in the summer of 2008 which left Reds supporters disgruntled.
The luxury midfielder made the move to Anfield from Real Sociedad for £10.7m during Benitez's first summer at the helm, alongside fellow Spaniards Luis Garcia, Fernando Morientes, Josemi and Antonio Núñez as the newly-appointed Reds boss oversaw a Spanish revolution at Anfield.
Alonso wasted no time during his debut season showcasing the immense qualities which had earned him such a promising reputation back in his homeland. Yet despite suffering a horrific broken ankle during a boxing day clash with Chelsea in early January 2005, the midfielder starred in 32 games during his maiden campaign on Merseyside.
Of those 32 outings, eight came on Liverpool's renowned run to the Champions League final in Istanbul - where they defeated Olympiacos, Juventus and Chelsea along the way before that unforgettable night at the Atatürk Olympic Stadium, where Carlo Ancelotti's Italian champions were dethroned by an inspired second half performance from the Reds.
Having spent the best part of three months on the sidelines between January and April 2005, Alonso returned to the side for the quarter-final second leg against the Italian giants Juventus, after goals from stalwart defender Sami Hyypia and Garcia at Anfield eight days earlier had Benitez's men well-poised for their trip to Turin - as the Reds embarked on their travels to Italy aiming to seal a place in the final four of Europe's premier competition for the first time since the 1984/85 campaign.
Left without the treat of being able to call upon captain Steven Gerrard for the visit to the Stadio Delle Alpi, Alonso was paired with Croatian Igor Biscan in the centre of midfield, with John Arne Riise and Nunez on either side, in what was a typical Benitez-esque, defensive European lineup.
"We achieved a fantastic result and I'm very happy," said Benitez after holding the Old Lady to a stalemate and advancing to the semi-finals of the Champions League for the first time since the competition's reform in 1992 thanks to a 2-1 aggregate victory.
"In [Steven] Gerrard's absence, Xabi Alonso played a great game, especially when we had possession. It's incredible that he managed to play for the whole 90 minutes after missing so many games. Now Chelsea are favourites to reach the final, but we will give our best once again. I think we were great in defence, but the whole team played well. Juve played their own game, but we pressed them well during the whole 90 minutes."
Scoring the equaliser against AC Milan in the showpiece final later that season as he followed up his saved penalty kick by fiercely smashing the rebound past Dida into the roof of the net, Alonso would etch his name into the folklore of Liverpool Football Club as the Reds' lifted the most coveted prize in European football, against all the odds. Despite his role in the triumph, it was in the following three campaigns the Spaniard would begin to earn plaudits as one of the continent's finest deep-lying playmakers as he racked up a further 131 appearances on Merseyside before the summer of 2008.
Though that was when Alonso's long-term future at Anfield was plunged into immediate doubt as Benitez looked to lead Liverpool into a new, homegrown-based direction following the recent introduction of UEFA rules from the 2008/09 season onwards.
Benitez, who witnessed Gerrard blossom while playing in a more advanced role in the previous season - where he fired 21 goals and 19 assists, had looked to alter the makeup of his midfield foundations by making a swoop for Aston Villa midfielder Barry, which he aimed to fund by selling the Reds' maestro, Alonso.
The aforementioned UEFA ruling would mean that any side competing in the upcoming 2008/2009 season would be limited to just 17 non-homegrown players, with which Alonso counted as one. And with the Reds already having Pepe Reina, Daniel Agger, Martin Skrtel, Sami Hyypia, Alvaro Arbeloa, Javier Mascherano, Lucas Leiva and Fernando Torress in their ranks, Benitez viewed Alonso as the sacrificial Anfield member who would elevate such a headache for the club as well as inject some much-needed funds as Hicks and Gillett continued to ramp up the debt on Merseyside.
With Alonso away at that summer's European Championships in Austria and Switzerland, the Anfield hierarchy attempted to strike a deal for Barry with the Midlands outfit but the asking price of £18m proved to be too much for Liverpool - who had hoped to strike a £10m-£15m deal for the 27-year-old midfielder.
Barry, who would end his career with a record-breaking 653 Premier League appearances, had become a dependable stalwart for Martin O'Neil's promising Aston Villa side as he started all but one of the league games in the 2007/08 season, where the Villains achieved an impressive sixth-place finish and pushed Benitez side for a place in the following season's Champions League.
"As a manager, you have to think of the bigger picture, and in this case there was Barry, an English player who could play in a number of positions," said Benitez when reviewing the Alonso-Barry saga in an interview with FourFourTwo in 2018.
"With the rules that were coming in, we knew we would need more English players so we were trying to be prepared for that. It became more complicated, but I think it was the right thing to try because Alonso was not playing at the same level as before."
As it panned out, Benitez's acute plan would fail monumentally as the Spaniard swapped Anfield for Real Madrid the following season for a club-record fee of £30m after feeling under appreciated by his fellow countryman, while Barry would join Mark Huges' Manchester City in the same window as the Citizens embarked on a wild summer spending spree under their new owners, Abu Dhabi United Group.
The 2008/09 season, Alonso's last on Merseyside, would perhaps go down as his best. Lining up alongside Mascherano in a double-pivot, allowing Gerrard to continue his telepathic relationship with Torres in the final third. The Spanish midfielder played 47 times as Benitez's men fell short of a maiden Premier League title just a few weeks after exiting the Champions League at the hands of Chelsea in the quarter-final stage.
It was on this day in 2009 that Alonso returned to his native Spain, signing for Manuel Pellegrini's side, in what was a star-studded summer for Los Blancos as they also added Kaka, Karim Benzema and, of course, Cristiano Ronaldo. It was at the Santiago Bernabeu Alonso would truly earn the applause his performances warranted as he helped the club secure the much-craved La Decima triumph - the Whites' tenth European Cup - in addition to the four other major honours he won during his five years in the Spanish capital.
And if it hadn't been for Liverpool's desperate pursuit of Barry in 2008, Alonso may well have donned the Liverpool shirt more than the 210 times he did during his five years on Merseyside.
"The pursuit of Gareth Barry took some time for me to accept and, in all honesty, it changed the course of my future," Alonso said to The People in 2018.
"Leaving Liverpool was one of the hardest decisions of my life, but after what happened with Barry I knew in my heart I had to tell Rafa that I wanted to go to Madrid when they came knocking at the door."
And during Benitez's first Liverpool campaign without his midfield metronome in his ranks, the Reds slumped to an underwhelming seventh place finish and were made to settle for a spot in the following season's Europa League. Though it was Alonso's departure which had marked the beginning of the end for the promising squad Benitez had built during his time as manager as Mascherano and Torres headed for the Anfield exit in the 18 months after the midfielder's departure.
"I had no issue with Xabi [Alonso] wanting to join Real, for Spanish players that is the pinnacle, but I couldn't understand why Benitez didn't hold out an olive branch to sort things out," said former Reds defender and vice-captain Carragher, while speaking to the Daily Mail in 2017.
"Benitez had his best team in five years at Anfield. We were close to having a team that could win the Premier League and perhaps reach another Champions League final. Why did he have to continue the fight with Xabi? He had won the initial battle by getting the upturn in his form.
"The team suffered in what proved to be Benitez's final year. The way our team functioned broke down. Xabi's departure affected everyone."
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