He headed down the tunnel, avoided a few picture takers, autograph hounds, his own subs wanting to talk tactics. He signaled to them but avoided conversation, winding his way to an executive office and finding a private bathroom.
He looked in the mirror. "The fat Spanish waiter." His palms were still sweaty, so he washed them and then washed his face. He thought of Bill Shankly for some reason. Then Arrigo Sacchi. Then Bob Paisely, riding the bus through Liverpool after Rome. What he'd give to play Moechengladbach instead of this Lyon side.
And then the tactics for the second half clouded his mind, put him back in the room. Normally he could calm himself by knowing he played his players exactly as they needed to be played according to the circumstances. That was all he could do. Yes, Gerrard and Torres are important, but they are important because my position makes them important.
But his nervousness was still there. It couldn't be the mounting losses, the lack of faith and support from the Americans, how everyone was hounding after his transfer record. These things were nothing to him, never had been, as phony as his look of disinterest on the sidelines. What was it?
He walked back the dressing room to face his youngsters. Carragher looked more red in the face than usual. Fine. He wasn't going to give the rousing European speech, not so far from home, not when he couldn't even point to the away supporters. Just tactics.
The second half and he was helpless in the technical area. Five minutes in he knew Voronin had to go in the mid sixties, and he balked for a second before saying the name. "It's Babel for Voronin." Sammy looked up. Rafa noticed his notebook was gone.
"Babel?"
"Yes." Rafa said resignedly. "Babel." The name always struck a chord with Benitez. He was the towering representative of this team, a club sometimes incapable of speaking the same language both on and off the pitch. Babel was the link, figuratively and literally, between two worlds, the old Liverpool and the new, between Gerrard and Torres. He was the living fulfillment of what this post-Istanbul Liverpool was capable of, and he knew, had known for a long time, that it might not be enough. And he knew there was no one else to blame for that but himself.
Benitez wiped his hands against his sides and Babel scored, a goal of immense technical beauty, worked from outside the box. The bench rose, he could hear Sammy swear, so Rafa checked his watch. A few minutes later and Babel wildly missed kick a crucial free-kick. A feeling of deja vu set in. He remembered the words of the announcer from that night in 1977, "you still wouldn't want to put your mortgage on either side."
Then Kyrgiakos fell over and Lyon scored. Sammy said fuck and the whole bench sighed and he could hear the shutters flashing at an accelerated rate. Rafa laughed.
"No Alan Hansen I suppose."
"The boy still has promise." Sammy chipped in.
"I know. Perhaps I do too."
The whistle blew and Rafa took a few more notes, the pencil a bit steadier now. Before walking down the tunnel, his international squad angling to get past, Rafa turned again to the marvelous blue-lit pitch, almost too perfect, as if the game never happened. He thought of Garnier, of Just Fontaine, of St. Etienne and "Allez les Verts!" and the tragedy of Platini, that someone as lovingly rebellious on the pitch, the sort of player that drove Benitez mad, could be so bureaucratic off it. He smiled and thought they might not be so different.
Then he turned to face the press.
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