Once upon a time I was playing footy and I was becoming tired and irritated. Every time I hit the ball I struck it either too high or made it very easy to save.
An angelic wave of glory transfigured me briefly and suddenly I started hitting the ball sweetly every time.
The football would lift off the ground but stay low and powerful so that it was difficult, nay, impossible to stop. I scored so many goals that day my friends. There may have been laurel wreaths and women feeding me grapes and milk from coconut shells, I forget the finer details of my beatification.
The next time I played football I had forgotten how to kick the ball. You see, miracles tend not to happen twice.

However, from my seat in front of the tellybox this week I began to doubt this seeming fact as Liverpool booked their place in a second European Cup final in three years. The players on the team sheet each week certainly don’t appear to be world beaters, but one Messiah-like figure seems to bring religious feats out of these players when they take to the battlefields of Europe.
This man, Rafael Benitez, is a balding Spaniard with glasses and a paunch. When he and the face (mouth?) that sold a million papers, Jose Mourinho, landed on English soil it was the Portuguese who was expected to provide the English teams with the European glory (after all he’d just won the big one).
But it wasn’t to be. Despite a great domestic record, no matter what money he threw at the Champions League, Jose was to be undone. Three times now Benitez has out-thought his rival. What is his secret?
Part of it must be his calm and reassured presence pitch side (and in the dressing room, one presumes). While Mourinho looked on anxiously as Tuesday’s penalty shootout got underway, Benitez sat cross legged on the turf in total calm.
Do you think Benitez's pitchside Zen meditation during penalty shootouts will catch on with other teams?
It's great psychology really. If the manager is relaxed then his team should feel more at ease. I only noticed the manager alone doing it on the TV, but in the photos afterwards he had his coaching staff and players also sitting down around him. What a picture of meditative serenity to chill out his penalty takers, and help them take the team through to the final in Athens.
So how best to market this new Zen phenomenon? Right, I need T-shirts made for the cup final saying, “Relax with Rafa� on the back. Then on the front is a caricature of Benitez in his Zen meditative pose, wearing monk robes (LFC badged of course), smiling serenely and sipping a cup of cha.
Underneath it says “Don’t worry. Drink tea with Buddha Benitez.�
Imagine hordes of Liverpool fans storming the Acropolis on May 23rd, all sporting Buddha Benitez’s beaming visage.
Who's with me?

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