Since his acrimonious departure from Inter Milan last December, Rafael Benitez has had plenty of time on his hands. Presumably after finishing all of the puzzles and finally learning to play piano, he’s decided to kill his time with those two great loves of ousted politicians: charity work and lucrative consultancy. And he’s accomplished both, somehow, with his new blog.

Rafa recently launched his own website, rafabenitez.com, to promote his wife’s Montse Benitez Foundation and give Benitez a platform to blog about soccer. Which he should quit, because that’s totally our thing.

In his blog, Rafa, hired by TV network Eurosport as an analyst with years of experience and insight at football’s highest level, offers breakdowns and opinion on such fresh topics as the Champions League Final that was four months ago, Premier League vs. La Liga, and how important it is for teams to play like a team and not a collection of individuals. Or namely, exactly what you’d expect an unemployed guy to put in his football blog.

Here’s a randomly chosen excerpt from his blog post about stamina training:

The search for collective performance must be programmed from a broad knowledge and analysis of the sport. This planning has to satisfy the energy demands and overall performance. The program must have the highest number of overall training structures that are sufficient to ensure an adequate adaptation, through continuous improvement of the greater number of potential training components. You need to plan tasks with multi-objective.

The development of the methodology of endurance training without the knowledge of the interaction of all the components that affect a football team planning, would not be valid. It’s important to locate the specific development of stamina in a global planning.

Riveting.

Full story: Liverpool Echo