Ex-Liverpool star reveals ‘horrendous’ Rafa Benitez cost him £200k with ‘absolute disgrace’ Champions League final call
STEPHEN WARNOCK has called out the “disgraceful” way he was treated by Rafa Benitez for Liverpool’s 2005 Champions League final.
Warnock played 19 games in the Premier League for Liverpool that season and was a regular member of The Reds’ squad.
However, when it came to the Champions League final in Istanbul, Benitez was only permitted to name a squad list of 18.
Warnock didn’t make the cut and while he says he could accept the decision, he hated the way Benitez went about it.
The final would end up being an unforgettable part of Liverpool’s history, with The Reds coming back from 3-0 down against AC Milan to win on penalties.
But Warnock, 42, who played 67 times for Liverpool, said he could only experience mixed emotions about the club’s glorious victory at the time.
He told the Undr the Cosh Podcast: “I’ve said this to loads of people – his [Benitez’s] tactics are brilliant, but his man management is zero.
“He has no idea how to speak to anyone or talk to anyone. It was summed up by Istanbul. Istanbul was an absolute disgrace with how he treated me and a few of the lads. He just didn’t care.
“It was two weeks after the season that the Champions League final was on, we were in [training] for those two weeks.
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“Two days before we were going over to travel to Istanbul and I remember the last training session, every time a squad list of 18 would go up, it would be the first XI and the subs. There was no added two or three players to travel [Which is now allowed].
“I remember running in after the last training session thinking ‘please be in’. I looked on the squad list and my name was there.
“I was like ‘f***ing hell, it’s the Champions League final. I’m either on the bench or playing’. I showered as quick as I could, got my phone and rang my family and said ‘listen, get the plane tickets to Istanbul’.
“I’m at home packing to get ready and my phone goes and it was Paco Ayestaran, who was the number two at the time to Rafa.
“He goes ‘we’ve made a mistake on the squad, you’re not in it’. I was like ‘what!?’ [Benitez] didn’t even have the b******* to ring me. I was like ‘you f***ing coward’. I was fuming.
“The team travelled, played the game, and after he [Benitez] comes up to me and says ‘I’ll speak to you next week’. He didn’t apologise.”
A young player breaking into the Liverpool squad at the time, he also revealed that he was annoyed to miss out on the £200,000 bonus players in the XI would have received.
He said: “I remember thinking at the time – it shouldn’t come into it, but it did – it was one of the biggest games of football‘s year, but our bonus was massive either way.
“It was £100,000 to lose it and £200,000 to win it. And I was thinking, ‘F***ing hell, that’s a massive amount of money.’
“Because I wasn’t on much money at the time. [That’s for] whoever’s in the [matchday] 18, it doesn’t go pro rata across the squad. Literally, if you’re in the 18, you get it.
“I’ve come from thinking last year I’m going to be playing in the Championship with Coventry, being on decent-ish money, but nowhere near that.”
Warnock revealed that he experienced mixed emotions watching the Champions League title parade afterwards, as he felt he should have been part of them.
He said: “It was hard for me because I’m a Liverpool fan and grew up standing on the Kop and I was thinking ‘I hate this team’. I was fuming.
“It’s not like I hated the team, I hated Rafa. I was sat there so happy for the lads, but also p***** off.
“I remember that night they said the plane leaves at this time to go to the parade in Liverpool, then they changed it and said all the squad involved, and their wives and girlfriends, were on it.
“We missed the parade and I watched it on Sky Sports. We missed it because our flight was late coming in.
“The squad literally landed at Liverpool airport, got ferried to the buses and started the parade.
“I just remember thinking ‘what a s***show’. I was gone, I’d decided I was leaving.”
After leaving Liverpool, Warnock would go on to play for the likes of Blackburn, Aston Villa and Leeds.
He won two caps for England during his playing career.