Rafael Benitez Supports Andoni Iraola at Liverpool

Rafael Benitez has seen what happens when a Spaniard walks into Anfield with big expectations on his shoulders. Now he believes Andoni Iraola has a crucial edge as he starts his own Liverpool reign.

Iraola was appointed last month as the club’s new head coach, stepping in after Arne Slot was dismissed barely a year after guiding Liverpool to a record-equalling 20th league title. It is a ruthless change at a ruthless club, but Benitez is convinced the 42-year-old arrives better prepared than most.

He already knows the terrain.

“Iraola has done really well obviously in Bournemouth as you have seen,” Benitez said, pointing to the work that transformed Bournemouth into one of the Premier League’s most awkward opponents last season.

Benitez’s interest in Iraola didn’t begin on the south coast. It goes back to Spain, to Rayo Vallecano, where Iraola built his reputation with an aggressive, front-foot style that caught the eye of coaches across Europe.

“We were following him when he was in Rayo Vallecano,” Benitez explained. “One of the members of my staff was watching him training and he told me after that he liked it because he (Iraola) was involved, he's trying to do things on the pitch all the time.”

That detail matters. Benitez has worked at enough clubs, in enough leagues, to recognise when a coach is not just a tactician on a whiteboard but a presence on the training pitch, shaping sessions, driving standards, setting the tone. Iraola, he says, is that type.

“Bournemouth has done really well and now he has a different challenge.”

The scale of that challenge needs no explanation to Benitez. He was the first Spaniard to sit in the Liverpool dugout, guiding the club between 2004 and 2010, winning the Champions League and an FA Cup while coming agonisingly close to a league title. He knows the weight of the red shirt, the noise of the Kop, and the scrutiny that never really switches off.

Speaking to Sky Sports, he didn’t downplay what Iraola is walking into.

“It's (Liverpool) a massive club. But I think he has an advantage – he knows the league,” Benitez said.

When Benitez arrived in England from Valencia, he had to adjust on the fly. The pace, the physicality, the relentlessness of the Premier League were all new. Iraola has already done that adaptation work at Bournemouth. That, in Benitez’s eyes, could be decisive.

“At the beginning when we arrived to the Premier League, it was totally different. But he knows the league.”

That knowledge, Benitez believes, will buy Iraola time where others might have needed a season just to find their feet. He has seen the stadiums, felt the tempo, learned how quickly a game can tilt in England. Now he must apply that experience to a club that expects to compete for everything, every season.

If the league is familiar, the supporters will be, too – at least in spirit. Benitez is adamant that Iraola’s football will connect with them.

“The fans will be very supportive, for sure. The way that he wants to play, I think they like that. And I think he has great possibilities to do well.”

High energy. Aggressive without the ball. Brave with it. Those are the traits that drove Iraola’s Bournemouth and defined his Rayo Vallecano side. They also echo what Liverpool fans have grown used to in recent years: intensity as a non-negotiable.

Benitez’s message is clear. Liverpool have turned to a coach who already understands the chaos of the Premier League and has shown he can bend it to his will. The rest will come down to whether Iraola can impose that same personality on a dressing room built to win now, not later.