Rafa Benitez is a very good manager. He's won the Champions League, UEFA Cup, La Liga, FA Cup, and probably a number of other less significant titles. If my memory serves me right the Spaniard also had the upper hand in his battles with the Dark Lord of Anti-Football when the Portuguese was at Chelsea.

In October 1995, Roy Hodgson took over as manager of Inter Milan. Almost 15 years later, Rafa Benitez - Hodgson's predecessor at Liverpool - left Anfield to manager Inter. Benitez that has been in charge at Inter for 22 games now: how do his first 22 games stack up against Hodgson's first 22 games in the 1995-96 season?

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Mexican side Pachuca beat 10-man Al Wahda of the United Arab Emirates 4-2 on penalties to cap a dramatic comeback and take fifth place at the Club World Cup. The CONCACAF Champions League winners were 2-0 down with eight minutes to go before substitute Dario Cvitanich struck twice, first [.

Lazio's 3-1 win over Inter Milan tonight has lifted them joint top of Serie A with AC Milan.

As for Inter, it's their fifth defeat already this season in Serie A, as Rafa Benitez gets closer to the exit door in Milan.

Alianza presentó a sus nuevos refuerzos: Rudis Corrales, Josue Odir Flores, Roberto Maradiaga y Edwin Benitez. También se supo que Willer Souza no sigue porque tiene una oferta en Brasil. Juan Lazo Cruz, quien falló uno de los penales, tampoco seguirá. En el caso de los jugadores del León de México (Zelaya, Julio y Cristian) [.

In news that will bring a superior smirk to the faces of many a United fan, news has emerged that, after six months in the job, Rafael Benitez has been sacked by Inter Milan, the same Inter Milan...
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It is now official- Inter Milan have sacked manager Rafa Benitez after just six months with the Spaniard. Benitez, who recently guided Inter to the Club World Cup in Dubai, had outraged Inter president Massimo Moratti by publicly asking the board for its backing and funding for new players. Under Benitez, Inter have struggled to [.

Life, the Universe, and coming to grips
with Liverpool Football Club.

I wonder what the line is on whether the match against Wolves on Wednesday will go ahead? More to the point, I wonder if some glorious, wonderful, magnanimous betting site will pay me to shove our five Australian readers towards their site to bet on whether the match against Wolves will go ahead?

Liverpool manager Roy Hodgson has stooped to a new low, not only is his Liverpool side just three points above relegation after their defeat to Wolves last night but now the boss is blaming the Anfield faithful for not getting behind his side, after another defeat the Liverpool fans could be heard chanting for Kenny Dalglish and former manager Rafa Benitez to take over the relegation threatened club.

According to figures posted yesterday, Premier League clubs paid an inordinate £67.1 million in order to sate the whims of the various agents, middle-men and brokers with which they dealt in the period between October 2009 and September 2010.

The results actually show a slight decrease from the £70.

The Serie A is wide open. Milan are top, and Juventus have finally recovered from calcipoli, sitting in third. Napoli's exciting young team containing Ezequiel Lavezzi and Marek Hamsik is finally clicking and has them fourth, as well as sixth-placed Palermo's young South American contingent of Javier Pastore, Edinson Cavani and Abel Hernandez.

Liverpool have announced that youngsters Martin Kelly and Daniel Pacheco have both signed contract extensions that will see them remain at the Anfield club until 2014 at least.
Defender Kelly has signed a three-year extension to his deal, whilst winger Pacheco signs a two-year extension.
Both players were involved in Liverpool's 1-1 draw at Steaua Bucharest on Thursday evening and Kelly in particular looks to be a promising prospect.

Kickoff from Anfield at 20:00 GMT, 3:00 EST.

Ways to Watch:

Match shown live on Sky Sports 1 (HD) in the UK and ESPN2 (HD) in the US.

ESPN3.com is also showing the match for those with the service.

MyP2P.eu
Atdhe.net
ChannelSurfing.net

Liverpool:

Team sheet when it's released.

It's the final group stages matchday of the Champions League, and Roma and Inter Milan need to win their midweek matches. After such a poor display from Italian sides in the Europa League, the Serie A needs to hold its head high and have three teams go into the knockout stages of Europe's top competition.

Werder Bremen 3-0 Inter Milan ( Sebastien Prodl, Marko Arnautovic, Claudio Pizarro) Werder Bremen heaped more pressure on Rafa Benitez as they beat Inter Milan 3-0 in the final Group A fixture between the two teams. The 3-0 defeat did not have any effect on Inter's qualification chances, but the Nerazzurri go into the Round [.

West Ham is amongst a number of clubs who are believed to be lining up a January move for Liverpool midfielder Lucas.
A recent good run in the first team has led to a host of clubs being linked with the player. These include West Ham in the Premier League as well as Brazilian side Santos and Sevilla in Spain.

There are many reasons to be positive about Liverpool FC at the moment, and one of them is the goalscoring form of David N'Gog. This season, he has proved that if you start him in a game, he will invariably score or create a goal. And as I will illustrate, not even Fernando Torres can keep up with N'Gog in the goalscoring stakes this season.

The flu has taken hold of the 1882 offices this week which accounts for a lack of updates and today's short match preview. I should quell any rumours before they start, I may have the flu but I'm not Luka Modric. It's purely coincidental that we've both been suffering this week and while we're both similarly talented at kicking a spherical ball about I'm not Croatian or a hobbit.

The Italian Football FanCast is the podcast for fans of Serie A and Calcio. On this edition of the Italian Football FanCast, we are delighted to welcome Susy Campanale from Football-Italia.net to the show to discuss the reasons behind Rafa Benitez's failings at Inter, the importance of Zlatan at Milan and the recent players strike in Serie A.

Well, after tonight's debillitating defeat to the Wounded Lion's of Newcastle United, we have to take yet another setback in our quest for sucess at Liverpool.Without Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher and an out of form Torres upfront, we looked a pale shadow of a team.Losing 3-1 was hard to take as we were the better team for most periods of the game and we deserved at least a point to take away from St.

Seongnam Ilhwa 0-3 Inter Milan ( Dejan Stankovic, Javier Zanetti, Diego Milito) Inter Milan took some pressure off the shoulders off Rafa Benitez with a 3-0 win over Seongnam Ilhwa in the semifinals of the 2010 Club World Cup. Inter Milan will now meet TP Mazembe in the finals of the tournament, while Seongnam will [.

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While a few members the AFR team were caught up studying with final exams or sprinting away from uni faster than Aaron Lennon to get home, Oli Sparrow and Eric Beard were keeping things cozy at the AFR quarters to talk the footy.

By Ollie Irish

Reports in Italy claim that Rafa Benitez either has been sacked by Inter or is about to be given the boot in the next 48 hours. Recent comments by Inter chief Massimo Moratti suggested that Benitez was a dead fat waiter walking, and not even victory in the Club World Cup – a hollow victory anyway, in a hollow tournament – can save the Spaniard; there are even reports that he has returned to his home in Liverpool.

It would appear that the last few grains of sand are about to run through the egg-timer of fate for Rafa Benitez at Inter Milan, with almost every news outlet in Italy claiming that the Spaniard is within a hair's breadth of the sack despite overseeing the Nerazzurri's fifth title of 2010 over weekend, albeit the utterly vapid FIFA World Club Cup bauble in Abu Dhabi.

And so, the first half of the Serie A season is gone. Wow did that go by fast. It feels like it was Giornata 1 just yesterday. Now it's vacation time for the calciatori of Serie A, who go escape to warm weather with their families for a little bit and then get right back to training for a January 6th re-start.

MILAN, Italy Rafa Benitez has denied a report in Gazzetta dello Sport that Inter Milan president Massimo Moratti has decided to end the Spaniard's reign at the San Siro. Under the headline "Benitez e' fuori!" ("Benitez is out!"), the newspaper details how the Spaniard will lose his job despite leading Inter to success in [.

Liverpool are hoping to sign Inter Milan youngster Davide Santon as Roy Hodgson looks to bring in more youthful talent to help build for the future.
The talented teenage Italian international has been told he can leave the San Siro and a host of clubs are looking to secure his signature and given the much publicized reports of a falling out between Hodgson and England international Glen Johnson the reports of interest in another right back are no surprise.

L'Internazionale ha gioco facile contro la prima volta di un'africana in finale nel mondiale per club. Batte i congolesi del Mazembe e conquista la coppa del mondo.

Non mi va di buttare veleno su una vittoria conquistata sul campo. Del resto a queste perfidie ci pensano benissimo in casa nerazzurra che continuano nella striscia dei "coitus interruptus".

Rafa Benitez is set to leave Inter Milan in the next few days, according to Guillem Balague.

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Strong rumors are currently circulating that Rafa Benitez has been sacked as Inter Milan coach. The Spaniard had only been in charge of the club since the summer, but a string of disappointing results in the league and Europe led to his demise.

It couldn't have happened to a nicer lad! News has just come in that the ex-Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez has been sacked by the Italian giants Inter Milan after just six months in charge. He inherited a team that had just won the biggest Treble with Jose Mourinho in charge, and in previous seasons only had [.

Some highs accompany the general slide towards disappointment.

Liverpool's progress in the Europa League ensured that there was still plenty of football to watch, but the successes on the continent couldn't mask the problems that the club continued to encounter in league. Big wins over Portsmouth and Sunderland couldn't erase the disappointment felt in losses away to Wigan and United the former was one of the worst performances of the season, and the latter came after Fernando Torres had given the Reds an early lead.

MILAN, Italy Rafa Benitez's agent has revealed that he is currently negotiating a deal to "rescind the contract" of the Inter Milan manager appearing to confirm reports that the Spaniard is facing the sack. Speculation has been rife in recent days that the parting of ways of Benitez and Inter is inevitable, though [.

MILAN, Italy Rafa Benitez's agent has revealed that he is currently negotiating a deal to "rescind the contract" of the Inter Milan manager appearing to confirm reports that the Spaniard is facing the sack. Speculation has been rife in recent days that the parting of ways of Benitez and Inter is inevitable, though [.

MILAN, Italy — Many predicted replacing Jose Mourinho at Inter Milan was the impossible job and so it proved for Rafa Benitez. After just six uncomfortable months in charge of the current Italian, European and now world club champions, the Spanish coach was fired shortly after a "back me or sack me" rant at the [.

MILAN, Italy — Many predicted replacing Jose Mourinho at Inter Milan was the impossible job and so it proved for Rafa Benitez. After just six uncomfortable months in charge of the current Italian, European and now world club champions, the Spanish coach was fired shortly after a "back me or sack me" rant at the [.

L'avventura dello spagnolo Rafa Benitez, sulla panchina dell'Inter, si è gi conclusa. Niente panettone, dunque, per l'ex mister di Valencia e Liverpool che, a due giorni da Natale, fa le valigie e abbandona clamorosamente la Milano nerazzurra. Due coppe vinte in meno di cinque mesi di difficile gestione della squadra interista, non sono bastate per [.

Liverpool midfielder Lucas Leiva has admitted that he used to prefer playing away from Anfield at the start of his career in English football.
The Brazilian international was seen as something that encapsulated former manager Rafa Benitez's final season in charge, one of the bad buys the Spaniard had apparently left the club with.

Adam and Kevin discuss the final match day of 2010 from the SerieAWeekly skype studio covering all the favorites from Benitez to Borriello, Cavani to Cassano, and AC Milan to AS Roma. This is not only be the final episode for the 2010 calendar year, but also the final Minute+10 as the podcast will be re-branding SerieAWeekly podcast in the new year.

Liverpool full-back Fabio Aurelio is determined to stay injury-free during 2011.
The Brazilian's time at Anfield has been hampered by injury and this season he has been restricted to just four starts due to some further niggling injuries since re-signing for the club back in the summer.
But the 31-year-old, who initially signed for the Reds from Valencia in 2006, hopes his fitness issues are now behind him and is hoping to play a major role over the coming weeks.