Friday, November 09, 2007

Liverpool's Confidence Is Back: Rafa Benitez

Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez has claimed that the Reds' record victory over Besiktas in the Champions League, will serve them as a morale booster.

The Reds hammered the Turkish club 8-0 at Anfield on Tuesday night in a must-win group game, following their poor start to the campaign with just one point from opening three games.

The Merseysiders are now hoping to take confidence further into the campaign as they need victories against Porto and Marseille to advance to the knock-out stage.

The Reds have a history of turning on a great performance when their backs are against the wall, and Benitez gave an example of the club's 3-1 win over Olympiacos and the final at Istanbul in 2005.

"I do not feel the players had on their minds that there was pressure on me and the club," said the Spaniard.

"I feel they only knew they needed to win, and they knew they have succeeded in different matches in the past.”

"I recall the game against Olympiacos a couple of years ago. We needed to win by two goals and could not afford to concede. But we let one in late in the first half and that gave us a real problem to qualify.”

"We had to go out and score three then in the second half. But we achieved that, and now my team has the experience of playing under great pressure and reaching their objectives, however hard it may seem.”

"The players knew they needed to win three games and they have set out to do that. Now we must do it twice more and we know our confidence is back.”

"Everybody can now believe we can beat Porto, and then Marseille. We have re-affirmed our strength in Europe, we can be there and qualify because we have done things like this before."

He added: "We have made a statement with the victory. The team showed character and quality, they showed they were hungry.”

"There were a lot of positive things. It was a good game with a lot of goals, different goals, from different players.”

"They were hungry, they wanted to win, they wanted to score goals. They produced the quality and the character we were looking for.”

"I did not expect eight, but we were trying to score a lot of goals, you don't get too many opportunities like this."

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