When former Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez is asked whether he had expected his then-players Xabi Alonso and Alvaro Arbeloa to become managers, his response is brutally honest. Arbeloa, not really," he says. "For me, Arbeloa was a surprise." Almost 20 years after Benitez brought them together at Anfield, the pair will go head-to-head as Arbeloa's Fulham host Alonso's Chelsea on Monday.
The pair won the 2010 World Cup and two European Championships with Spain, along with domestic league and cup triumphs when they both joined Real Madrid after Liverpool. They played together for seven years at club level and shared the pitch 262 times for club and country, and their careers have remained closely intertwined since. Arbeloa was promoted from Real Madrid B to replace Alonso when he was sacked by the Spanish giants in January last season.
"He was in Castilla [Real Madrid's academy], which was similar to how I started, and then he went to Madrid in special circumstances," Benitez said of Arbeloa's rise to Real manager. They both returned to England in July to take up their first Premier League managerial roles and now lead clubs whose stadiums are only two miles apart. "With Alvaro, he knows the Premier League," Benitez told BBC Sport.
"But his experience is shorter than Xabi's. We need to know how he can cope outside Real Madrid, which protects you in a way. Outside, you are on your own." It's no surprise that, having played as team-mates – including under Jose Mourinho and Carlo Ancelotti at Real Madrid, and Vicente del Bosque with Spain – socialised off the pitch and even gone on holiday together, the pair are, in the words of Arbeloa, "very good friends", despite being "rivals when the game starts".
He explained they spoke to each other in the lead up to Monday's match, but not about football. Other similarities will see the duo live close to each other in Cobham, Surrey, with their children attending the same school. In the words of Arbeloa, their friendship "will never change".
Alonso was one of Benitez's first Liverpool signings in 2004 as he looked to overhaul Gerard Houllier's squad, Arbeloa then joining in 2007 from Deportivo after rising through the ranks at Real Madrid. Benitez explained that Alonso has experience of "coaching at a different level in a different country", having had success in the Bundesliga at Bayer Leverkusen by winning a league and cup double in 2024. Alonso, in particular, had "vision" on the pitch, says Benitez, while his experiences playing at Liverpool, Real Madrid and then under Pep Guardiola at Bayern Munich would have "opened his mind" to a range of coaching approaches.
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