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Benitez is the Yin To Mazzarri's Yang

Claudio Villa

Benitez/Mazzarri and Parma Preview.

Benitez seems to be the yin to Mazzarri's yang. There are many examples of this and I figured we could go through some of these things, we are at the 13th week so there has been enough time to properly assess Benitez's work so far.

He Plays young players.(We have seen a ton of playing time for Lorenzo Insigne)

Uses rotation (Marekiaro played literally every minute of every game last season in all competitions! Which is very much in-line with the way Mazzarri had used the other two tenors while they were still here)

Gives players a chance (Bruno Uvini, Giandomenico Mesto, Pablo Armero, Josip Radosevic, Federico Fernandez)

How many players have we seen (or not seen) come in on transfer and not make it to the field (Hoffer,Dumitru,Ignacio Fideleff)

Except in the case of people seeing playing time because of injury/ban issues. (Marco Donadel, Eduardo Vargas $17million?!?! Hopefully we will see him in the second half of the season upon return from Gremio!)

Buys players that are both experienced but are not past their prime.

Jose Callejon, Gonzalo Higuain, Dries Mertens, Raul Albiol, Pepe Reina! (Luciarelli, Emanuele Calaio?!)

Uses tactical changes to the lineup to make players have to work for their position (although in fairness to Mazzarri when Cavani arrived Fabio Quagliarella hit the door after sitting the bench for ONE EUROPA league game so he may have been hesitant to sit anyone after that.

Also what can be seen as a downside to Benitez's choices could be the loss of Paolo Cannavaro (would like to see him in the back-line because of CL experience even if it is for only one campaign),

Claims responsibility for losses and praises the team when need be (COUNTLESS flashbacks of Mazzarri pointing at his watch during games we were behind in and somehow it always being LUCK whenever the team lost).

Bad calls in soccer do exist and may sway the outcome of a game roughly once a season but to blame refs continually is not something a professional coach should use as a crutch.

The rotation of players on Benitez's part will help us to keep quality players who would otherwise leave(German Denis, Luca Cigarini anyone?!)

Mazzarri even went as far as letting players go in advance to a club he was soon to take over(Hugo Campagnaro, Walter Gargano). The owners of inter opted not to keep Gargano he went instead to Parma(as well as Ignacio Fideleff).

Which brings us to think weekend’s game.

Parma at home should be a game that we can win. Parma is always really strong when they are playing at home; Napoli beating them was their first home loss last season. This is the type of fixture that I am glad to have benitez at the helm. In the past couple of seasons we have seen Gli Azzuri go into games that we should win and seem to struggle with last gasp goals. Arguably this has happened this year with giving up points to Sassuolo of all teams! This should be a pretty straightforward match but Parma are no pushovers. They have some potential with the 2 journeyman leading their attack Antonio Cassano, and Amauri. We know Rafa Benitez will find some nice middle ground between sitting players we need for Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday but not sit so many people that we end up giving up points at home.

Not one for predictions(as anything can happen in calcio and besides that I am often wrong) but we should get maximum points from this game at the San Paolo on Saturday, to keep the pressure up on frontrunners Roma and that other team in front of us.....

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