ITALY: Benitez happy with first season

Napoli coach Rafa Benitez has urged fans to
be realistic.
Benitez is proud of his first season in charge.
“Looking at the statistics, this is almost a
record-breaking campaign for this club,
despite a change of Coach, players and style
of football. We need to become more mature.
“When they talk about me at Napoli , people
forget I was at Extremadura and the
Real Madrid youth academy. I always
worked with the reality that I didn’t have
many funds at my disposal. And yet I won!
Valencia and Liverpool didn’t have a high
revenue when I was there, but we worked on
the mentality of the players.
“We need to work harder and make the right
choices on the transfer market. I think we
are on the right path. During the week I
worked on defending and counter-attacks,
then asked the lads to be just as motivated
as they were against Juventus .
“When we don’t perform the way we should,
the mentality of the players has to come out.
When the lads come close to something
important, they tend to give up. They’ve got
to understand that.”