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Mauricio Pellegrino will extend a warm Saints welcome to Rafa Benitez on Sunday – but is desperate to get one over his mentor.
Pellegrino and Benitez go back a long way, with the Argentinian’s arrival in English football coming thanks to a brief spell at Liverpool under the man who he will face in the St Mary’s dugouts as Saints take on Newcastle this weekend.
After ending his playing career, Pellegrino later returned to England to work on Liverpool’s coaching staff under Benitez, before following him to Inter Milan.
Since then Pellegrino has branched out on his own, and now, for the first time, the close friends will go head-to-head and pit their wits, and their respective teams, against each other in the Premier League.
Pellegrino clearly has the utmost respect for Benitez and said: “First of all he was a really important teammate because we working together in Valencia as a player and after in Liverpool he gave me the opportunity to work in professional football as his assistant and be in contact with the Premier League with this wonderful team.
“My experience was really nice. Not just as a manager but sharing a lot of things with the staff.
“Always I will be grateful to Rafa, not just professional but as a person. He is a good example for me as a professional and as a person.
“For me one of the best things is I changed my point as a player and a coach as at a pedagogic level he was one of the best I met teaching principles of the game attacking and defending.”
Pellegrino says he spoke to Benitez about the Saints squad when he took over at the club, and had a general discussion with him as recently as a few weeks ago.
He is still a sounding board for the Saints boss, though he is trying not to overthink things ahead of facing Benitez, as he believes Benitez won’t overthink facing him.
“I don’t think that Newcastle will change,” said Pellegrino.
“First of all we didn’t have too much time the last two weeks to change everything because most of the players were with their national teams. I will not change too much against them.
“Statistically you can change on the board, but the most difficult thing is to do this plan on the pitch.
“I believe you have to repeat your style all the time because I believe in the connection between the players and each other.
“One thing is to train on the board and another is what we can do on the pitch.”
If Pellegrino’s time under Benitez were his formative years in coaching, he very much feels he is his own man now.
“I like this profession, I enjoy doing my job, and I am in a situation I enjoy and to play against him is because I am part of the Premier League,” reflected Pellegrino.
“I have to be ready to prepare my team to beat them.
“It’s something not many people can do and I have to be grateful of my situation right now.”
He added: “I translate I had to be myself in every single moment.
“I think that I learn from my experience in Barcelona, my experience in Liverpool a lot.
“I think always I am the type of person I like to learn because to be a manager or coach is something that never finishes and you have to learn every day because we work with human beings who play football.
“It is a nice challenge for me to train them every day and try to improve them every day as a player and a person every day. This is difficult but we have to try every day.”
Though Pellegrino doesn’t expect Benitez to want to share a glass of wine after the game, he admits they may crack open a soft drink and enjoy each other’s company.
But before that he is all too aware that Saints really need to bag three points.
After just two wins in charge of the club so far, Pellegrino is desperate to get a sense of momentum into the season at what is that start of a kind run of four fixtures before things get much tougher after the November international break.
“It is important for us because we need three points,” confessed the Saints boss.
“I think we deserve a bit more the last two games especially. We play well and a bit better than Stoke I think and didn’t deserve to lose against Man U at home.
“We want to change the results at home so it’s important for us.
“I try to do and I will train and I will do the things I believe will be better.
“As a manager you can control the people you put in charge, the player, the training session, the system, but you cannot control the result.
“This is part of the job.
“I am honest with my players and we have to improve a lot of things and keep doing the positive things we have been doing the last games.”
Pellegrino might well have needed a bit of advice from Benitez from time to time, with things having been far from straightforward since he took over at Saints.
He has had to handle the Virgil van Dijk saga, but isn’t giving away too much on the captaincy issue that still doesn’t feel entirely resolved.
“For me it is not a situation for which I will be worried,” insisted Pellegrino.
“I have four, five or six players who can be captain in my team.
“To be a leader in the past the captain because you deserve to be the leader of the team. You have to deserve it. It is one position.
“I cannot name the captain. You have to win with your behaviour inside and outside the pitch.
“We have a group of players that represent the squad, seven players, and all of them for me can be a captain.”
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