Former Chelsea manager Rafa Benitez will be returning to England for the first time since his departure from the West London outfit in the summer. He will be bringing his Napoli team to play against Arsenal in the group stages of the Champions league. Appointed as the interim manager, Benitez managed to get to the club finished in third place and he also won the Europa league trophy as well. Chelsea were already in the Europa league when Benitez was appointed as the manager. Since taking over at Napoli, he has managed to transform the Italian club into one of the title challengers.
He has said that the target was to finish in the top four because of the poor start made by the club under former manager Roberto di Matteo. He is happy to have achieved this target of the club, while also winning the Europa league, which was a bonus. Napoli are a prestigious club, but they have not been real title challengers since the days of Diego Maradona. The path laid by former manager Walter Mazzarri has been built even further by Benitez. After opening the European season with a brilliant 2-1 win over last season’s finalists Borussia Dortmund, the club will be hoping to get at least a point away from the Emirates.
“I am pleased, because we won. We finished in the top three, which was the target and won the Europa League. The majority of professionals and the people who followed the team every day could see that we were trying to do our best and we did a good job in the end. After 26 years of coaching around the world, you have to adapt and you have to enjoy it when you have an opportunity to manage at a team like Napoli in the Champions League,” said Benitez.