“You’ve Got to Lift Yourself up Again and Keep Fighting”: Miguel Ángel Benítez Opens up on Career

Miguel Angel Benitez of Paraguay and Juan Reynoso Guzman of Peru (Photo by Mark Thompson /Allsport)

This is the second part of the story about Miguel Ángel Benítez. You can read the first part — where he talks about playing for Paraguay in a World Cup, moving to Spain, and sharing a dressing room with Diego Simeone — here.

On June 28, 1998, France and Paraguay faced off in the Round of 16 of the FIFA World Cup in Lens. The odds were heavily swayed in France’s favor: the hosts had won each of their three group stage matches vs. Denmark, Saudi Arabia and South Africa, scoring nine goals and conceding just one penalty goal. As for Paraguay, they had barely managed to qualify for the knockout round after beating Nigeria on the final day, edging Spain by a point. As if that wasn’t enough, Les Bleus boasted a number of future legends like Thierry Henry, Lilian Thuram, and Didier Deschamps.

And yet, Paraguay dug deep and held their own against an attack-minded French side. They looked set to take the match to penalties until the 114th minute, when Robert Pirès eluded a web of Paraguay defenders and fired in a cross towards David Trezeguet, who nodded the ball into the path of Laurent Blanc, who converted the golden goal to snatch a narrow victory for France. Two weeks later, France thrashed defending champions Brazil 3-0 in Saint-Denis to secure their first-ever World Cup trophy.

After this heartbreaking defeat, Miguel Ángel Benítez refused to wallow in misery and instead utilized it as extra motivation. He knuckled down and excelled for RCD Espanyol, racking up 8 goals and 2 assists in 35 appearances for the Catalan side in the 1998/99 season. Despite these stellar displays in Spain’s top flight, Paraguay manager Ever Almeida initially overlooked him for the 1999 Copa América squad. However, with José Cardoso suffering an injury just before the tournament, Almeida had no other choice but to call Benítez up for the Copa.

Albirroja supporters began to demand his inclusion, and even Paraguay president Luis González Macchi decided to weigh in. Macchi had only ascended to the presidency a few months earlier after the assassination of Vice President Luis María Argaña, with President Raúl Cubas resigning after being suspected of being involved in the murder. When asked whether or not Benítez should be included in the squad, Macchi unequivocally threw his support behind “El Peque” and stated that he must be called up.

“They had to call me up at the last second because of Cardoso’s injury and the popular support that I had at the moment,” stated Benítez in an exclusive RG interview. “We had some issues at the 1998 World Cup, there were some Paraguay teammates who didn’t agree with my inclusion, and that’s why I wasn’t selected at first. I had demonstrated in the World Cup and the qualifiers that I was an important player, and the fans had taken a fancy to me and loved me. In the end, the public won, and I was called up to the 1999 Copa América.”

At 27 years old, Benítez was finally going to be competing in the oldest international tournament in world football, and he was going to be playing in his native Paraguay. Their first match ended in a goalless stalemate vs. Bolivia, with Benítez coming off the bench at halftime for La Albirroja. Almeida learned from his mistake and started him in the second match, and he quickly reaped the rewards as Benítez bagged a brace in a 4-0 thrashing of Japan.

“My main qualities were velocity, aggression, and close control. I was a very explosive player who was used to playing with the ball, but when I went to Europe, I achieved the ability to sprint back and forth that I was previously lacking,” added Benítez.

“I wasn’t a luxury player, but some of the goals I made in my career were very beautiful individual plays. I was very fast, I didn’t wait for things to happen, I’d square up against my defender, do an oriented control, and fire at goal. I sacrificed a lot to get there, but I triumphed because I took care of myself in terms of my image and professional life.”

Paraguay ended up topping their group after edging Peru 1-0 via Roque Santa Cruz’s late winner, before taking on Uruguay in the quarterfinal. The hosts took an early lead as Benítez received the ball on the edge of the box, enabling it to roll off his thigh and turning around, before leaving his opponent in his dust with a swift change of direction, and then caressing the ball into the bottom right corner. However, Uruguay’s Marcelo Zalayeta drew level in the second half, paving the way for a penalty shootout.

From Hero to Zero

Each of the first seven penalty takers had found the back of the net when Benítez stepped up to the spot. He chose to fire in a low, driven shot to the right corner, but unfortunately for him, Uruguay goalkeeper Fabián Carini guessed right and deflected the ball onto the post and out of harm’s way. Federico Magallanes would convert the following spot-kick for Uruguay, eliminating Paraguay in their own backyard.

“I honestly still think about it. Nobody thought I would miss the penalty. Penalties are a lottery, either it goes bad or it goes well, and unfortunately, it went poorly for me,” recalled Benítez. “However, people never complain about it to me because I’ve always given everything for the national team and delivered my 100%, I never played a bad game with the national team, but that was the thorn that got stuck in my side. Michel Platini missed a pen and so did Diego Maradona, football is like that. You’ve got to lift yourself up again and keep fighting.”

Benítez started the 1999/00 season in fine form, scoring 4 goals in his first 6 league matches, whilst the following months would see him find the back of the net vs. Real Madrid, Valencia, and Barcelona. But whilst his performances continued to rise, his bank account didn’t follow suit.

“Despite being a Paraguay international, I was one of the lowest earners in the squad. I told Espanyol’s president, ‘Treat me well and make me happy,’ and he responded, ‘We’re going to sell you because we can’t give you a pay raise. Charge your batteries, tighten up, take care of yourself, because you’re leaving.’”

Coping with Injury Hell

Benítez looked set to follow in the footsteps of Diego Gavilán and become the second Paraguayan to play in the Premier League, with Liverpool aggressively pursuing his signing. However, on February 20, 2000, his steady progression came to a screeching halt.

Facing off against his previous club Atlético Madrid in his former stomping grounds, Benítez was challenging for a loose ball in midfield when his compatriot Celso Ayala went in from behind and tried to win the ball back with a scissors tackle. He arrived late and caught Benítez’s planted leg just above the knee, bending it sideways. The diagnosis was a knee subluxation, a torn anterior cruciate ligament, a posterior cruciate ligament rupture, a posterior capsule rupture, a rupture of the posteromedial capsular ligament complex, a rupture of the posterior medial-lateral ligament, an internal meniscus tear, and a fracture of the external tibial plateau. Twenty-five years later, it is still considered the most horrifying injury that has ever been suffered in the history of Spanish football.

“It was a criminal tackle. I didn’t see it coming, so I didn’t have time to swerve out of the way.

They operated on my knee twice because my leg didn’t have the appropriate condition to run, so they did an arthroscopy and removed the damaged meniscus which prevented me from turning my knee,” Benítez said. “Every day, I’d arrive at the rehab center mentally destroyed. Rehab is very painful. I went into rehab for eight hours each day and practically tortured myself for 14 months in order to return to the pitch.”

“Many people think I earned a lot of money because of my trajectory, but I started at Calpe and didn’t get paid much, and then went to Atlético Madrid where I earned 3,000 pesetas per month, whilst the club also took care of my apartment and the cost of the bus/train for me to get to practice and matches,” Benítez added. “But in the best moment of my career, when my transfer to Liverpool was basically a done deal, and when I was finally going to get a big payday, I got injured.”

Espanyol would end up avenging Benítez three months later by defeating Atleti in the Copa del Rey final, securing their first top-level trophy since 1940. But whilst Espanyol supporters were in footballing heaven, Benítez was in hell. He spent 45 days in the hospital with his leg elevated, and he came perilously close to having it amputated.

The esteemed Spanish doctor Ramón Cugat, who operated on his knee, predicted that Benítez would never be able to play football again. He was wrong; 448 days after that nightmare injury, he returned to the pitch in a 2-2 draw at Real Madrid. However, Benítez would never quite manage to regain his starting spot at Espanyol and decided to return to his hometown in January 2002, joining Club Olimpia. It didn’t take long for him to make an impact, grabbing his first goal since his injury on his Copa Libertadores debut vs. Once Caldas.

Reaching the Pinnacle of South American Football

Going up against the best clubs in South America, Benítez took the Libertadores by storm and led Olimpia past Cobreloa, Boca Juniors, and Grêmio and all the way to the two-legged finals, where they met São Caetano. After a 1-0 loss in Asunción and a 2-1 win in São Paulo, the second leg went to penalties, with Olimpia prevailing 4-2 to secure their first Copa Libertadores trophy in 12 years — to this day, they are the last Paraguayan team to win the ultimate prize in South American club football.

More than two years after hitting rock bottom, Benítez was back at the pinnacle of the game. It was the biggest trophy of his entire career, and it was the perfect response to the disappointment of being left off Paraguay’s 2002 World Cup squad.

He helped Olimpia beat San Lorenzo in the 2003 Recopa Sudamericana and reach the 2002 Intercontinental Cup Final, where they lost to a Real Madrid side boasting the likes of Ronaldo, Zinedine Zidane and Luís Figo. These impressive displays earned him a return to Spain, where he enjoyed a short spell with second-tier Almería, before undergoing a brief sojourn at Peruvian side Club Universitario de Deportes. He then bounced around from Paraguayan sides Sportivo Luqueño, Olimpia and Guaraní before hanging up his boots in 2007 at the age of 37.

Benítez quickly transitioned into management and took charge of Club Silvio Pettirossi, who were playing top-flight football for just the second season in their entire history and the first time since 1970. It was short-lived, however; Benítez lasted just five months before being given the ax, and Silvio Pettirossi would end up suffering two relegations in as many years.

“At that time, the club wasn’t going through a good moment. It was complicated being the coach, you couldn’t demand much because there were players that weren’t earning wages. A footballer can’t be thinking about paying his water or light bill, they have to be focused and not outside their comfort zone,” said Benítez. “I don’t have any regrets because, from this group of players, eight went overseas, which says that I did things well. We had very good performances and after 2-3 touches, we’d already reached the opposing box, but we couldn’t score despite having 10 chances per game. I registered 14 points and didn’t even finish the season, whilst the coach who replaced me [Juan Peralta] registered just four points despite coaching more games than me. Overall, it was an acceptable job.”

Molding Young Minds in Paraguay

Apart from a brief spell with lower-tier Juventud in 2014, Benítez hasn’t gone back to coaching, but that hasn’t stopped him from molding young Paraguayans in his image. In 2012, he launched the ‘Complejo Polideportivo de Peque,’ where kids can take football, swimming, volleyball and other sports classes, basking in the splendorous nature of Paraguay and avoiding an all-too-common sedentary lifestyle.

Located in the city of Limpio, it has proven the ideal launching pad for Benítez to train young footballers, with the ex-Espanyol winger unveiling his training center in September 2024. Across its 50,000 square meters, the complex boasts two pools, three football pitches, three full-time coaches and a gym, as well as a retractable roof to allow players to train when it’s raining. His academy boasts 48 players ranging from 13 to 20 years old, some of whom arrive from as far as Brazil, Chile, and Argentina to develop their skillset. In exchange for an affordable fee, these kids are exposed to a professional training environment, one that features two training sessions per day, regular gym sessions, and healthy meals. They then test their skills in friendly matches against Paraguay’s top youth sides, and in many cases, they end up securing lucrative transfers to these clubs.

Benítez starts each day at 4 a.m. whilst accompanied by his 27-year-old son David, who is training to become a licensed coach (his other 24-year-old son is living with Miguel’s ex-wife in Spain). He puts his players through the races in the collective training session, and in the afternoon, he’ll direct specialized training sessions where players work on the specific things that they are struggling with, be that scoring headers, completing long passes, or shooting from outside the box. He doesn’t stop until the night, and at 8 p.m., he finally heads to bed.

“In order to achieve perfection, you’ve got to work hard and train, there’s no other way,” explained Benítez.

“It’s something I take pride in because we are really lucky to have very good players. With discipline and commitment, we are making our work speak for itself. My goal is to keep growing, and thank God, we are growing bit by bit.”

It’s in these pristine grass pitches where Benítez transmits his half-century of footballing experience to his players and prepares them for all of the challenges that a player experiences throughout his career. He inculcates them with vital knowledge like how to maintain a balanced diet, how to build muscle whilst also losing weight, and how to stay focused and tune out the external pressure. He teaches them the ins and outs of football — how to trap a lofted pass without letting it roll off your boot, how to strike a volley with the perfect amount of pace and power, how to perform a clean tackle without injuring your opponent, how to execute a pinpoint cross into the box, and everything else in between.

However, perhaps the biggest thing that he teaches them isn’t so much a football lesson as it is a life lesson: it doesn’t matter how many times you get knocked down, all that matters is that you keep picking yourself up.