Soccer/Champions League final: Even if Rafael Benitez had not taken Liverpool to tonight's Champions League final, the fans would still have taken a shine to him.

This is only his first season in England and, given time, we might learn to dislike him, but that does not feel probable.

The Spaniard has given the Premiership a fourth eminent manager, whose personality bears little resemblance to the others'. There is none of Alex Ferguson's sulphurousness, none of Jose Mourinho's sulky charisma, none of Arsene Wenger's ironic detachment.

Though Benitez does, like them, have a keen brain, he never hides the nerdy uses to which it is put and volunteers an interest in computer games. There is no concealing, either, the trainspotter instinct he applies to soccer.

"When I was 13 years old and playing for one of the Real Madrid youth teams," he said, "after every match I'd write down (our line-up) in a book I kept and give them all marks out of three, like we do in Spain. Rafa got three every time. I was the player of the season."

It is an endearing confession because Benitez speaks to the inner geek who lives within all football enthusiasts. Perhaps no manager could go on scrutinising the game in every waking hour if he were not under the sway of a compulsion.

He suffered a knee injury when he was 19 which forced him to stop playing seven years later, but a career on the pitch was merely delaying him from his destiny. He gets merry when he looks back and discerns all the symptoms of the urge to manage that was in his nature even then.

"We had to go to Seville for the final of a youth cup in a university tournament," he recalls. "Most of the players in the other teams would go out to parties. But I told my players, 'Right, at 1am we have to all go back to our hotel. We have to get ready for the next game.'

"One of my team-mates then is now a coach and he said to me: 'We listened to you. The others were all out until 6am with the girls and the parties, but we always went back at 1am.' I always try to think about that."

He is no killjoy and exudes a warmth which gets through whatever pieces of the language barrier continue to separate him from the English public. The important aspect of his tale is, of course, the fact that his peers listened to him. Benitez will always get a hearing because, as befits someone who won two Liga titles for Valencia, he gives the impression that he can be counted on to know precisely what ought to be done.

As with so many other leading managers, he possesses total recall and an inability to stop himself from reliving past disappointments. The let-down was immediate when, at 26, Real made him youth coach.

"The first game I had that season was against my old school La Salle, in my old neighbourhood, virtually in front of my house - and we lost 2-1. I remember the left back made two or three overlaps and I shouted at him: 'Don't go forward; you're leaving gaps.' And we conceded two goals in this gap."

Nonetheless, he beat Barcelona to the youth title that year, and he feels that a manager starts to have lasting authority when he gives advice which a player then realises has been valuable.

It is thought he has been taken aback by the difficulty of getting footballers on the hectic English scene to follow instructions, but the disciplined displays in the Champions League have shown Liverpool taking heed. There is no disillusionment in him, despite a humdrum domestic season. "I have four years more on my contract. I'm very happy here."

Should Real, as they so often are, be in need of a new coach the temptation would be intense, but he is no carpetbagger. He, his wife Montse, a lawyer, and their two daughters, Claudia and Agatha, all want, in their own ways, to root themselves on Merseyside.

Montse realises that it is futile to ask Benitez to forget about football and, after a defeat, makes do with urging him to turn his attention to the next match. "My wife always says, 'You're thinking about football,'" he admits. "When I take my kids out to play I don't want to do that, but then the mobile rings in my pocket and someone on the other end says, 'we can get you this player'."

The overriding impression is that life in this country has made all four of them happy. If all goes according to plan tonight, Benitez will return the compliment by making much of England ecstatic.