Former Real Madrid player and coach Alberto Toril has said the appointment of Rafa Benitez is a positive step for the club as he recalled his former coach’s studious methods.

Toril played for Benitez in the new manager’s first coaching job at Real Madrid Castill before joining him at Extremadura. He then went on to follow in Benitez’ footsteps and manage Real’s second string outfit himself.

In a wide ranging interview with AS, Toril recalled how studious Benitez was two decades ago and how his methods were ahead of the game at the time.

He stated: “At that point he was very studious – he still is. He was ahead of his time. His working methods were nothing like we had seen at youth level. He would gather an incredible amount of information on our opponents, and that was quite a surprise for us. We learned how to play within a zonal system; he would teach us about what movements we needed to make and how to make sure our territory was well covered when the team went on the attack.”

He went on to add: “He tried to make it as simple as possible for us. He already had all his statistics stored on his computer – that was something completely new; he would teach us about the movements we needed to make by showing us videos. He was way ahead of his time.

“The trend at the time was to try to extract every last drop of quality from every player: our games were very open and he tried to mould his teams, he would work exhaustively on his teams and tell them where they needed to be positioned out on the pitch. For Rafa, the team was a solitary object and should move as one. His teams had a definite style.”