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A call between two billionaires, a meeting on a super-yacht, a drawn-out mystery with onlookers desperate for answers.
Everton’s latest manager search, in turns dizzying and soporific, at times resembled the complex plot of a Hollywood spy film.
In the end, though, the mystery made way for a more parochial episode. An appointment mired in disagreement, at first in the boardroom and then amplified a thousand times among the fans because it crossed a red, and blue, line. Unprecedented in the modern era — the new man becomes the first to cross Stanley Park.
Rafa Benitez — the custodian woven so deeply into the folklore of rivals Liverpool by accomplishments that stretched beyond the Anfield trophy cabinet to plays, poems and songs.