Recently Sky Sports pundit and former Liverpool player Jamie Carragher claimed that Benitez didn’t sign the £90m forward because he rated John Arne Riise better.
Rafa has rubbished such claims and said he indeed tried to sign the Real Madrid forward back in 2006, but Southampton didn’t want to sell their prized asset.
“Back in 2006 I went to see Bolton-Southampton,” Benitez said as quoted by ESPN. “We transferred a player to Southampton but they wouldn’t give us Bale.
“Then when we tried to buy him, we couldn’t. I’ve known for a long time he was a great player.