Amid all the hyperbole that surrounded Lionel Messi’s record breaking achievements in surpassing Gerd Muller’s 40-year-old landmark for the most goals in a calendar year, one man has been seemingly forgotten - Barcelona coach Tito Vilanova.

Which is probably just the way Vilanova likes it.

When he took over from Pep Guardiola in June after his former boss decided to take a sabbatical from the game, Vilanova looked like he was on a hiding to nothing. In much the same way that Bob Paisley must have felt when he took over from legendary Liverpool coach Bill Shankly.

Over four years Guardiola - with Vilanova as his assistant - had won 14 trophies as Barcelona steamrollered the opposition both at home and abroad.

From the anonymity of the Barca boot room, suddenly all the pressure was on a 43-year-old man who had arguably only once come to the attention of the world’s media after being poked in the eye by Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho during a Spanish SuperCup game in 2011.

By accepting the Barca board’s offer of the job he was now responsible for managing arguably the most gifted squad in the world, while working under the relentless glare of an insatiable Catalan media as well as journalists from all over the planet.

True, having such a talented group of players at your disposal has its advantages, calling to mind Gary Lineker’s view on managing Brazil ahead of a recent World Cup: “My grandmother could manage them to the World Cup.”

But the seamless transition - Barca have dropped just two points this season when they drew with Real in the Nou Camp - suggests Vilanova has picked up a thing or two about the art of football strategy and, perhaps equally importantly, the art of man management.

As a youngster Vilanova was at Barcelona’s youth academy - La Masia - with Guardiola, though unlike the Catalan great he failed to graduate to the Barca first team.

While Guardiola strutted imperiously around the Nou Camp and guided Barca to their first European Cup after the 1-0 over Sampdoria at Wembley in 1992, Vilanova was busy acquainting himself with the delights of Spanish football’s lesser known clubs - Figueras, Celta, Badajoz, Mallorca, Lleida, Elche and Gramenet, before retiring as a player in 2002.

As former AC Milan coach Arrigo Sacchi once pointed out: “I never realized that in order to become a jockey you have to have been a horse first.”

When Vilanova was appointed, Barca sporting director Andoni Zubizarreta argued it was "a logical decision" because he "represents the same style of play and the same philosophy."

"Tito has been working here with us, so why not Tito? He puts in all the hours until he sleeps and he has the personality that we need to lift us. He's different to Pep, but Tito's the one," Zubizarreta said.

"We've always looked in house. We have Tito – it's simple. We needn't go out on the market."

The logic of the decision to resist appointing a big name coach - as Leeds United disastrously did in the 1970s when they brought in Brian Clough to succeed Don Revie - is beginning to look like a masterstroke.

“At the beginning everybody had a lot of misgivings or doubts about his capacity to be a leader,” Catalunya Radio’s Ernest Macia told CNN.

“The main difference between Pep and Vilanova is their character. Pep has a strong one and had a good reputation on motivational skills, which gave him a sort of ascendancy and command within the group.

“Tito isn’t like that, but acknowledges his limitations and tries to make it easy for those surrounding him.”

Macia argues that a health scare just over a year ago - Villanova underwent emergency surgery to remove a tumour on his parotid gland - has had a profound effect on the Barcelona coach.

“He underwent a kind of ‘cancer' and seems to have gained perspective. It has given him cool, the tranquillity to take on some growing ‘conflicts' such as the size of Messi's ego.

“Last year Messi didn't feel comfortable with some of the decisions Guardiola took (such as putting on Tello against Real Madrid in Camp Nou and other experiments, because Messi only wants to play with the best), and it wasn't unusual to see Messi shouting at youngsters.

“Tactically there have been no changes. The team plays 4-3-3 or 3-4-3 depending on the context. Tactical switches are common, especially during Gerard Pique and Carles Puyol's absences. That's the reason why the team has conceded more goals than ever.

“Tito keeps the same philosophy as Guardiola: with a smaller squad and all the players feel involved and are versatile to play in any position.

“His easy-going character has allowed some key players such as Messi, David Villa or Dani Alves to feel important.

“The team is playing better day-to-day, and has a stronger solidity as far as identity is concerned.”

What remains to be seen is how Vilanova will cope if Barca suffer a slump. For the time being though he can look back with some pride at a remarkable start to his tenure as Barcelona coach. If Barca’s motto is "more than a club," Vilanova is quietly building a reputation as more than a coach.

This December Spanish coach Rafael Benitez will have been out of work for two years. He has his website, plus plenty of media commitments to keep him busy, but for a coach that has been working as a manager since 1986 that must be like a living purgatory.

Like the majority of managers, Benitez gives the impression that he thinks and breathes football every minute, every hour, every day of his life.

In his new book “Champions League Dreams ”  with Times journalist Rory Smith, the Spaniard, who was Liverpool’s manager for six years between 2004 and 2010, provides a glimpse into the quest for perfection by describing the layout of his Melwood office at the club’s training ground.

It was here he would plot his team’s tactics and how best to overcome the opposition – with a little help from a resource of DVDs so comprehensive it sounds like a sub-section of the British Library.

“Stretching several metres across the wall on the right-hand side of my Melwood office stood shelves and shelves of DVDs,” says Benitez.

“Hundreds upon hundreds of hours of footage, all neatly categorized, organized and numbered so that, after consulting a database on my computer, I could find any film I needed quickly and easily.

“Aside from my coaching staff, this was my most valuable resource as I attempted to prepare Liverpool’s players during the season: not just a record of all the games I had managed and training sessions I had overseen in my career, but an extensive library of football around the world.”

Benitez’s attention to detail was not just based on an extensive back catalogue of DVDs – it stretched to gastronomy as well. Before joining Liverpool he guided Valencia to two La Liga titles and the UEFA Cup and his attention to detail ran to Benitez taking ice-cream off the players' menu.

Benitez is very much a "love him or loathe him" coach – you either love him or hate him. And that is no better demonstrated than during his time at Liverpool.

Compared to where Liverpool find themselves now – fourth from bottom of the English Premier League with two points from four games with a squad chronically depleted in the striking department – Benitez’s time at Anfield is rapidly starting to acquire a golden age feel. The club won the Champions League in 2005, reached another final in 2007, as well as securing the FA Cup and the UEFA Super Cup under his stewardship.

Perhaps the 2005 Champions League triumph is the most remarkable given it was heavily reliant on players like Antonio Nunez, Djimi Traore and Igor Biscan during the campaign, with Xabi Alonso and Djibril Cisse missing key matches due to injury.

A lover of chess, Benitez’s strategy for the quarterfinal second-leg tie against Juventus, when Liverpool secured a 0-0 draw to reach the semifinals 2-1 on aggregate, shows the Madrid native's tactical cunning at its very best.

“Instead of instructing the team to line up in our specially-designed formation, I told them to play for the first two minutes in the 4-2-3-1 that Fabio Capello and the rest of Juventus’s coaching staff would probably have been expecting,” writes Benitez.

“Only after the game was underway would we move, organically, into the 3-5-1-1. It is a little trick that, sometimes, managers use. If you change after a few minutes, it can look more natural. Sometimes, your rivals will not alter a thing.”

But the Premier League title remained tantalisingly out of grasp, with Liverpool coming close during the 2008/2009 season when Benitez’s team finished second.

Benitez’s transfer record at Liverpool is the stick which is most commonly used to beat the Spaniard. Some argue too many poor players were bought at inflated prices, though the counter-argument to that is his rrecruitment of the likes of Xabi Alonso, Pepe Reina, Fernando Torres and Lucas Leiva.

Huge profits were made after Alonso and Torres were sold, while Reina and Lucas are seen as integral to new manager Brendan Rodgers's plans to revive the club.

Soon after Benitez joined Liverpool, I interviewed Spanish television producer Paco Lloret, who had written a biography about Benitez. Lloret told me: “Perhaps Rafa is not so good at buying players.

"I was speaking with Rafa's agent before a Liverpool game and he told me that Rafa is the best coach, but sometimes he is so intent on watching the game, that he doesn't watch the players.”

"The agent said that his eyes were better at spotting players than Rafa's eyes.”

Benitez also has a track record of falling out with people. Is it coincidence that Liverpool reached two Champions League finals when he was working with assistant coach Pako Ayesteran, who left Anfield at the start of the 2007/2008 season?

Ayesteran was also at Benitez's side when Valencia did so well before the two coaches came to Liverpool.

However, whatever you think of Benitez – warts and all – surely it is a terrible waste that a man of his talents is effectively twiddling his thumbs, waiting for the phone to ring?

Good enough for American Football, basketball, baseball, tennis, rugby league, rugby union and cricket; good enough even for the Professional Bull Riders organization; and now finally, good enough for association football.

Following the countless pleadings of managers, players, the media and the fans after some horrendously embarrassing examples of goals that have not been given despite the ball crossing the line, FIFA is to allow the use of technology in the sport.

After years of opposition Sepp Blatter, through FIFA’s law-making body the International Football Association Board has given the thumbs up, even if UEFA president Michel Platini’s digit remains fiercely down as he continues to oppose this new development.

The change means football conversations will never be the same again as future generations of fans will be denied the opportunity to talk endlessly about whether the ball had actually crossed the line.

As a Briton it sometimes feels as if we talk about nothing else apart from Geoff Hurst's goal in 1966, Frank Lampard's non-goal in 2010 and John Terry's clearance in England's match with the Ukraine in Euro 2012, despite the ball crossing the line.

And no doubt Romania’s Dorinel Munteanu’s shot against Bulgaria which bounced over the line before being cleared in Euro '96 is still endlessly debated in cafes and restaurants up and down the Balkan country.

No doubt referees will also breathe a huge sigh of relief that they will no longer have to watch endless replays of their goal-line mistakes or be on the receiving end of the opprobrium of pundits and fans alike.

Rather sadly it also means it is unlikely a stadium will ever again carry the name of a match official, as happened when the Azerbaijan national stadium was named in honor of Tofik Bakhramov, the “Russian” linesman who told referee Gottfried Dienst that Hurst’s shot had crossed the line when England beat Germany in the World Cup final at Wembley in 1966.

Bahramov is such an iconic figure in Azerbaijan that there is even a statue of him in the capital city of Baku.

In truth there have not been that many cases in international football of goals not being awarded correctly, but a British website Untold Arsenal, which has a team of qualified referees who have reviewed more than 40% of Premier League games from last season, argues that two or three goals each match day were wrongly given or wrongly disallowed, which suggests the FIFA u-turn is a welcome development.

At the moment FIFA’s decision to embrace this new-fangled tech stuff is strictly limited to goal-line technology. But if it has taken its time, as it tends to like to do,  FIFA has crossed the Rubicon.

It is a decision which begs an intriguing question, will world soccer's governing body now have to fight a daily battle to avoid technology creeping further into the sport?

If technology can be used to adjudge whether the ball has crossed the line, why not for debatable offside decisions or incorrect red cards? And why shouldn’t managers be allowed to challenge decisions as they do in American Football and tennis?

Pandora’s Box has been well and truly opened.  But how long will it be before a campaign will be up and running demanding FIFA allow technology to play an even greater part in the running of the game?