Steven Gerrard: My Liverpool Story

by Gerrard, Steven

  There were set-backs, however. Barcelona came to Anfield in the second group phase of the Champions League and played us off the park, winning 3–1 despite Michael opening the scoring. It was mind blowing how they moved the ball and how different their style was to our own. Xavi played, but it was Patrick Kluivert and Marc Overmars who did the damage.

  After matches like that you start doubting yourself and the team. I thought to myself leaving Anfield that night, ‘What level can I get to because these players seem to be on a different one from me?’

  But you dig in and recover and as the season progressed we were still in the hunt to win the league and the Champions League.

  Gerard had returned to the dug-out on an emotional night against AS Roma when we needed to win by two clear goals to remain in Europe. He would admit now that he came back too soon, but that he did so showed the strength of the bond he had with the club. He wanted to be in the dug-out, helping, guiding his team. Still, his presence helped us that night with Jari Litmanen scoring a penalty and then Emile Heskey sealing our progress and leading Gerard to proclaim later we were ‘ten games from greatness’. We came up short.

  Bayer Leverkusen beat us 4–3 on aggregate in the Champions League quarter-finals before we came second behind Arsenal in the Premier League, finishing seven points behind Arsene Wenger’s side. After all the highs we had grown used to, the disappointment was numbing.

  For me, the pain manifested itself in other ways as well. All throughout my career, problems with my fitness have repeatedly cropped up.

  The first serious set-back I endured came on the final day of the 2001–02 season. I had been nursing a groin injury for some time, but given the importance of the games Liverpool were competing in I played through the pain barrier.

  There was also the World Cup coming up with England in Japan and South Korea and there were people saying to me to wait until after the tournament and then have surgery.

  The pressure they were putting on me left me with a decision to make. Do I get the injury sorted and come back the player I want to be at the start of the next season for Liverpool? Or do I go to the World Cup carrying an injury, not being able to train and go into the games maybe 50% fit, then get judged on those performances and miss a big chunk of the next season?

  When I put it like that it seems straightforward. In the event, the decision was taken out of my hands.

  I broke down on the final weekend of the campaign in a home game with Ipswich and I knew as I trudged off that England was no longer an option. It was a tough moment for me, but throughout the summer one thought kept me going: I was confident that we could challenge for the league.

  * * *

  “It was typical of Gerard that he thought of others before assuring you that he would be OK.”

  * * *

  A Special Rivalry

  * * *

  What you don’t see in this picture is that I have my tongue out as I run along the front of the Bullens Road stand at Goodison Park down to the corner where the Liverpool fans are. I had been abused by Evertonians throughout the game. They had thrown coffee at me, and half-eaten sausage rolls, and I actually got hit by a coin on the bridge of my nose. It hurt, but the only thing you can do is try to make their team suffer. I rifled one into the top corner and the celebration wasn’t just instinct. It was to say: ‘Throw whatever you want at me . . . there you go, there’s my reaction.’

  The Art of Crossing

  * * *

  The way I look to cross a ball, I take risks because I want to put a certain amount of pace on it. I can hit the right area 10 times out of 10 if my cross is slow or floated, but I try to put in balls with pace and venom so that they are enticing for my team-mates. Sometimes you can’t get them right, but I have the confidence now that if one goes off-target the next one will be better. My delivery from wide areas is an important part of my game. You can catch opponents out if you hit the ball early and with power into the right area.

  Bulking Up

  * * *

  I’m trying my luck from distance here against Everton, but if you look at the difference in my physique now to when I made my debut the contrast is stark. The change is down to Gerard Houllier. I hate the gym. I find it boring. Unfortunately, due to the injuries that I have had in recent seasons, I have done more gym work in the last 12 months than I ever did between the ages of 22 and 28.

  I never used to go in partly because of the back problems I have had earlier in my career. But when I started out, Houllier said that if I wanted to play for him in the middle of midfield then I needed to bulk up a bit. You can see the definition in my quad muscles which you get from doing squats holding weights. I am starting to get the build of a strong Premier League player.

  Jamie – a Great Player and Mentor

  * * *

  Jamie Redknapp had the body I wanted. I was a similar height to him and when I broke into the first team, I saw how he had the build of a top, top player and I wanted the same. I strived for a physique like his. He suffered a lot from injuries at Liverpool, but he scored a great goal here against Charlton at The Valley and I have tons of respect for him as a player and a person. He has always stayed in touch and I can count on Jamie to be honest with me. When we talk about football, it is not just a case of him giving me a pat on the back. We talk about what I, and the team, have done right and wrong.

  Getting a Taste for the Champions League

  * * *

  The UEFA Cup was good to me as a player. I got to lift the trophy and I found out about what playing in Europe was all about. But as soon as you taste the Champions League, you never want to go back. I found the quality of the opposition and the speed of the games went up a notch from what I was used to. There was no hiding place. Sink or swim. You can have a couple of seasons at Liverpool under your belt and think you are doing well, but there is no time to sit back and take it in. There were always new challenges to confront and conquer. This is during a game against Borussia Dortmund in our first season in the competition in 2001–02, and I loved everything about the Champions League. I didn’t dare to dream at that point it would provide me with the best moment of my career.

  Rising to the Physical Challenge

  * * *

  When I was starting out, I probably would have ended up in a heap next to the advertising hoardings at the side of the pitch following this tussle. I wasn’t timid, but I wasn’t strong enough for the cut and thrust of the Premier League. The physical demands on players these days are immense. Every game is a battle. I needed to get stronger in order to win these sorts of situations and then showcase the talent that I have. I’m shoulder to shoulder here with a Blackburn defender and, hopefully, I’m just about to get the better of him.

  Finesse, Not Power

  * * *

  Where Jussi Jaaskelainen is concerned I have a lucky streak. I have scored more goals against him – seven – than against any other goalkeeper in my career. This one against Bolton was different from the sort of powered finish I normally produce. My finishing has improved with experience. When you find yourself in certain positions in front of goal, you are a little bit more calm and relaxed as opposed to when you first get into the team. Practising helps, but I have to be careful how long I stay behind after training because of the injuries I have had. It is about quality not quantity.

  Celebrating with a Good Friend

  * * *

  I’m very rarely in touch with Michael Owen these days. I suppose that’s natural in a sense because he left Liverpool in 2004 to move to Real Madrid. I can totally understand why he made that switch. Real are one of the biggest clubs in the world, if not the biggest, and Michael was a success there even though he only spent one season at the Bernabeu. I have to be honest and say I was very surprised he chose to sign for Manchester United. Michael enjoyed legendary status at Liverpool, but that has been diluted now because of the move he made. Only Michael knows if he got that decision right.

  Battling for Possessio
n

  * * *

  This was when Chelsea started to become a really powerful force. They signed a lot of foreign players who had real quality and you knew when you faced them it was going to be a tough game and a physical battle like the one I’m having here with William Gallas. Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United were bigger and stronger than the other teams in the Premier League around this time which gives an insight into the quality and type of players they buy and also how much is at stake. I don’t think you’d get the neutrals saying Liverpool-Chelsea was a great game too often. They have always been attritional matches, with the teams cancelling each other out.

  World Cup Dreams Torn Apart

  * * *

  Walking off, head down, with the Liverpool physio Dave Galley, I knew I would not be going to the World Cup with England in 2002. A concerned Gerard Houllier is behind me. We played Ipswich on the final day of the season and the injuries that had been affecting me towards the end of that campaign became too much.

  I damaged my groin and the decision was taken the next day that I would undergo surgery, which meant a lay-off during the summer. I was gutted to miss out on going to such a big tournament, but if I had tried to cover up the problem I knew I wouldn’t have done myself – or the country – justice.

  A Footballing Lesson

  * * *

  This picture is a rarity because it captures one of the five or six touches I managed to get against Barcelona in the Nou Camp! Even now I remember something really clearly from one of my first games there. One of us hoofed the ball into space up the pitch and Sammy Lee, who was part of Gerard Houllier’s backroom staff, shouted: ‘Good decision.’ Normally the thought of surrendering possession would be frowned upon by Liverpool coaches, but the reason it was a good decision was that it allowed us to breathe and get to the halfway line. That shout sticks in my head. Barcelona have a way of playing that is deep in their culture. When they are kids, they are embarrassed when they give the ball away and so you see them cherish possession. When you play against Barcelona it is usually a long night.

  MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

  You train all week, rest well, eat well, prepare well, and you know exactly what you want to do. But there remain some things which, as a footballer, are still out of your control.

  Liverpool had really good players, and some great ones, at the time we were winning the Treble and making progress in the league. We had grown together over a period of three or four years and I think that if the club had added to that with a couple of key signings we could have won the title.

  It is a regret that this wasn’t the case, but, as I say, sometimes as players you can only do so much. Of all the seasons back when Michael was terrorising defences, I think 2002–03 was the one where we missed out. We had finished second to Arsenal and were ready to push on. Unfortunately, the signings we made that summer did not come off.

  You work out pretty quickly whether a new team-mate is going to cut it or not simply by training alongside them. My first impressions of El-Hadji Diouf, Salif Diao and Bruno Cheyrou, signed for combined fees of £18m, were not good. I only wish I had been wrong and it had turned out that I judged them too soon.

  I knew Diao was tough. I knew he would do a job in certain games and be a decent squad player, but I thought he wasn’t good enough to play every week. You could trust him and you knew what you were going to get from him. He put in a few good performances for Liverpool, but the way I look at it, to play for Liverpool in the centre of midfield you have to be very good and perform consistently. That’s my opinion. He had caught the eye with Senegal in the World Cup in Japan that summer, but he wasn’t world class.

  I felt sorry in some respects for Cheyrou. The moment Gerard claimed he was the next Zinedine Zidane, he was on a hiding to nothing. Yes he was French – we’d signed him from Lille – but the comparison with one of the best players ever to have played killed him from the start. How could it not? Cheyrou is a nice guy and he had talent, but he wasn’t suited to the Premier League in the same way that Alberto Aquilani later found it tough.

  Diouf was the biggest surprise for me because I remember we had the chance to sign Nicolas Anelka permanently. He had joined on loan in the second half of the previous season and made an impact, quickly becoming a favourite with the players and the fans. Gerard called a group of us into a room one day and said he had the chance to sign Anelka before adding that he was getting Diouf instead, that we’d all love him and that he’d turn out to be a class addition for us. That is one of the few things I can ever criticise Gerard for. He got that decision wrong.

  As for ‘loving’ Diouf? I found him a constant liability to me and the rest of my team-mates. He wasn’t the type of person, or player, I wanted in the dressing room with us and the way his career has since gone isn’t a surprise to me. I thought he was arrogant and massively over-rated. I desperately wanted to win the Premier League, we all wanted to win the Premier League, and basically he was compromising that ambition. There were rare occasions when he played well, more often than not when he was moved on to the right of midfield. Yet he had been bought from Lens to score the goals that would take us from second place to the summit. He had been recruited to make the difference. That didn’t happen.

  Selfishly, you do feel let down by the club. Just as the supporters do. We were close to taking a step forward and ended up taking two or three backwards.

  I had started the season with such high hopes, but the whole campaign turned into a rollercoaster with more lows than highs.

  Even though Liverpool did not lose a Premier League game until the start of November, I knew things weren’t right. We weren’t going to move on to the next level after all.

  There were some silver linings. We won the League Cup, beating Manchester United 2–0 at Cardiff, after I had given us the lead with a deflected shot from distance that flew past Fabian Barthez. Michael sealed victory with time running out. Any time you beat United is great and that it came in a final meant it was even better. I had another winners’ medal. But, in the context of our season, winning the League Cup was the bare minimum we had set our sights on.

  Personally, I found that season tough. I suffered a dip in form that resulted in me being hauled off in a Champions League match against FC Basle which Liverpool had to win to stay in the competition. At half-time we were 3–0 down. I’d stunk in the first half and Gerard told me to get showered at the break. It was an embarrassing performance from me. Liverpool needed to drag themselves off the canvas and I wasn’t deemed worthy of helping my team-mates out. That was a big blow. A slap in the face. Instinctively, you go on the defensive when that happens. I blamed the manager. I wanted to take on Gerard and Phil Thompson as I sat sulking in the dressing room, believing the whole world was against me.

  It was a big deal at the time, a story that gripped the media because afterwards Gerard publicly questioned whether I had got too big for my boots. That hurt.

  It was days, maybe weeks, later that I realised I was taken off for the right reasons and the Liverpool staff were trying to help me.

  I realised that I wasn’t playing well and it wasn’t anyone else’s fault but my own. It was a problem I had to rectify myself and stop searching for excuses. Liverpool came back to draw 3–3 in Basle, although it wasn’t enough for us to remain in the Champions League. Some 10 years on and I still think about that night from time to time. It is moments like those that spur me and drive me on so that it doesn’t happen again. You go back to the drawing board.

  Sometimes you think you have learnt all you can learn and then: smack. Something happens and you realise, ‘Hang on, I’m still wet behind the ears.’

  It wasn’t just the Basle game that did that to me. That season was the first time I came across Rafa Benitez. He was the coach of Valencia, who had just won La Liga in Spain, breaking up the heavyweight dominance of Real Madrid and Barcelona.

  We were drawn in the same Champions League group as them and lost home and away,
barely getting a kick. They dominated from start to finish, pressed the ball and basically suffocated us. They were the methods I would experience at first hand later on, but for the time being Rafa had left me worried. Seeing the standard they set made me realise Liverpool needed to be better. An awful lot better. We were falling short against the best. That meant we had to improve.

  * * *

  “Any time you beat United is great and that it came in a final meant it was even better. I had another winners’ medal.”

  * * *

  Taking on a Daunting Adversary

  * * *

  Arsene Wenger complained about this tackle on Patrick Vieira in a Charity Shield match in the curtain raiser to the 2002–03 season. He has his opinion, but I never hear him saying much when one of his own players has made a hard tackle. This game was one of the first times the two teams had met since the FA Cup Final when we were played off the park but still nicked the trophy. It was clear I had two options. Either you stand off them again and we don’t get lucky this time, or you get in their faces and make it hard for them. I chose the latter.