Steven Gerrard: My Liverpool Story (22 page)

Kaka Thanks His Maker

There are two sides to any final – joy and despair. Kaka is in ecstasy and I’m distraught. The Brazilian was probably one of the best players in the world around that time. The irony is that both he, and AC Milan, played better in Istanbul than in Athens two years later. That’s football.

Contemplating the One That Got Away

The reason why the Champions League Final of 2007 grates with me so much is because it was a missed opportunity. The sort I may not ever get again in my career. The team selection wasn’t right that night. In my opinion, there wasn’t enough pace in the starting line-up to hurt Milan, plus we gave them two soft goals. If we had been sliced apart, then I would have accepted defeat, however reluctantly. But that night still fills me with regrets.

BOARDROOM POLITICS

Looking back now it feels like I was brainwashed
, but at the time I was excited by the plans of Tom Hicks and George Gillett. To compete with the likes of Chelsea, Manchester United and the other mega-forces across Europe (this was before Manchester City became such an important financial powerhouse) you need to be able to buy the best players when they become available.

In the words of David Moores, the Liverpool chairman at the time, he wasn’t rich enough to do that. So he sold the club in February 2007 to Hicks and Gillett and I can understand why he felt they were genuine, why he felt they had the best interests of the club at heart. I felt all those things, too.

When I sat down with the two Americans at a meeting in the Lowry Hotel in Manchester, they blew me away, with what they were planning to do and the ideas they had. Me and Jamie Carragher were on England duty for a game against Spain at the time and the coach Steve McClaren said it was OK for the new owners to come over and see us.

Rick Parry, Liverpool’s chief executive, brought Hicks and Gillett over to the meeting and, over the course of half an hour, they spoke about ambitious plans for a new stadium in the shadow of Anfield and of backing Rafa in the transfer market. I was happy and to be fair to Hicks and Gillett, they were as good as their word on some things, albeit initially. They had paid for Fernando Torres to come in that summer, but soon after, the storm clouds gathered.

The first time I started to get uneasy was in the autumn of 2007 when rumours started to circulate that Rafa was under pressure. He had given a bizarre press conference in which he kept on repeating the phrase ‘coaching and training’, in response to a barbed request from Hicks to stop getting involved at all levels of the club and focus on what he was best at – coaching and training. Those were Rafa’s strengths, no doubt about it, but he didn’t take kindly to an American in cowboy boots telling him that.

Relations became strained from there and the media had a field day as it did throughout the Hicks and Gillett tenure. I have learnt a lot in my career about how the media and the press operates. I understand briefing takes place and when your ears prick up it is usually for a reason. Stories do not come out of nothing and the idea that the club was thinking of sacking Rafa was a concern if not a huge surprise, as he had started clashing with the people above him at the club.

I was equally concerned that Jurgen Klinsmann, the former Germany striker, was the man in the frame to replace Rafa. He had played at Tottenham, but what did he know about managing in English football? At the time, I was thinking, ‘We’ve just reached two Champions League Finals in three years, Rafa is a top manager, why do we even need a change?’ If you ask me now: ‘Rafa or Klinsmann?’ I would say Rafa, all day long.

Yet as a team we found ourselves in a situation where if we didn’t beat Marseille in our last Champions League group game, we would have been out of the competition. Rafa? The signs were that he would have been out of a job.

As a team, we were awesome that night. We had worked on our shape so much before that game that I knew we were going to be hard to beat. From the first whistle, we were too strong and too powerful for the French. We were constantly in their faces and swatted them aside 4–1. It was a great display. We were through and Rafa was safe. For now.

But the lull did not last and for two-and-a-half years everything at Liverpool was permanently in a state of flux. The club was being sold. No it wasn’t. Rafa was going. No he wasn’t. Hicks and Gillett were fighting. Yes they were.

Plans for the stadium had ground to a halt, players were leaving and the money was not being reinvested. In short, it was a nightmare. A constant headache. A worrying shadow was cast over the entire club to the extent that the threat of actually going out of business hung over us. We were front-page news as much as back page. My head was wrecked.

I get angry and frustrated when I think about how Liverpool Football Club lurched towards High Court battles off the pitch and slipped down the Premier League on it.

We were in Spain for a pre-season game against Espanyol in the summer of 2009 when it became clear to me that we were going to struggle. Xabi Alonso had left to join Real Madrid for £30m and the club would not be reinvesting all the money from his departure in the team. The banks needed some of it. At the time, I was thinking there is no player in the world who is going to come in to Liverpool and be as good as Xabi had been, so to then find out that we couldn’t use all of the proceeds from his sale was a blow. Alberto Aquilani joined from AS Roma for £18m, but he came with an injury and never really settled. He is a good player, but he’s not Xabi.

That night against Espanyol, we were poor. Sometimes in pre-season, you dismiss the result as meaning nothing, given the games are primarily exercises in boosting fitness. But I looked at our squad that night and looked at how other teams were strengthening and I knew we would struggle to finish in the top four that season.

We went out of the Champions League in the group stages and were off the pace in the Premier League once again. We were immersed in a cycle of mediocrity on the field and open warfare between the supporters and the owners off it.

The situation was such that, when you are captain, you think: ‘Do I get involved in this or stick to playing?’ When you walk out of Anfield 45 minutes after a home game and there are still thousands of supporters in their seats protesting against the owners of the football club it is a desperately sad sight. Liverpool Football Club, as I knew it, felt as if it was slipping away.

No one – certainly not the fans or the players – wanted Hicks and Gillett any more, but they were hanging on to the club for grim death, aware hundreds of millions were riding on whether they could sell it or not.

I knew that was wrong. I knew they needed to go, but I thought long and hard, most days if not every day, about whether me coming out and saying something publicly would help the situation?

I totally understand that people thought, ‘Gerrard is the captain. He should come out and say something. He knows what is happening can’t go on.’ Behind the scenes me and Jamie Carragher were constantly asking questions and saying this needs to stop, but we are not the type of players to go and do exclusives in papers and add fuel to the fire.

It was a delicate situation. Apart from the fact that it’s hard to think of any other workforce around the world coming out and attacking the people who own the institution they work for, I wondered what me slagging off Hicks and Gillett in the national papers or on Sky would have achieved. Would it have brought about a solution any quicker? I don’t know for sure, but I doubt it.

There was also the fact that when I was asking questions behind the scenes, people like Rafa and managing director, Christian Purslow, were telling us they were taking care of things. Players can influence matters on the pitch, not in the boardroom.

In the end, I was just relieved that all the mess was cleared up and that the club won its case in the High Court in October 2010, forcing Hicks and Gillett to sell. They had taken Liverpool to the brink, selfishly putting themselves first and willing to risk the longevity of a club that is adored by hundreds of millions of people around the world.

Our most important result of the season came that day, not least because as a player it meant I could focus on playing football again. Inevitably, I suppose, I am more sceptical and cautious of the club’s new owners, Fenway Sports Group, simply because of what went on under Hicks and Gillett. Once bitten, twice shy.

That is not particularly fair on John W. Henry, but it is not a bad thing either. Liverpool cannot be allowed to suffer again like it suffered under Hicks and Gillett. So far no one can say FSG have not made money available for signings and I know for a fact that they are trying their best to resolve the stadium issue, whether we should stay or move from Anfield, despite facing all sorts of complications.

Time will tell if they are good owners or not.

“Liverpool Football Club, as I knew it, felt as if it was slipping away.”

EL NINO

It seems strange to admit it now, but I had doubts
about whether Fernando Torres would be a success at Liverpool.

Two things came into my head when he signed in the summer of 2007 for £20.5m from Atletico Madrid. I thought he could bomb because he would not be able to cope with the intensity and physicality of the Premier League having come from Spain and it would be another expensive mistake in the transfer market for the club. But I desperately hoped he would be the signing to take us to the next level. And what a signing he proved to be.

During his hot streak for Liverpool over the next few seasons, Torres was easily the best player I have ever played with in my career. I loved him.

I used to walk onto the pitch every single game convinced I was going to set up a goal for him or score myself. Sometimes I didn’t. Mostly it seemed I did. I knew it was going to happen because Fernando was with me out there. At times, I felt invincible with him in the team alongside me.