21
When I got inside Melwood, I saw a copy of The Sun. The headline was ‘Nutter with a Putter’ and they had mocked up a picture of Ginge with so many bandages wrapped round his head that he looked like an Egyptian mummy. All the other lads knew what had happened already but it didn’t stop me getting plenty of stick about it.
When we went outside for training, there were cameras poking out everywhere over the low walls that surround Melwood. It was obvious what picture they wanted. We did a couple of warm-up exercises that involved pairing up. Everybody knew the photographers would be desperate to get me and Ginge together but we didn’t play along. In the end, Pako lost his patience.
“When I next say ‘twos’,” he said, “can John Arne Riise and Craig Bellamy get together. Then everyone gets their picture and we can get on with training.” That was the picture that was in the papers the next day and the row between us was the issue that dominated the build-up to the Barcelona game. The court case in Cardiff got dragged up a lot again and a lot of people were saying this episode would be the last straw for Rafa.
If we lost to Barcelona, everyone said, that would be me finished at Liverpool. We were too far behind to have a chance in the league by then and we had been knocked out of both cups. There was an awful lot riding on that game in the Nou Camp. A lot of people expected Rafa to leave me out. It would have been the easy thing to do in many ways. But Rafa often ignored the easy option. When the teamsheet went up, I was in the starting eleven.
Training at the Nou Camp the day before the game was brilliant. I looked up at the steepling stands all around me and the giant Mes Que Un Club logo written into the seats and I knew this was the big league. We were up against the reigning champions, up against Ronaldinho, Messi, Deco. I didn’t feel nervous. I just felt an overwhelming sense of anticipation.
I just made my mind up I was going to enjoy it. It was everything I had worked for. I knew I might not get the opportunity to play on a stage like that again. To add to it, my elder son, Ellis, was 10 on the day of the game and I flew him out for a birthday treat. Crouchie said to me that if he played, he would do a golf swing celebration if he scored. I said the same. I didn’t know if I was playing at that stage and, to be honest, I wasn’t thinking about goal celebrations. I was just hoping I’d get an opportunity to get on the pitch.
The odds were stacked against us. Not many people gave us a chance because Barcelona were such a fantastic team. We were struggling in the Premier League, too, and a lot of the media presented it as almost a formality that we were going to lose. The only doubt in people’s minds was that Rafa had over-achieved in Europe before.
In the first 20 minutes, Barcelona were brilliant. Actually, they were breathtaking. We couldn’t get near them. The term ‘chasing shadows’ was invented for spells of football like the one we endured at the start of that game and Deco put them ahead with a bullet header after 14 minutes when he ran on to a cross from Gianluca Zambrotta.
But we did not fold. I missed a decent chance with a back post header that I could only nod into the side-netting and then two minutes before half-time, I put us level. I peeled away at the back post again and when Steve Finnan’s cross came to me, I was unmarked.
I put as much power as I could into it and the Barcelona keeper, Victor Valdes, seemed to lose track of where the goal line was. He seemed caught in two minds about whether to try to catch the ball or to parry it and by the time he made up his mind, he was behind the line and so was the ball.
Dirk Kuyt slotted in the rebound when Valdes belatedly pushed the ball away but it was my goal. In the elation of the moment, I forgot all about the celebration for about 20 seconds but eventually I remembered and aimed an imaginary eight iron down the ground. Some people were upset by that. They said it showed a lack of contrition. That wasn’t true. It was just an expression of happiness, mixed with a little mischief and a signal that there was more to me than bouts of bad behaviour.
It was a proud moment looking up at the Nou Camp scoreboard and seeing my name on it. I knew that my son would be looking at it, too, which meant more to me than anything. Because of the impact his birth had had on me, because of my determination to create a good life for him, he was one of the main reasons why I was playing at this level in the first place.
We hung on a little bit in the second half but 16 minutes from time, Dirk found himself one on one with Valdes. Valdes smothered his shot and the ball ballooned into the air. Rafa Marquez tried to clear the ball with a back header but it came straight to me. I cushioned it on my chest and let it drop. In the split second that it was falling, I thought about shooting but I was aware of Ginge standing to my left and I squared the ball to him on the half-volley.
It came to him on his right foot and he swung at it first time. I didn’t know he could even kick with his right foot but he hit it as sweetly as some of his left-foot pile-drivers and it flew into the top corner of the net. I looked up at the scoreboard again and there were our names in lights, Bellamy and Riise. Football is stranger than fiction sometimes. After everything that had happened the week before, after all the focus on us in the days leading up to the match, events had brought us together again.
There were a few scares in the last quarter of an hour but we saw it out and preserved our precious lead. When the whistle blew, I was overcome. Football: what an amazing game. I felt lucky, too. I’d had plenty of lows in my career but I understood in that moment that not many players get to experience something like that.
It was my favourite moment in football. Whatever might happen to me in the years to come, I thought, nobody could change a moment like that. I saw Ellis afterwards and felt thankful again that he had been there to witness it. I didn’t know where my life was going to go, who I was going to be sharing it with, inside or outside the game, but I did know that if football ended for me tomorrow, I’d have that moment. Sometimes, that’s worth more than anything.
We flew back to England and everyone was revelling in the story of me and Ginge and marvelling at our win. We knew we had a real chance of confounding expectations and getting through to the quarter-finals now. And I thought maybe this would be the catalyst for me at the club, that I would be a more central figure now as the season headed towards its climax.
Wrong again. The first game after we got back from Spain was against Sheffield United at Anfield. When the teamsheet went up on the Friday, I looked at it with a degree of confidence for the first time. My name wasn’t on it. Nowhere on it. Not even among the subs. ‘What the fuck is this about?’ I thought.
I should have been rolling into Anfield that Saturday on a real high and I wasn’t even in the squad. I couldn’t even stand to be in England when the game was on. I had to get far away. I went to Dublin to watch Ireland play England in the Six Nations instead. Being left out of that game broke me a bit. It dented me. I thought ‘I don’t think I can do this again next year, being on the bench, not knowing when you’re starting, not knowing if you’re in the squad’. It didn’t motivate me. It deflated me.
I’m not really criticising Rafa for it. It was the way he worked. And I started the game against Manchester United the following weekend, which we lost to two late goals. I started the second leg against Barcelona, too, which was played in a fantastic atmosphere at Anfield. We hung on a little bit and things got twitchy when Eidur Gudjohnsen put them 1-0 up on the night with 15 minutes left, but we kept them out and went through to the last eight on the away goals rule.
My relationship with Rafa was unaffected by what happened in Portugal. If would have been uncharacteristic if he had let emotion seep into anything. Things stayed the same. I don’t know if the Spanish players were close to him but I never had any proper conversations with him. We were there to work and that was it. The longer it went on, the more draining it became. It wasn’t enjoyment. It was just hard, hard work. After every day of training, I left feeling unfulfilled and flat.
I clung on to the consolations. The main one was that we were in the quarter-finals of the Champions League. Then there was playing with Gerrard and Carragher. And training with Robbie Fowler. His finishing was still in a different league. He could dink it over the keeper, he could move the ball, he could whip it. And he was a lovely bloke, too.
By the time I got to play with him, his legs had gone. He had suffered a bad knee injury and it had robbed him of his acceleration. I didn’t feel sorry for him because he had been a better player than I could ever be and had enjoyed a great career. I just enjoyed watching him and learning from his finishing ability. He is still God. He always will be.
He and I didn’t play together that often but we did both start a League Cup fourth round tie against Birmingham City at St Andrew’s at the start of November. Rafa liked to nominate a penalty-taker for each game and it was Robbie that night.
But when we were awarded one, I decided that I wanted to take it. Robbie and I had a brief argument but he couldn’t be bothered to continue it. He stepped aside. I took it.
The Birmingham keeper, Maik Taylor, saved it. We still won the game but it wasn’t my finest hour.
The next day, Rafa called me in. He asked me why I took the penalty. I said I felt confident and I wanted to score.
“But you weren’t on penalties,” he said. “I have to fine you.”
“Really?” I said.
“Yes,” Rafa said. “I pick the penalty taker. Not you.”
I don’t know how much the fine was. I didn’t dare think about it because it would have driven me mad.
But at the end of it all, Rafa was successful. I could question his methods as much as I wanted but we were in the quarter-finals of the Champions League and we had just drawn PSV so we had every chance of making the semis. When I thought about the way Rafa worked, I started to wonder if this was how you had to be to win stuff.
We didn’t have any problems against PSV. I had a rib injury so I was left on the bench. The first leg was at Anfield and we beat them even more comfortably than we had in the group phase. Gerrard, Riise and Crouch scored the goals in a 3-0 win which put the tie out of PSV’s reach. Stevie’s goal took him beyond Ian Rush to establish him as the leading scorer in Europe in Liverpool’s history. We won the return leg in Eindhoven as well to finish with a 4-0 aggregate victory. When the draw was made for the last four, we got Chelsea.
Two years earlier, Liverpool and Chelsea had been involved in one of the most titanic semi-final clashes in the short history of the Champions League.
On a thunderous night at Anfield, the tie had been settled by what the Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho famously described as ‘a ghost goal’ by Luis Garcia. Liverpool went on to beat AC Milan in the final in what became known as the ‘Miracle of Istanbul’. Not many teams had a psychological advantage over Mourinho’s Chelsea but that victory gave us one. And Rafa was one of the only bosses I’ve ever seen who managed to get under Mourinho’s skin. Usually, Mourinho was the one who sent the opposition manager into a rage but Rafa had the ability to do that to Mourinho.
We were up against the usual suspects at Chelsea. Mourinho was still the boss. This time, there was no Barcelona in his way and he was desperate to win the Champions League with Chelsea. The players that he had won the league with twice – Lampard, Drogba, Terry – were probably at their peak that year. It looked like it would be their best chance to win it.
The first leg was at Stamford Bridge on a Wednesday night. We stayed in Mayfair the night before the game and after we’d trained, we went back to the hotel and watched Manchester United against AC Milan in the other semi-final. United won 3-2 but the abiding memory was of Kaka scoring twice and picking United apart. Milan were the favourites to go through.
That suited us. Everyone at the club was concerned about the idea of playing United in the final. In many ways, Europe was still our refuge. We had won five European Cups and United had only won two. They couldn’t get close to our history. They didn’t have any bragging rights over us and I think, sub-consciously, we were nervous about the thought of losing that sanctuary if we had to face them in a final.
We knew Chelsea would be tough. They were a very good side with top, top players and a brilliant manager. I started the first leg at the Bridge but I didn’t make much of an impact and I was substituted six minutes into the second half when Rafa brought Crouchie on. We were trailing to a Joe Cole goal by then and Pepe Reina had to make a couple of outstanding saves to stop the gap widening. They deserved their win and we went back to Anfield feeling grateful we were still in the tie.
I have never witnessed an atmosphere like the one that greeted us in the stadium that night. I was on the bench but even when I went out for the warm-up, it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I understood the logic for Rafa’s team selection. He had picked me at Stamford Bridge because he wanted to exploit Chelsea’s lack of pace at the back. But at Anfield, he thought Chelsea would sit back and not leave as much space behind their defence, so he chose Crouchie to lead the line.
Rafa called it just right. Before the game, we worked and worked on set-pieces. He said he was sure that was how the game would be decided and that was what happened. Midway through the first half, Joe Cole fouled Gerrard on the left and instead of swinging the free-kick into the area, Stevie slid it across the face of the box and Daniel Agger slammed it into the net with his left foot.
That meant we were level on aggregate. Both sides had chances but it went to extra-time. Rafa brought me on for Crouchie with 14 minutes to go and Fowler came on for Mascherano two minutes from the end, ready for the penalty shoot-out.
Psychologically, I still felt we had the edge. They had experienced what it felt like to lose in the semi-final at Anfield before and now that they had failed to beat us, I think they felt it heading their way again.
I wasn’t in the first five penalty takers. My heroics against Birmingham City probably didn’t work in my favour as far as that went. I didn’t mind. I trusted the lads who had been nominated by Rafa. Boudewijn Zenden took the first and scored. Then Reina saved Arjen Robben’s kick. Alonso scored for us. Lampard scored for them. Gerrard scored for us. Reina saved from Geremi.
That meant if Dirk scored with the fourth penalty, we were through. I stood in the line of players, my arms linked around the shoulders of Finny on my right and Zenden on my left. I looked over at the touchline where Rafa was sitting cross-legged on the turf. I looked along the line and saw Gerrard with his arm around Fowler, two legends of the club together. Dirk ran up and slotted his penalty low beyond Petr Cech’s reach. We were through to the final. Anfield went berserk.
I didn’t want to go too mad because I had been a bit-part player. I would have felt more satisfaction if I had been in the thick of it. Still, I thought I had a chance of a Champions League medal and my first thought when the final whistle went was that I had to try to force my way into the team for the final. AC Milan cruised past United at the San Siro the following evening so the final, which was to take place in Athens on May 23, would be a rematch of the Miracle of Istanbul.
Rafa had obviously not been too badly scarred by the events of Vale do Lobo because he took us away again for a week’s training. We avoided the Algarve this time and headed to La Manga. Funnily enough, we weren’t allowed out for a meal this time. Nothing happened. It was dead. It was just work, which was what everybody wanted anyway. Every day, there was specific training to counter Kaka and Seedorf because Rafa thought they were the biggest influences on Milan.
When we arrived in Athens and trained in the Olympic Stadium the night before the game, I was taken aback by how many journalists there were there. I had played in big games but I had never seen anything like this before. There were journalists from Chile, Serbia, China, Australia, South Korea, France, Turkey. But there was no one from Wales. How many Wales players had ever got to the Champions League final? Apart from Ryan Giggs, obviously. There haven’t been many.
I was on edge about the team selection. I thought the game would suit me. There was a lot of talk about Milan’s lack of pace and how that was a way we could hurt them. They had great players in their defence like Alessandro Nesta and Paolo Maldini but I thought I might have a decent time against them. They tried to play high, which was quite rare for Italian teams, and they liked to press.
Everyone was fit so I fluctuated from thinking I might start to worrying about whether I would even make the bench. Rafa didn’t break with tradition. He didn’t name the team until very late. We went ten-pin bowling on the morning of the game. I don’t like bowling. And then finally, he named the team. I wasn’t in it but I was on the bench. He had gone with Dirk starting by himself up front with Stevie in behind him and Jermaine Pennant and Zenden on the flanks.
That was okay. I was disappointed, obviously, but I could deal with it. That was the way Rafa wanted to go about it and it was up to him. There was no point being down because I could still come on and score the winner and you’re not going to do that if you are in a negative frame of mind. I had to accept it and see what happened.
We started reasonably brightly but AC Milan were the better team. It was a tight first half but they scored just before the interval when Filippo Inzaghi deflected a free-kick by Andrea Pirlo past Reina. The longer the game wore on, the longer they held on to their lead, the less chance I thought there was of me getting on the pitch.
If Milan were leading, they would sit deeper and deeper and Rafa’s logic would be that there would be less and less space for me to exploit. That was the way it worked out. He brought Harry Kewell on for Zenden after about an hour and then replaced Mascherano with Crouchie with 13 minutes left. I knew then that my chance of influencing the game in any way had gone and a few minutes later, Inzaghi put the game beyond us when he ran on to a ball from Kaka, took it round Reina and slid it into the net.
In the dying minutes, Rafa brought Arbeloa on for Finnan. Right-back for right-back. Explain that one to me when we’re 2-0 down. Dirk did grab a late goal from a corner but there was to be no miracle this time. The final whistle went and Milan were champions.
I was disappointed for Liverpool and the rest of the players. But it felt like a double disappointment for me because I didn’t get the chance to get on. It was heart-wrenching not to play any part at all. It would have been the biggest game of my career. To play in a Champions League final is the pinnacle and, having got there, I had to sit on the sidelines and watch it. It was a massive anti-climax.
When we were on the coach back to the hotel, a couple of the boys expressed surprise to me that Rafa hadn’t brought me on. It was nice of them but it didn’t help. It didn’t make any difference. It was over. The chance had gone. As a fan of the club, I felt sick about the defeat. As a player denied the chance to play in the biggest game in club football, I just felt empty.
Rafa’s decision not to play me also indicated that I wouldn’t be there next year. I didn’t think I could take another year of continual uncertainty about whether I would be playing or not and I didn’t think I had his backing anyway. Rafa didn’t say a word to me about it on the night. He didn’t say sorry for not bringing me on. He didn’t come out with any platitudes to try to soften the blow. He didn’t do sympathy. That wasn’t his style.
I sat by myself on the plane back to England the next day. Rafa came to sit next to me. At first, I thought maybe he was actually coming to justify his decision to leave me out. I should have known better by then.
“What are your plans for next season?” he said.
I looked at him. We’d just lost the Champions League final. I hadn’t got on. I was feeling glum. I wasn’t in the mood.
“I haven’t really thought about it,” I said.
Rafa didn’t mince his words.
“We’re going to buy another striker,” he said. “If you want to go and speak to other clubs, that’s fine.”
He started to get up to go but I told him to wait for a second.
“I’m still trying to come to terms with the disappointment of what’s just happened and now you tell me you want to get rid of me,” I said. “Classy timing.”
Rafa started stuttering. He did that shrug he does, that merciless kind of shrug that says all emotion is futile and, actually, wholly unwelcome.
“Go and speak to my advisers about it,” I said. “Leave me alone.”
The plane journey home seemed to last forever. I felt thoroughly dejected. I was obsessing about how I still hadn’t won a trophy. If I could have won the Champions League trophy, the biggest one there is, the one that players value above all others, it would have wiped out all my other near misses and semi-final defeats. It would have been a one-stop shop for validating my career in my own mind. So the defeat was hard to take.
And to know you didn’t get on as well makes it worse. You are part of it but you aren’t. You are part of a team and you have to accept it as part of the team. But you are wondering if it would have been different if you had played. Maybe I wouldn’t have made any difference in Athens that night. I’ll never know.
I wasn’t bitter towards Rafa. Not really. I was just disappointed. I didn’t want it to turn into bitterness. I didn’t want to resent him. I loved the club and I knew how much happiness he had brought the supporters. I didn’t want my relationship with him to deteriorate or for anything to affect my feelings for the place.
The timing of him coming to sit with me on the plane and tell me I was surplus to requirements was a bit hard. He could have let me get over the disappointment of not playing in the final. But Rafa doesn’t have any sentiment. He’s not interested in social skills. He tries to come across as a warm person but he is as harsh a guy as you will ever come across. I don’t mind that really. There probably isn’t any good way to tell someone they’re not wanted.
Rafa signed Fernando Torres that summer. No one could really argue with that. Not even me. He was a great signing for the club. But I was worried about how I was going to move on. I had been in a team that had a chance of winning the league and which had just reached a Champions League final. Where would I find that again?
As we arrived back at John Lennon Airport, I tried to remind myself how lucky I had been to play for the team I loved. I thought about the very first time I had visited Anfield in the wake of the Hillsborough Disaster, I thought about all the things I loved about the legend of Shankly and the empire he had created and the stories older players had told me about facing the great Liverpool teams of the Seventies.
It was still the most incredible club in the world to me. What it represents as a club is what I represent as a person. I feel like a black sheep but people have to acknowledge me because my play demands it. I’m an outsider but sometimes I play so well that you have to let me in. That’s what it’s like for me and sometimes it feels as though that’s what it’s like for Liverpool. They have to fight and fight for everything they get.
I didn’t want to leave but I didn’t really have much choice. I thought maybe I’d move abroad, make a fresh start. It hadn’t ended how I had wanted it to end at Liverpool but at least I was part of their history now. And one way or another, sooner or later, as player or coach or supporter, I knew I’d be back.