Carra: My Autobiography

by Jamie Carragher

  The ex-chairman must have spent the 2007–08 season banging his head on his coffin. My cousin Jamie has repeated his quote more in the last twelve months than the previous twentyfive years.

  We'd experienced several seasons where simmering tensions had threatened to boil over behind the scenes at Anfield, but somehow we'd managed to avoid pressing the self-destruct button by ensuring events on the field rather than off it grabbed the headlines. Istanbul was played amid worries over Steven Gerrard's future which were ultimately resolved. The FA Cup was won despite growing uncertainty over the ownership of Liverpool FC. Even if you go as far back as the treble season, the future of the club was being debated during feisty shareholders' meetings. For the most part, such disturbances were kept inhouse. There were rumours in the press every so often, but nothing to undermine the tradition of Liverpool as the club envied for the professional manner in which it conducted its affairs.

  We'd always handled a crisis with dignity. Even managers who left the club would host a press conference to say goodbye, as Roy Evans did in 1998, and also Gérard Houllier following his dismissal in 2004. You wouldn't get that at any other football club, and I loved that uniqueness about Liverpool. Great servants reached the end of their time and were escorted through the Shankly Gates with dignity to receive the applause of the crowd, not shoved out of the back door shouting and screaming with their tail between their legs.

  Athens was a turning point that signalled, temporarily I pray, the demise of those values which come under the definition 'The Liverpool Way'.

  Rafa himself influenced a change of approach with his extraordinary press conference on the morning of 24 May following our 2–1 defeat in Greece. He took the opportunity publicly to demand instant action from Tom Hicks and George Gillett. 'The new owners say they will support us, but now is not the time to talk but to take decisions,' he said. 'It's not just about new faces, it's about the structure of the club.' These words sparked a chain reaction that brought problems into the open, almost cost him his job a couple of months later, riled Liverpool's owners into an ill-fated meeting with Jurgen Klinsmann, and ended Hicks's and Gillett's honeymoon relationship with The Kop, making them the targets of disapproval rather than appreciation.

  I was heading for breakfast in our base at the Pentelikon Hotel when a journalist broke the news to me. 'Rafa has gone for the Americans over their failure to back him in the transfer market,' I was informed. I was taken aback. 'Give them a chance,' I thought. 'We only lost the Champions League final twelve hours ago.'

  Obviously his concerns had been growing far more than any of the players were aware and he'd decided the time was right to express them, but I'd never guessed from his demeanour ahead of the game the problems had reached such a critical point, and I didn't feel airing them to the world's media would serve any purpose. I put it down to the disappointment of losing the final, although as the players' coach headed to Athens airport and the critical comments of the manager followed them across the Atlantic, I guessed the owners wouldn't be so sympathetic.

  In most walks of life there's a basic rule we're all aware of: you don't go into work and slag off your boss. Such was Rafa's popularity, he must have thought the risk worth taking for what he believed would benefit the club. If Gillett and Hicks had fired him in the summer of 2007 after our second European Cup Final in three years, they'd have faced a serious fans' revolt. Rafa felt he was arguing from a position of strength.

  Instead of reacting angrily, it must be presumed Gillett and Hicks decided to restrain themselves, bide their time and wait for what they perceived to be a more opportune moment to punish the manager for his public challenge to their ownership. In fact, instead of publicly responding to Rafa's remarks, the Americans seemed to react exactly how he wanted. Their actions spoke louder than words, and that impressed me. That was my definition of The Liverpool Way. Don't say it, do it.

  Fernando Torres, Ryan Babel, Yossi Benayoun and Brazilian Lucas Leiva signed in the weeks that followed for fees in the region of £45 million and deals for Javier Mascherano and Martin Skrtel were completed in January 2008 costing around £25 million. It's hard for me to imagine this money wouldn't have been available had Rafa kept quiet. He may argue he provoked the decisive movement he wanted in the transfer market. Either way, the drama of his press conference appeared to have calmed down once the season was underway. Or so we thought. I could never have guessed the implications of Rafa's outburst would become so serious. The Athens press conference didn't register as big news on the plane home as much as in the newspapers and among the fans in the days that followed. We were too busy getting over our disappointment at losing the final to get wrapped up in club politics.

  History is always written by winners. I could spend hours talking about Istanbul and reliving every second of that victory. I've forgotten much of what happened in Athens because I get no pleasure from recalling it. We played all right but didn't do enough to win the game. Unlike Istanbul, it wasn't an especially entertaining match and there were few chances for either side. AC Milan scored at crucial times, defended well and deserved their victory. Despite being stronger than in 2005 and heading into the game with more confidence, we never played to our full potential.

  The mysteries of football will never cease to throw up contradictions. Tactically, we were more clever at the start of the game in 2007 than in 2005. Rafa learned from what happened in the first half in the Ataturk, played Steven Gerrard in a more advanced forward role and asked Javier Mascherano to perform Didi Hamann's role in the second half, denying Kaká the freedom he'd enjoyed two years earlier. An extra body in midfield also stopped Pirlo dictating play. If you analyse the game tactically, this strategy brought some success. We dominated possession and were never in danger of being ripped apart by Kaká in the way we were for forty-five minutes in Turkey.

  But for all our improvement since our last meeting, the game exposed where work was still needed. There weren't enough goalscorers on the pitch for us in Athens. Our midfield consisted of Bolo Zenden, Javier Mascherano, Xabi Alonso and Jermaine Pennant, none of whom had short odds on the first goalscorer betting slips. Dirk Kuyt played as a lone striker instead of Peter Crouch, with Gerrard tucked behind, so the onus was entirely on those two to break the deadlock. Dirk scored late on, but there was never a point where we threatened to take control of the game.

  AC Milan could argue they played much better in defeat in 2005 than in victory in 2007, but they'll always look at Athens as the completion of their revenge mission. I didn't feel they'd been avenged. It's easy for me to say, but the pain of defeat in 2007 was nothing compared to how it would have been two years earlier.

  I was devastated to lose, of course. To win the Champions League once was enough to create history, especially in the manner we did it. To have done it twice within three years would have taken this to another level. There's always a hollow, sickening feeling after losing a final, but it's certainly eased when you can console yourself with the knowledge you've already won it before and you believe further opportunities to win it will come again. I'm greedy for more winners medals and as hungry for European success now as I was before my first Champions League win, but experience allows you to cope better with such setbacks.

  One thing I've learned throughout my career is this: no defeat passes without attempts to over-analyse where it went wrong and find contributing factors. The explanation was simple in Athens: we didn't play well enough to win. Such an obvious statement isn't always enough in the modern game. On my return to Liverpool I read several articles about the preparation for the game not being up to scratch because our team hotel wasn't what it should have been and our families had to stay in some appalling conditions. This was true, but it had nothing to do with our performance. We didn't lose the European Cup because our rooms were a bit small. It's a ridiculous argument.

  Fans told me they knew as soon as they arrived in Athens it wasn't going to be the same as Istanbul, and they had more valid reas
ons for feeling disillusioned with the trip. I can't ignore the fact a small but not insubstantial group of Liverpool supporters let the club down on the night of the final by forcing their way into the ground without tickets, or with fakes. Friends I'd arranged genuine tickets for couldn't get in and were left stranded, and stories filtered back to me about shambolic scenes outside the Olympic Stadium prior to kick-off. I saw frightening images of fans pushing in.

  Those responsible have no excuse, but a catalogue of errors contributed to this, starting with UEFA. They were warned for weeks about potential problems. They picked a venue unsuitable for such a major match, the attendance was too small, and not enough seats were available to the clubs. It was an athletics stadium rather than a football arena, and by all accounts it was far too easy to bunk in. Liverpool's own ticketing policy came under criticism by some of our supporters as they tried to distribute a meagre number to the many thousands travelling to Greece.

  Like the players, fans' views either get rose-tinted or tainted depending on the result. You won't hear a single horror story about Istanbul, but no one has a positive tale to tell about Athens. My mates told me they felt uneasy as soon as they got there because the atmosphere wasn't the same as Taksim Square. During the course of a season, Liverpool's European trips tend to attract the same group of die-hard Reds, but once you reach the final the bandwagon gets top heavy with those who are more interested in the 'event' rather than the football. There are some unruly elements – and this applies to every club, city and probably every country – who latch on to the biggest occasions and want to invade what the most loyal fans perceive as their 'territory'. I know that for many, travelling to Greece was less about seeing Liverpool win the European Cup and more about just 'being in Athens'. Thousands who missed out on Istanbul weren't going to make the same mistake twice. This is an unavoidable consequence of reaching a major final, and if the supervision isn't up to scratch, it gets magnified.

  There's nothing like parading the Champions League trophy to hide any blemishes on and off the park, and had we beaten AC Milan in Athens I doubt there'd have been much post-match talk about poor organization; in the same way Rafa's morning-afterthe- night-before briefing would have carried a much different tone. Instead, without the manager, the fans or the players knowing it, we returned for pre-season training a few weeks later with the Anfield time-bomb having already been set.

  Far from planning for the 2007–08 campaign sensing added pressure, it seemed there was much to be positive about. New billionaire owners, a record signing, a fresh stadium announcement and the promise of our most realistic title bid for fifteen years. What could possibly go wrong?

  Such was the relief when the Anfield takeover saga ended in March 2007, Liverpool supporters were willing to accept whatever Hicks and Gillett said at face value. They made the right noises, promising to build the arena on Stanley Park which had been planned for seven years, and vowing to invest in the team without plunging the club into debt. On the surface it was a good deal. I was one of those who'd welcomed the new owners to Anfield, believing they would provide the finances to build a new ground that, over the long term, would allow us to compete with Manchester United and Chelsea. I wasn't expecting a Roman Abramovich-style revolution, but I presumed the manager would still have his annual kitty of about £30 million a year, which would give him enough options in the transfer market. The arrival of a player of Torres's calibre from Atlético Madrid for £21 million seemed to confirm our confidence in what former chairman David Moores hoped were the 'ideal custodians' for the club. The only reservation was that Liverpool had to pass into foreign ownership. That was a sad consequence of modern football realities. I'd have preferred Mr Moores to stay as owner, but once he said he couldn't afford to keep us competitive without getting massive but risky bank loans there was no choice but to sell to the right bidder.

  For a while, it seemed that would be Dubai International Capital. The chairman and Rick Parry introduced me and Steven Gerrard to the DIC chief executive Sameer Al-Ansari when they were on the verge of concluding their deal. I liked his enthusiasm for the club and handed him a couple of signed shirts, believing this was my future boss. Within a few weeks I was having another meeting at the Lowry Hotel in Manchester, ahead of England's international with Spain. This time Hicks and Gillett were shaking mine and Stevie's hands, telling us how good they'd be for Liverpool.

  Neither of us had reason to doubt that DIC or Hicks and Gillett would be good for the club. We trusted the chairman and Rick to make the right decision; they knew far more than Stevie or me about why they'd changed their minds on DIC. Like the fans, if the club hierarchy was sure the Americans offered more chance of success and stability, we had to back them. We had no choice.

  As is often the case in such circumstances, Liverpool's website rushed out quotes from us saying how enthusiastic we were about the future under the Americans, no doubt hoping we'd put the supporters' minds at ease. But what else would we say? We'd met them once, they said what we wanted to hear about buying players and building the stadium, and that was that. Privately, as I listened to their guarantees, that definition of 'The Liverpool Way' which I cling to was at the forefront of my mind: 'Actions speak louder than words.' You can put as much faith in the inspiring pledges of chairmen, chief executives, managers and players as you want, but there has to be something to show for these assurances. We were compelled to be as positive about the takeover as possible. There was no reason for me to be negative, but there was bound to be a certain amount of caution about whether promises would be delivered. I'd delay my real judgement until a later date.

  Of the two new owners, I knew more about George Gillett. I had been aware of his interest in Liverpool longer than most courtesy of a conversation he'd had with Michael Owen the previous summer. Mo travelled to America for cruciate knee surgery following the World Cup in 2006; he was treated by renowned surgeon Dr Richard Steadman, a friend of Gillett's. Mo told me how keen Gillett was to buy Liverpool. His first bid was rejected because he didn't have deep enough pockets to assure the Anfield board he was the right option. This changed once he'd made a second offer backed by the Texan Tom Hicks, whom the club knew less about.

  We have to acknowledge the supporters were guilty of a certain amount of naivety in their initial reaction to the takeover. The Americans' first press conference when they spoke in glowing terms about understanding the traditional values of the club played well to the fans, but from day one I was more realistic. For richer or poorer, we'd sold Liverpool to two ruthless businessmen who saw us as a money-making opportunity. They didn't buy Liverpool as an act of charity; they weren't intent on throwing away all the millions they'd earned over fifty years. If I had £500 million and decided to buy an American baseball team, do you think I'd just give away £100 million for players? The fact Gillett didn't have enough to complete the deal on his own was revealing in itself. It showed there wasn't the bottomless pit of funds the more optimistic of our fans believed. Anyone with a financial brain recognized they'd want a return on their investment. They were never going to pump money into the club they didn't expect to get back with interest.

  Liverpool wasn't an attractive purchase because of the fans, the players, the manager or even our illustrious history. They wanted to buy us because the planned stadium offered a chance to generate tons of cash and increase the value of the club. DIC were criticized and had their bid seriously undermined when this information was revealed as part of a seven-year exit strategy. They'd buy Liverpool for £200 million, build the stadium and keep the team strong, and seven years on sell it for a handsome profit. Some fans didn't like the crudeness of such a scheme to exploit Liverpool's economic potential, but in reality everyone would have been a winner. The only way to treble Liverpool's value within seven years was to enjoy success on the pitch and build a new ground with a bigger attendance.

  I doubt Gillett's and Hicks's plans differed, other than the fact they were less blatant about saying
it and cleverly appealed to the fans' romantic idea of Liverpool remaining a 'family club' by announcing their sons, Foster Gillett and Tom Hicks Jr, would be on the board. Supporters wanted to believe the owners would embrace the club's mottos and traditions. Hicks and Gillett insisted they would.

  This is why the months that followed left The Kop feeling so let down. It's hard enough for people outside Liverpool to understand our fans' mentality, let alone those from another country, and Hicks and Gillett badly misread it. You won't find a more loyal set of supporters, but try to kid them and you're in trouble. When serious mistakes were made in the running of Liverpool, the fans felt they'd been misled in order to win their support.