by Simon Hughes
‘I would have liked this to happen in my career: to play for Mallorca for ever. Unfortunately, Mallorca wasn’t able to win trophies. They needed the money and sold me even though I didn’t want to be sold. Maybe I wouldn’t have earned enough money at Mallorca to sustain my life after my football career was over. By moving clubs, it has taken financial concerns away. Stevie at Liverpool, he had everything. Totti at Roma, he had everything as well. Maybe they could have won more league titles at other clubs but if that comes at the expense of happiness and reputation, I don’t think it is worth it.’
Riera has gone from playing in front of ninety thousand spectators at the Bernabéu to just a few hundred at the Bonifika.
‘You have to accept the situation,’ he concludes. ‘The motivation remains the same otherwise I wouldn’t be here. The pressure comes from within yourself: the desire to carry on and make a contribution towards a victory. There is no better feeling than the moment at the final whistle when you win. That still gives me immense satisfaction.
‘The atmosphere is different, of course. It is more beautiful to play in front of a lot of people. In the big English stadiums, you cannot hear your teammate fifteen metres away because the crowd is shouting.
‘In Slovenia, the stands echo.’
CHAPTER NINE
JAMIE CARRAGHER,
Endurance
THERE IS AN image of Jamie Carragher that will endure for eternity, one where every strand of sinew in his body is surrendering to the physical torment of the event and only his soul would not submit.
This is a footballer who as a child witnessed his father order the breaking of a crossbar to get a game abandoned when his team was losing. On a different occasion, Merton Villa were in desperate need of physical reinforcement so Philly Carragher instructed his best mate, Bucko – a substitute that morning – to ‘go on and sort out’ the best midfielder on the other side. Though Philly had meant for the opponent to be stopped by sporting means, ninety seconds later Bucko had his tracksuit on again, banished to the touchline for headbutting.
In Istanbul, it was past midnight and into Thursday morning. Liverpool were still playing a Champions League final, having somehow hauled themselves from three goals down to draw level against AC Milan. Near the end, Carragher looked up to the scoreboard, wishing for time to hasten and for Liverpool to take the encounter to a penalty shoot-out. Carragher could barely walk; it was as if he’d experienced a death march. Jackknifed with cramp, he rose again. As the crosses were delivered towards the Milanese strikers, he kept defending, stretching his legs as far as he could, somehow repelling the danger.
‘I’ve got a pretty good memory but that fifteen-minute period is a blur,’ Carragher says. ‘It was pure instinct to carry on. Coming off in a game of football, I saw it as a sign of weakness even if I was injured. There was no way that was happening.’
Carragher admits to ‘taking a few clips around the ear’ from Philly in his youth for asking to be substituted when, as a seven year old in a game amongst eleven year olds, his team were losing amidst a storm of hailstones on Buckley Hill, the pitches exposed to the wild elements in Netherton, Liverpool’s north end. Later, at home in Bootle’s Marsh Lane, he did not have to admit to feigning injury. His pupils were dilated with fear.
‘I don’t want you to think my dad’s a bully, because he’s not,’ Carragher continues. ‘I owe a lot to him. He’s the type of guy that offers you the shirt from his back. But there’s no getting away from it, I grew up in a generation where if you did something wrong, there were consequences. I realize it’s different now. That morning, my dad knew I’d bottled it because he’d seen so much football in his time. He was as obsessed as I became – if not more so. I can confidently say I never bottled it on a football pitch again.’
That Carragher played 737 games for Liverpool and is second on the club’s all-time appearance list behind Ian Callaghan owes much to his mental fortitude. Ability propelled him into Liverpool’s first team but passion and dedication kept him there. He possesses a spirit that underpins the greatest Liverpudlians and, indeed, the greatest Liverpool players. He agrees with Graeme Souness when the former captain and manager says that the moments he misses most are those in a tunnel in the minutes before kick-off.
‘Gérard Houllier used to tell us that we were going to war. That stayed with me and I loved it,’ Carragher says. ‘I’d see teams walking out for cup finals at Wembley and the players would be waving at their wives and girlfriends. When we played ours in Cardiff, Houllier used to remind us, “No waving at family – you see them later.” He wanted us to play as if it was the last thing we’d do.
‘Players now, they’re hugging and kissing before a game. OK, some of them might be from the same country, so it’s understandable to a point. But for me, no: I was going to war with these people. You might think it’s a strong analogy but I had to be like that. I was focused because I had to be. I couldn’t afford to take it easy otherwise I wouldn’t have been good enough. In the tunnel, I was going to war with them: it was life or death.’
The rule of combat was not exclusive to matches. Carragher is retired now and admits to not missing the training mainly because it was the longest part of the week. He took preparation so seriously that there was rarely an emotional let-up during the course of a football season.
‘They’re your teammates, not your mates,’ he says of those he shared a working environment with. ‘I’m still in contact with Stevie [Gerrard], Michael [Owen], Danny [Murphy] and Jamie Redknapp. Didi Hamann was sound and I liked John Arne Riise too. He was the one everyone took the piss out of because he was ginger and a bit daft.’
The rest he refers to usually by their surname, reflecting the distance. ‘I was competing with Ziege for a place in Houllier’s team for a while; I was competing with Finnan for a place when he first arrived. There was [Rigobert] Song before him too. Then Agger and [Martin] Skrtel. The different managers may have claimed otherwise but managers don’t buy players to put them on the bench. But I also knew that they wouldn’t be able to train to the standard that I did every single day, 250 times in that year. I just knew it. I knew eventually I’d wear them down. I knew that based on my intensity in training, the manager couldn’t afford not to pick me. Most players want a day off but not me. Every day it was bang, bang. The intensity never dropped. I never took it easy. I knew mentally I’d be too strong for the other players in the squad competing for my position. I trained as if it was a game. Even though I feared for my place, I knew that if I was at it day in, day out, I’d play.’
For a long time, Carragher roomed with Michael Owen, sharing secrets and frustrations. When Owen left for Real Madrid, Steven Gerrard took his place and for nine seasons the pair shared hotel rooms on away trips. They now speak once a week.
‘It’s down to circumstance with Stevie, really. Everyone has their own lives, don’t they? Going in different directions. He’s in LA at the moment. I liked a lot of the lads and the better players – the ones that stuck around. I think they liked me. I never shit on anyone and I wasn’t a snake. I didn’t sneak. I think everyone knew where they stood with me. I always tried to be straight. At the beginning of my career at Liverpool, I was a bit of a joker if I’m being honest. I loved a laugh. I still do. As I got older, I became more serious – maybe less pranks.
‘I was desperate for the team to do well, let’s not forget that. I tried to help people, especially early on when they’d just signed. The example is [Fernando] Torres. At first I thought, God, I’m not getting much out of this one. He didn’t say a word to anyone and was struggling in training for the first week. So I bought my son a kit with Torres’s name on the back. I brought James into Melwood to try to make Torres feel a bit better. James was only four years old and didn’t have a clue. Torres obviously proved himself as a very good player but I thought he needed a lift, so I did what I could. The club made a huge investment in him. I cared about the club but most of all I wanted Torres to score the go
als that would win us games.
‘The Spanish players under Benítez were more outgoing than the French players we had under Houllier. You could mix with them a little bit. There were other characters that I got on well with straight away. Xabi Alonso was one. Pepe Reina was another. Pepe was larger than life and very popular, the typical mad goalkeeper.
‘I hope my teammates liked me. But, being totally honest, I don’t care if they didn’t. I’m not a sensitive person. I was confrontational with people during games and in training but I’d forget about it quickly afterwards. We were there to win. We weren’t there to be mates.’
When Liverpool did not win, it cut through Carragher’s consciousness like a wound. As he grew older, he discovered how to disguise the face of pain. Yet inwardly, losing embarrassed him, it made him want to stay indoors rather than go out. Losing meant he cancelled planned meals out with his wife Nicola. He dreaded picking his kids, James and Mia, up from school. There was a temptation to go underground. But he always found a way to reappear above the surface – he’d never postpone an interview, even if it was scheduled for the morning after a bad loss.
‘That’s one big thing I enjoy about not playing: not suffering the disappointment,’ he says. ‘The low of the disappointment was more extreme than the high of the victory. When you did well, you felt only relief. You were happy that your head wasn’t going to be battered for a week. You could get on with your life, take the kids to school – everything was fine. It wasn’t as if you were buzzing. The worries went away for a short time. When we lost, I only felt enormous guilt. It was horrible.’
The guilt explains why Carragher is not ready to become a manager, instead choosing to work as a leading pundit for Sky Sports. When their enemies were at the gates, the Romans would suspend democracy and appoint one person to protect the city. It wasn’t considered an honour; it was considered a public service. Carragher describes the position of Liverpool manager similarly, calling it ‘a civic duty’.
At Liverpool, he played under six managers at first-team level, starting with Roy Evans and ending with Brendan Rodgers. He is put off mostly by the changes in character that inevitably happen because of the pressure. None of Liverpool’s managers in his time left as heroes. Instead, they stayed long enough to see themselves become the villain. Liverpool makes mincemeat out of managers, chewing them up and spitting them out.
‘The best Liverpool managers were the ones that weren’t afraid to make big decisions,’ Carragher says. ‘Both Houllier and Benítez were like that, especially Rafa. I never looked at Rafa and thought he bottled making a decision in terms of his team selection or substitutions. I didn’t agree with him taking Stevie off at Goodison Park [in 2007] and I don’t know really why he did it, but Liverpool ended up winning the game, so he was vindicated. Then he took Torres off at Birmingham and he took a lot of criticism for that. Other managers wouldn’t have done it. But he had the balls.
‘You hear a lot of people discuss the art of man-management. I would say not fudging a decision is a big part of that even though it gets overlooked. Big decisions can send a message to the squad. The squad thinks, “That could be me if I’m not careful.”
‘I felt sorry for Roy Hodgson. He must have wanted to drop Torres in those first few months. I wouldn’t say he bottled it, though. He had no choice. David N’Gog was the only backup. Torres was playing so poorly and in training he couldn’t get going. I remember watching Hodgson trying to butter Torres up and get the best out of him. I looked at that and thought, “Is this what management is?” I’d probably have grabbed Torres by the throat. But Hodgson had to put up with it all because he had nothing else to fall back on. He had to tell him he was doing well when he wasn’t, try to find some confidence and enthusiasm in him.
‘People say to me, “You’d be a good manager of Liverpool”, and they get really excited about it. But I wonder if the modern player would match my passion and if not, how I’d react. You see some of these managers now and they’re all calm and collected in the post-match interview even after a defeat. They probably are passionate inside but they know they have to put on a front. Listen, I know I couldn’t go running around like a lunatic fighting with people but I just think I’d get frustrated with players that don’t want to win as much as me.’
It is an oversight on Liverpool’s part that Carragher is employed by Sky rather than the club he represented for so long. He possesses an understanding of Liverpool’s idiosyncrasies and nuances. His passion is not senseless. It is measured. At the very least, he would make a great adviser or administrator.
Listening to him, it is easy to forget that he grew up as an Evertonian, travelling to away games with Philly when he was as young as five years old.
‘Like a lot of Evertonians, I suppose I was obsessed with Liverpool,’ he laughs. ‘I saw Liverpool’s teams, especially in the early 1980s, winning trophy after trophy. Now, people might disagree but I think it’s a myth when it’s argued that Liverpool played flair football. When John Barnes was there, they did. Before he arrived, though, Liverpool had not had a natural winger since Steve Heighway’s retirement. Liverpool’s most successful teams were very powerful and strong. Everyone did the right thing. There was none of this open fancy football. It was playing the game with your head. Liverpool were men – real men; they knew what to do at the right time and knew when to play. They were streetwise. People say, “Look at Alan Hansen bringing the ball out from defence.” But he never played in the wrong areas.
‘I wasn’t born then but I know about the UEFA Cup semi-final with Borussia Mönchengladbach in ’73 when the first leg got abandoned because of rain. The next night, they started the game again and Bill Shankly brought John Toshack back into the side at Brian Hall’s expense. He changed the team to bring a big man in. He spotted a weakness in the opposition and exploited it by knocking passes up to Toshack. That was the Liverpool way: finding a way to win.
‘Remember, my guidance at Liverpool started with fellas who’d been in the Boot Room, fellas like Ronnie Moran, fellas around Shankly every day of their working week. Liverpool was a club that played passing football but without unnecessary risk. Ronnie never said, “Let’s get it down, lads, and start passing it.” There were no short balls or long balls; there was only the right ball. If they’ve got a weakness, you go for it. Ruthless. It was like, “Let’s turn them and see if their defenders can run by knocking it in the channel.” Liverpool didn’t play unbelievable football. They played the right way and didn’t do stupid things. You find a way to win. You have to be defiant, because that’s the way Liverpool people are. Liverpool people identify with defiance, and when belief is generated from that, it becomes too much for opponents.’
I interview Carragher at the end of high summer across three sittings at different restaurants in Crosby. He lives in nearby Blundellsands now, a prosperous suburb in northern Liverpool. He bought land there a decade ago and has been building a home to his and Nicola’s taste ever since. The latest development is the installation of a proper lawn. Previously it had been synthetic, so James could play football without dragging mud across the carpet. Carragher is back from a boxing session at the Rotunda gym when we first meet, which is situated a mile down the hill from Anfield.
‘I go there every day,’ he says. ‘I could never be one of those people who does the school run and then sits on the couch watching Sky Sports News all day – oh my god, no. I’ve not done that once since retiring. I need to be out of the house, keeping fit, having a laugh with the lads, having a bit of lunch afterwards. By the time I’ve finished, it’s nearly time to pick the kids up from school again, making their tea, then taking Mia to dancing or James to football.’
James is at Liverpool’s academy. He plays as a centre-back, the same position as Jamie. James seeks advice from his father.
‘We all have insecurities, don’t we? He knows deep down whether he’s had a good game or not. I was the same. Quite often, you’re looking for a bit of reassura
nce. I was OK, wasn’t I? I remember when our James was seven and he was having a bad game. He looked across at me and I glared back at him, “Come on . . .” Afterwards, I was angry with myself. What could he possibly gain from that? He was looking towards me for help . . .
‘My dad didn’t say much to me at all, even if I did well. You hear people say, “My dad was my harshest critic.” I couldn’t think of anything worse, coming home after a bad performance when your head’s battered and your dad starts having a go. There are enough critics out there. Don’t get me wrong, there have been times when I’ve pulled James to one side if he hasn’t given it everything he’s got. But not if it’s passing, if he’s made a mistake or missed a header. That’s just football. I always want to see him switched on, to be alive. I tell him if he does that, he’ll be all right.’
Carragher met wife Nicola at primary school and their houses were only a couple of streets apart in Bootle, an area of Liverpool that will probably always struggle to shake off a dubious reputation in the consciousness of the British public. The Strand Shopping Centre, where James Bulger was abducted by two other children in 1993 before being left to die on a nearby railway line, is a five-minute walk from the area of town where Carragher and Nicola lived.
A perception exists that Toxteth, or Liverpool 8, is the poorest part of the city, even though it never has been. That would be on the north side, in and around the hinterland behind Bootle’s docks, which was economically savaged by the gradual closure of Liverpool’s mighty port, despite the resistance by one of the most stalwart movements in British labour history.
Bootle began its history as a large, well-defined village completely separate from Liverpool. As the city expanded, Bootle found itself well placed during the expansion of the industrial revolution. It soon bulged with incoming labourers, who took advantage of the tram and rail networks to get to work at the docks, and became packed with trade buildings.