Ring of Fire

by Simon Hughes

  ‘Rafa’s focus shifted away from his real strengths,’ Parry says. ‘When we brought him to Liverpool, we told him that we wanted him to use his knowledge as a coach to work with what we had and improve the abilities of the squad. We didn’t have massive amounts of money, so we had to be smarter than Chelsea and work harder. In 2005, Rafa’s attention to detail and preparation work helped get us to Istanbul. He was a tremendous coach.

  ‘Ultimately, I think Rafa bought too many players. There was too much change. Even when you’re on an upward trajectory, as we were because Rafa was producing great results, any signing is a risk. There are no certainties. Personalities, families settling – you can never tell until the player actually plays. There is always an element of gambling, so obviously the fewer signings you make, the less of a risk you’re taking. Ideally, you’re better off making one or two big signings a summer, who are really going to add to the squad. In the eighties, that’s what Liverpool did.’

  ‘It’s tough being Liverpool’s manager,’ Parry continues. ‘You see changes in a person’s character. The weight of expectation is incredibly difficult to deal with. You get hit from all sides. Rafa moved his focus from being a coach to more of a wheeler and dealer, trading players. We had a bit of tension over that; there always is when it comes to money.

  ‘Rafa knew on the day he was appointed that there wasn’t pressure from the board to win the league immediately. We thought it would take three years. The message was: let’s do this steadily and calmly. It was made clear to him that we were not going to fire him overnight and promised that he would have time to work independently and build gradually and, ultimately, sustainably. All managers want to do things quickly because they are motivated people. But maybe Rafa wanted it too quickly – making too many changes – and it caused him to lose a bit of focus.’

  The challenge for Benítez must have been immense, operating in an environment where he did not know which owner to trust, in the same way as Liverpool’s players did not know who to go to when Roy Evans and Gérard Houllier were in joint charge.

  Benítez had got to where he was by going his own way: fighting up from the bottom. His initial period at senior level in football ended because of politics and control issues at Real Madrid. Having been appointed as assistant on a temporary basis to Vicente del Bosque in 1994, he returned to the club’s B team when Jorge Valdano was hired, and his last year there was marked by an awkward coexistence where, from above, Valdano would suggest he play certain players that he did not rate. There was Sandro, supposedly a classy midfielder from the Canary Islands, and Paco Sanz, who happened to be the son of Lorenzo Sanz, the vice chairman. Valdano saw Sandro as a footballer who needed to be free of tactical restriction, while Benítez demanded sacrifices from him. The disagreements would prove unworkable and from there Benítez knew it was only a matter of time before he would leave.

  The intervening years had hardened Benítez. During their introductory press conference, when George Gillett infamously claimed ‘there has to be a shovel in the ground within sixty days’, in relation to the new stadium site on Stanley Park, both Gillett and Tom Hicks had argued about who was sitting where at the top table. Later, they went to Melwood, where they stood and observed training from the side of the pitch.

  ‘Rafa was uncomfortable with that and told them,’ Parry remembers. ‘They reacted by making it clear that everything at Liverpool was their domain because they owned it, “all of it”.’

  Initially, Benítez was told he would have £20 million a year to spend on players.

  ‘In 2007, George and Tom backed us big time in terms of Fernando Torres and in 2008, when the relationship had turned, they were still backing the team. There was a degree of game playing and Rafa would say, “Well, that was when we didn’t get Florent Malouda.” But we got Torres – he couldn’t get every player he wanted to sign.’

  Not everything was as it seemed at Liverpool. Parry too was caught in the middle. The owners were his paymasters, yet he also felt a sense of duty to Benítez. Benítez appreciated Parry had known Gillett longer and therefore would have more of an allegiance to him. If Hicks was promising Benítez a longer contract and more money to spend on the team, how could Benítez trust Parry to help him? Parry was spinning plates, trying to run a club on a day-to-day basis where the most significant decision makers were becoming overwhelmed by paranoia.

  Parry’s and Benítez’s relationship worsened after it was revealed an approach had been made to recruit Jürgen Klinsmann as Liverpool’s manager.

  ‘Clearly Rafa was hurt and understandably so,’ Parry admits. ‘I think he was very hurt that I’d had an involvement. When I said, “Rafa, you know, I’m employed by these guys. If they tell me to go to New York and to attend a meeting, that’s what I have to do.” Rafa’s response to that was, “Yeah, well, you should have come straight back and told me.” It was supposed to be confidential, of course. That became a very difficult period.

  ‘They weren’t trying to do anything malicious in approaching Klinsmann. In football, everything gets blown up. They had a very straightforward mindset. Rafa was making a play in the media about the possibility of going to Real Madrid. So they took him literally and explored other options in case he did. They didn’t think he was playing games and decide to ignore it. They took it at face value.

  ‘One of George’s best friends was Dr Richard Steadman, who’d operated on Michael Owen’s knee. Richard met Michael and listened to the stories about Liverpool. Later, Klinsmann went to see Steadman too and soon enough one thing led to another and George met Klinsmann too. In fairness to George, he was keen on learning more about football and initially the meeting was just about that: gaining knowledge. Eventually the question was asked, “Could this guy be any good as a manager if Rafa goes?” There was no more to it than that. Klinsmann was a proposed contingency but in the highly charged atmosphere that existed around that time, the story became Liverpool wanting to replace Rafa with Klinsmann.

  ‘It was one of Rafa’s initiatives that backfired. He was thinking if he threatened to leave, it might strengthen his position. Instead, it was the reverse: they thought, Well, if he’s got other plans, we’ll have to do something else too. It was a case of Americans being pragmatic.’

  According to Gillett, he and Hicks received two thousand emails a week from angry Liverpool fans. ‘Ninety-five per cent of them have been directed at some of the comments made by my partner. And five per cent were aimed at both of us: “Go Home, Americans!”’

  Supporter momentum against the owners gathered quickly. Despite Dallas-based architects HKS presenting plans for an expandable sixty-thousand-seater stadium – complete with futuristic 18,500-seater Kop – which were granted planning permission, work would never begin. Hicks and Gillett simply didn’t have the funds and when Liverpool revealed their annual accounts in May 2013, it emerged the club had spent £35 million on design fees, legal and administrative costs with regard to the unbuilt site.

  If the challenge of running Liverpool was immense under David Moores, for Parry it became almost impossible with Hicks and Gillett. It says much about the pair that Hicks’s name is always mentioned first, for he was viewed as the dominant partner even though Gillett was the one who initially wanted to buy Liverpool.

  Hicks appeared the more combative figure, falling out with all of those around him at some point. He fell out with Rafael Benítez when he reminded him during a telephone conversation that it was his job to ‘coach’ the team rather than involve himself in the transfer business. Though the relationship was later salvaged, with Benítez agreeing a new five-year contract in 2009, Hicks then took on Parry by agreeing to a television interview at his ranch in Texas during which he condemned the work of the chief executive.

  Previously, Gillett had flown to Merseyside, suspecting that Liverpool’s new finance director Ian Ayre was reporting to Hicks. An argument ensued in Ayre’s office and soon enough Parry then became a target of Hicks. With a fire roarin
g cosily in the background, Hicks infamously spoke at length on his misgivings about Parry, labelling his reign a ‘disaster’. Hicks’s lack of awareness was displayed by the fact he delivered the comments on the anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster. Hicks finished the interview by calling for Parry to resign, appreciating that he was in no position to fire him, because Gillett would have to agree and by then they agreed on nothing.

  ‘I never watched the interview,’ Parry says. ‘Sometimes the only way to deal with it is to ignore it. Tom also sent me a letter, which I’ve never read, although my lawyer has. I can’t think of any good reason why I would. There was no point in responding to him, certainly not publicly. Just because someone else doesn’t operate with the same values, it doesn’t mean you should stoop to their level.’

  The interview increased the heat on Parry. Every supporter had a different opinion on his work anyway because of the stadium issue, the sale of the club, transfers that didn’t happen – transfers like Dani Alves, who’d later become a great Barcelona right-back, someone Liverpool had ready to board a plane from Seville only for the selling club’s president to call him back at the last moment. Somewhere in the narrative of transfer stories like these, Parry would be blamed.

  ‘You can’t let criticism distract you,’ he says. ‘I tried not to read the papers. When you ignore them, it’s remarkable how much better you feel. You have to focus on what you believe is right as well as outcomes, rather than trying to please people or worrying about your own popularity. Supporters don’t just have an opinion; they want to see everything in black and white. It has to be biro. It’s a case of Rafa being a hero or a villain. It’s a case of Steven Gerrard being the greatest or the worst. Actually, the reality is somewhere in the middle. Nobody is all bad or all good. Everybody makes mistakes; everybody does good things. Unfortunately, there is a culture in football – as well as in society – that everything is binary when really there is usually a shade of grey.’

  It says much about the dysfunctional leadership at the top of Liverpool that Parry was able to remain after Hicks’s public condemnation. In November 2008, Parry was told by advisers from both the Hicks and Gillett camps that the club was up for sale. Parry had sold Liverpool once. He hoped to be able to do it again. Yet by January 2009, the outlook had changed. He describes ‘the insanity of Liverpool’, mentioning a scene where Hicks arrived at a home game with his entourage in the directors’ box while Gillett was left in the overspill seats usually reserved for scouting in front of the press box in the main stand.

  ‘I went to George and said, “With respect, you don’t look like the equal partner at the moment. You’ve got to do me one favour at least: don’t leave me with that fella.” At least I could finish with a bit of dignity myself.’

  Parry did not hear from Gillett again. Instead, a week later Hicks contacted him to explain that he’d discussed it with Gillett and it was the one thing they could agree on: that a meeting should be scheduled to establish whether a termination of Parry’s contract could be arranged.

  ‘It was the only civilized moment of those few years. It was a relief when my departure was finally confirmed,’ Parry says. ‘The thing that hurt the most was that the club was not being run in the correct way, with the right values. I’d like to have left when the outlook at Liverpool was healthier.’

  Parry’s exit was presented as a victory for Rafael Benítez, who signed a new five-season contract extension soon afterwards, albeit one that he would complete just one further season of. Parry believes this is a myth that needs debunking.

  ‘Yes, Rafa and I had disagreements but that does not explain all of the ills at the club. I was involved in previous negotiations over Rafa’s contract where I said, “Listen, if it helps for me to go, it’s not a problem.” But Rafa and his people assured me that wasn’t an issue at all. There were big issues over how much power he wanted, who was in charge of what and how things should be done. But it was never a personal thing between him and me. There was even lots of talk about me having an office at Melwood and spending more time there with him.

  ‘The idea of my departure being the result of a power battle between me and Rafa isn’t true,’ Parry concludes. ‘We still speak and in his own inimitable way – because he’d never admit to being wrong about anything, ever – there is definitely a sense that he realizes you should maybe be careful what you wish for, even if it’s fleeting. He made a point of writing that in his book and when it was released he ensured that David and I received signed copies.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  FERNANDO TORRES,

  The Kid

  WHEN THE CLOAK of darkness falls upon Madrid in the weeks before spring’s arrival, the temperature drops suddenly and gusts blow across the city. Yet over on the banks of the Manzanares River, at the Vicente Calderón Stadium, there is a flame that always burns.

  To understand what Fernando Torres means to supporters of Atlético Madrid, imagine the family of six who have driven two hours on a school night from a town in La Mancha, where the windmills are immortalized by Miguel de Cervantes in the novel Don Quixote.

  Torres has not been introduced, having only been selected as a substitute, but with Atlético 2–0 ahead at half-time against Real Sociedad, he takes to the pitch and begins to warm up.

  One of the young boys, no older than eight, spots him. ‘El Niño Torres!’ he yaps. ‘Look, El Niño Torres!’ His brothers break from an argument and stare out across the verdant field in front.

  Before kick-off, when Torres’s name was announced, the raucous cheers bounced off the ramparts of this tattered football ground, which sits in the working-class south of Spain’s capital, not too far from where Torres grew up. Arganzuela is an industrial neighbourhood and such is the volume of noise it would probably have been enough to conceal the rumble of the M-30 motorway, which runs beneath the west stand while operational on non-match days.

  It is a challenge to explain exactly how much of a hero Torres is at the Calderón, where the goal that won the 2008 European Championships, Spain’s first international tournament in forty-four years, was believed to be Atlético’s, not only because Torres scored it but also because he celebrated the achievement that night, and then the World Cup in 2010, by decorating himself in an Atlético flag. By then, Torres had left the club and yet soon after his departure in 2007 Liverpool shirts were worn inside the Calderón.

  Back home now, after seven and a half seasons away, Torres’s presence is not required. Atlético end up winning 3–0, squashing Sociedad with a display of considerable physical strength and unity. Not one of their players is a real star. Under Diego Simeone, the team is king.

  In fact, there is a sense Atlético might not need Torres much longer. He is not really El Niño (the Kid) any more and, rather, a near 32-year-old father of three with his best years behind him. Because Torres is on loan from AC Milan and because, at the time of our interview, Atlético are under a transfer embargo, he might have to go somewhere else when his contract ends in Italy in a few months, whether Simeone wants him or not.

  When I meet Torres the following day, the prospect of leaving Atlético for a second time – the club he grew up supporting, the one where he made his debut at seventeen and became the youngest captain at nineteen – does not appear to concern him too greatly, largely because he is not considering the future as much as he did when he was younger, something which, he explains, contributed towards an acrimonious exit from Liverpool to Chelsea. ‘Day by day – I have realized that in life you should look no further,’ is one of the first things he says to me.

  At Atlético, the love for him is unconditional because when he left, he moved abroad and the supporters understood why he had to do it. The destination of Liverpool was acceptable because Liverpool are not rivals and, as Torres later reminds me, ‘Liverpool beat Real Madrid in the 1981 European Cup final’, and Real Madrid are Atlético’s enemy.

  At Liverpool, no foreign player in modern times has appeared to und
erstand the club and the city as much as he did. As captain of Atlético, he wore an armband that bore the words ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’. In his debut season at Anfield, he scored thirty-three goals in forty-six games. In 2008, when Liverpool became the European Capital of Culture, his presence helped it feel like an even more cosmopolitan place. That summer, an advert for his boot maker Nike included shots of a house in Anfield being painted in the red and yellow colours of Spain, along with the parking lines on the streets below. There were chip shops advertising all-day tapas, street markets selling paella pans and increased numbers of women at salsa lessons. The world famous Cavern Club became the Caverna Club. The final scene included a modestly dressed Torres walking his dog across green space on Everton Brow, retrieving a football for a group of lads involved in a game. Although injuries interrupted the next two and a half seasons, his name was sung even before Steven Gerrard’s in the pubs before matches. Torres was the working-class hero from another country who simply got it all.

  But then he signed for Chelsea, a club whose injection of riches since 2003 had seen them win more than Liverpool, as a new rivalry developed. Torres says that when he closes his eyes and forces himself, he can remember driving through the gates of Melwood for the last time as a Liverpool player. A gang had congregated, ceremoniously burning his shirt in front of television cameras. John Aldridge, the former Liverpool centre-forward, worked for radio and could not bring himself to utter Torres’s name thereafter, referring to him as ‘the other fella’. His debut for Chelsea came the following weekend and, as fate would have it, Liverpool were the opponents at Stamford Bridge. Visiting supporters greeted him with a couple of banners with clear messages: ‘He who betrays will always walk alone’ and the slightly more obscure ‘Ya paid 50 mil 4 Margi Clarke’. Torres was hit by a cigarette lighter thrown from the south-east corner of the Shed End and, to complete his indignity, Liverpool won 1–0.