Carra: My Autobiography (19 page)

We'd overcome some tough opponents to reach Cardiff for the second time, most notably Leeds at Elland Road in the fourth round. Still a top-five Premier League outfit in those days, they were our closest rivals in pursuit of the Champions League places, so to go there and win as convincingly as we did, 2–0, gave us the momentum we needed to go all the way. We also emerged victorious from a 'derby' against Tranmere Rovers at Prenton Park in the quarterfinal. That may seem an easy tie on paper, but bearing in mind their form – they'd knocked out Everton at Goodison Park and turned round a 3–0 deficit at home to Southampton in the fifth round – it was a really taxing encounter. A year earlier countless giant-killing acts had led to a place in the Carling Cup Final. Their manager, John Aldridge, fancied his chances against us that day, but Houllier had his wits about him, fielding the most 'English' team he could muster. Eight British players started that match, with only Westerveld, Babbel and Hyypia representing the continentals. I doubt those percentages have been repeated in a Liverpool starting eleven since. We won 4–2, but plenty of other Premiership teams would have come a cropper given the way Tranmere bombarded us in the second half. Once more I reflected on the guts we'd showed throughout the competition. We survived bruised but unbeaten. We still had enough English players in our squad to bring such characteristics to the fore when needed.

If our semifinal win over Wycombe was a formality, there was no hope of an easy ride in the final. The Carling Cup Final might have been a lesson in how to win a cup without playing well, but the FA Cup took it to a new extreme. The game against Arsenal was embarrassingly one-sided. The best team didn't win, and we were fortunate Michael stepped up to change the game. I'd like to say he did so singlehanded, but the fingers of Stéphane Henchoz, who made a couple of great saves he thankfully didn't get credit for from the referee, also helped. Two goals in the last ten minutes stole it from Arsène Wenger. The gods smiled upon us, but unlike after the match against Birmingham, I felt no guilt about our manner of victory this time. Arsenal had it coming against Liverpool. Those fans who remembered losing the League title in the last minute in 1989 saw this as a mild form of revenge. Even the Gunners had to admire our neversay-die attitude. They could outplay us, but they never outbattled us.

Under Wenger, Arsenal have consistently been the most complete football side I've faced. You can talk about Barcelona, AC Milan, Chelsea and Manchester United all you like, but the Arsenal team that featured Thierry Henry and Patrick Vieira at their peak was the most daunting of all. They had skill, pace, stamina and flair. Some of the times I faced them I came off the pitch certain I'd played against the best team in the world. Henry was the one player who persistently gave me problems. Every defender has one rival like this, and he was mine, simply because there's no response to raw pace. When it's allied to the close ball control he possessed, it's virtually unstoppable. There were times he ran past me with the ball seemingly glued to his boots. Their only weakness was a frequent inability to finish teams off. This happened once or twice at Anfield when they played us off the park but we somehow nicked a draw. In Cardiff, Michael made them pay the ultimate price for their wastefulness, breaking their hearts with a classic smash and grab.

We hailed our victory, acknowledging Mo had carried a get-out-of-jail card on to the pitch. This was 'The Michael Owen Final', just like we'd enjoy 'The Steven Gerrard Final' five years later. Stevie later admitted he learned more from Vieira's performance that day than he had from any opponent in previous years. He recognized the jump in class he still had to make in order to dominate a midfield. Like all great players, he analysed where he needed to improve rather than simply savouring the victory, and this gave him the confidence to get the better of Vieira in future meetings.

Did we deserve victory on the day? No. But sometimes you win trophies for a season's work, not just ninety minutes' worth. We were always hearing how lucky we were as we scrapped our way to one win after another. I defy any side to play sixty-three games in a season, win three cups, and not have the run of the ball once or twice. Look at United's treble in 1999. They deserved everything they got, but they saw everything bounce their way, beating us and Arsenal on the path to winning the FA Cup, and Bayern Munich in the Champions League Final, on each occasion scoring the winner in the last minute. I've never begrudged that. Just like United in 1999, we had to make our own good fortune on plenty of occasions, playing some robust, uncompromising and class football to put ourselves into a position to benefit from our breaks. Had we not won all three cups, I'd have been arguing how unlucky we'd been to concede two last-minute equalizers in two major finals.

If we weren't being accused of relying on good fortune, we were being told how dull we were to watch. This allegation plagued us. For eight months of our UEFA Cup run we sent the nation to sleep, only to rouse everyone with one of the most exciting finals ever.

The comparisons with Arsenal's and Manchester United's style of play weren't favourable, but the criticism was harsh. We were a developing side and, first and foremost, Houllier was right to make us hard to beat. After years of analysis of Evans's side and complaints about a lack of spine, now the club was being targeted for being too reliant on discipline, structure and organization. Considering the speed with which we'd gone from being a 'soft touch' in that notorious FA Cup tie at Stamford Bridge in 1997 to heading to places like the Nou Camp and grabbing a clean sheet, some of the punditry at the time was foolish and uncharitable. Part of the problem was that all our European games were screened live on BBC1, and you can understand their hoping for a more entertaining brand of football to sustain viewing figures and justify rescheduling
EastEnders
.

It's the classic contradiction in the modern game. To us and the fans, winning is entertaining. We saw each victory that season as part of a building process. We hoped in the years to come we'd develop a more fluid style, but at that point of our development, at a club that had only a League Cup win to its name in the previous eight seasons, any win would do.

I remember saying at the time the history books would never record how we got those fantastic results on our way to the UEFA Cup Final, only that we got them. We kept a clean sheet over 180 minutes against Barcelona, and won 2–0 in the Olympic Stadium in Rome. Fabio Capello was their manager and they won the Italian league that year. We also beat the Porto side that went on to win the UEFA Cup and Champions League in 2003 and 2004 respectively, as well as Olympiakos, who are regularly in the Champions League. It was in fact the strongest UEFA Cup competition in years, packed with Champions League level sides (this was before the number of clubs from the major leagues was increased to four). They were colossal scalps for us, and although they weren't achieved by adopting adventurous tactics, we played to our strengths and did ourselves and the club proud.

So to get back home and find the BBC telling everyone how boring we were was, to say the least, a bit irritating. I've never been one to get too prickly about media criticism, but I think this undoubtedly sowed the seeds for what followed with Houllier. He could brush off attacks on his team when we were winning, but when things started to go wrong later he became more insecure and bitter about how underrated he'd been.

The last-sixteen tie with Roma encapsulated how the competition went for us. Clearly we were underdogs heading into it, but we combined our organization, our spirit and our skill to get through. We also had things fall our way at a crucial time.

Ahead of the first leg on 15 February, Bergues's importance as Houllier's assistant became apparent again. Gérard told us he planned to go with an attacking formation, with Litmanen playing behind Robbie and Heskey; Michael, who'd been in and out of the side after returning from injury, wasn't going to play. Bergues influenced a rethink, and on the day of the game Emile pulled out with an injury. Michael was back in. On such details seasons are defined.

In that game Michael began the goalscoring run which led to him becoming European Player of the Year. It also demonstrated the difference between a player like Michael and someone like Emile. If the roles had been reversed, there's no way Michael would have stepped aside to allow Emile to play in such a massive game. Emile possessed the ability to be a Liverpool player, but not the mentality. There was a spell during the course of that season when he was unplayable. Even Michael was telling me he thought Emile had become one of the best strikers in Europe, as he battered defenders and began to score regularly. We hoped he'd matured into a striker who'd dominate English football for the next decade. Unfortunately, he didn't sustain it at Anfield. His unavailability in Rome, the sort of fixture you fantasize about as a youngster, offers, to me at least, a possible hint as to why Heskey's career has drifted.

Michael reaped the benefits in Italy. He scored twice to set us up for the controversial second leg a week later, remembered for a penalty award that wasn't given. We'd missed our own spot-kick with the score at 0–0, and after Roma went ahead it seemed they'd won a penalty for a Babbel handball. The referee appeared to award it, and had Gabriel Batistuta not run off towards the corner flag to take a quick set-piece, I'm sure the decision would have stood. Instead, the official seemed to change his mind. Naturally, our rivals feasted on the Italians' sense of injustice, but we deserved to win over the two legs.

The same applied to the semifinal against Barcelona, where we were condemned for refusing to allow their best players the time and space to play. Rivaldo was their star man at the time, but we kept him quiet and won, thanks to McAllister's penalty in the second leg.

'You have betrayed football, Mr Houllier,' the Spanish press told the gaffer in the after-match press conference.

At that time in his management, he'd always have a clever response. 'They kept the ball, but we kept the result,' he said.

He'd have the last word in the final, but the more I think about this much-used statement from Houllier, the more I understand why the fans ran out of patience later on. Liverpool's traditions are based on keeping the ball and the result. They tolerated this philosophy in 2001 because we were achieving fantastic results in only his second full season in sole control. A couple of years later, when we were still reverting to this defensive, negative style, our supporters saw no likelihood of him ever changing.

Nobody cared so much when we sent Barca home to face their white handkerchief brigade. By this stage I was describing each win as the highlight of my career, although with games arriving thick and fast there was no chance to join the fans' celebrations. The atmosphere inside Anfield on the night of the semifinal was, up until that point, the loudest I'd known.

Those games were the first stirrings of our reawakening on the European stage. After so many years reading about Liverpool's European nights, finally we were creating history for ourselves. Since that 2000–01 season, the classic Euro ties have been re-established at Anfield. They've become an annual event again. Eight years ago we'd waited fifteen years for a chance to recreate the atmosphere and images of the past. The club that is obsessed with revisiting former glories now had an opportunity to do so. A new generation of us had a chance to experience what the players before us had gone through. Of course, some of them would never allow us to suggest our success matched up to theirs, but for those too young to be a part of the magic of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, this naturally meant far more.

The 2001 UEFA Cup Final has since been eclipsed, but at the time it was the highlight of many Liverpudlians' lives, especially those, like me, in their early twenties who'd only seen the old finals on DVD. My friends and younger members of my family had heard all the old stories about travelling to Europe, the nights out in foreign bars and invading town squares, decorating every club or café with the wittiest banners that could be dreamed up. For over a decade no Liverpool fan had had the chance to relive those sensations. We should never forget it was Gérard Houllier who first brought those times back. The sides of Roy Evans and Graeme Souness competed in Europe, but Houllier lived up to Anfield traditions by conquering it.

Of all the trophies we won that season, the UEFA Cup meant most to him. Modern coaches value European competition more, partly due to traditions in their own country, but also because they're pitting their wits against different managers and tactics. There's an obvious vanity issue there. You can imagine them all at their UEFA coaching conferences, smiling at one another as they chat about their encounters, and privately recalling the games when they got the better of one another. In 2001, Houllier was rightly seen as one of the best coaches in Europe, and winning the UEFA Cup underlined it.

Dortmund's Westfalenstadion was the perfect venue for us to announce our return to the European elite – an open ground, with a Kop-like stand behind each goal. Our fans took over the stadium and made it feel like home. There were blankets of red banners across all the stands. On walking out, none of us felt we'd let the fans down.

Our opponents, Alaves, were an unknown quantity. They'd beaten Inter Milan earlier in the competition, but we knew we were much stronger. We should have overwhelmed them on and off the pitch, and for a while it looked as though we would.