Carra: My Autobiography (28 page)

When the game was over and I recognized what we'd achieved, it dawned on me for the first time we were genuine contenders to win the competition. If a side including Traore, Biscan, Le Tallec, Nunez and a rookie keeper could defeat the Italian champions, with players of the class of Buffon, Cannavaro, Nedved, Thuram and Ibrahimovich, anything was possible.

The excitement among the fans was building and transmitting itself into the bodies and minds of the players. They also had a new anthem to accompany our European tours. 'Ring of Fire' by Johnny Cash was already a favourite among a small group of supporters. Paul Cook, who used to play for Tranmere, Mick Laffey, Gary McGowan and my dad said they'd been using the tune as their theme song on the road for years. They used to meet at The Fantail pub in Kirkby before our away games, and as their coach made its way along England's motorways and A roads they'd put their 'Live from San Quentin' tape on and sing the der-der-der-der-der, der, der, ders. I'd first become aware of this against Middlesbrough in 2003 when I was invited on board. I was recovering from my broken leg and couldn't stand sitting at home listening to our Saturday matches on the radio, so I joined the minibus regulars on their trip to the north-east and sat in the away stand. The 'Ring of Fire' chant was soon heard inside the ground, and it slowly began to spread across the whole of our fanbase. My ears were pricked at a League match at Fulham early in the 2004–05 season when it was as loud as I'd known it, but it seemed to take on a life of its own as we progressed in Europe. By the time we met Chelsea in the semifinal, the words of the song had caught the imagination of all the fans. If we could get them back to Anfield on equal terms, never mind a ring of fire, they were going to face a towering inferno of passion.

Everything it was possible for a club to do wrong ahead of a semifinal, Chelsea did in 2005. Every cocky interview they gave, every idle boast, worked in our favour, and every neutral in the world wanted us to win. Even a few Manchester United fans must have been tempted to back us over Jose Mourinho's side.

This wasn't a typical European semifinal, it was a battle fuelled by the growing hostility that had been festering between the clubs. In all my years at Anfield I've never known our supporters want to win any fixture more. Not even countless meetings with Everton or Manchester United have triggered such a tidal wave of ill will towards an adversary.

The Carling Cup Final had added to the mutual disrespect in the stands, but to our supporters Chelsea as a football club characterized everything they despised. They seemed even more brash and arrogant than they were in the 1990s as the darling of Tory fans like David Mellor. Some of their officials and fans created a fresh definition for the word 'smug' every time they were interviewed. Chelsea behaved like they had a divine right to be instantly considered one of Europe's greatest clubs, just because they were wealthy. Every time they spoke about being seen on the same level as Liverpool, Real Madrid or Manchester United, you couldn't stop yourself thinking if it wasn't for Roman Abramovich's billions most of them wouldn't even be at Stamford Bridge, let alone claiming Chelsea were one of the biggest clubs in the world. Their approach seemed as much about belittling everyone else as promoting themselves. They represented the opposite of all I believed in. Unlike Liverpool, they didn't have the emotional bonds to go with their economic might. They had plenty of what we wanted – money – but The Kop possessed something they couldn't buy, and which can only be bred over the generations: passion.

Our supporters and manager focused on the financial aspect of Chelsea's success as an easy way to undermine their achievements, but the point for me wasn't that the Londoners were minted, it was the way they handled their good fortune. When Abramovich took over, they acted like lottery winners, rubbing the rest of the football world's noses in it. They began openly to tap up players, and, prior to Mourinho's appointment, even thought the England manager was there for the taking. Having a billionaire owner didn't make them better than everyone else, only wealthier, but there seemed little desire to behave with dignity, humility and integrity. Football's rule book, it seemed, could be rewritten by those with the largest cheques.

That said, I found some of the remarks about Chelsea 'buying their success' hypocritical. I felt no resentment towards Abramovich for spending heavily to make them a superpower. Every Liverpool fan was hoping for a similar tycoon to come to Anfield and plough the same level of cash into us. Had he joined us and pumped so much money into the team, he'd only have had to wear a red scarf in the directors' box and said a few kind words and we'd have loved him.

You could argue Abramovich has been good for English football. Not only did he raise the stakes by taking Chelsea to a new level, forcing everyone else to get their act together, he's probably invested as much in other Premier League clubs as his rival chairmen. Manchester City wouldn't have received £20 million for Shaun Wright-Phillips and West Ham wouldn't have earned the millions they have from sales had Chelsea not been prepared to pay over the odds. On the other hand, the level of spending now has reached ridiculous levels, piling the pressure on other clubs to take financial risks. The knock-on impact of trying to compete with Abramovich led to the Liverpool takeover, and we've all seen how detrimental it can be if you sell to the wrong foreign owner. Still, for the rest of us to complain about their spending is sour grapes. And anyway, as I know to my cost at Anfield, having money is no guarantee of success. The skill is spending it on the right players.

It wasn't Abramovich who sparked the hatred between Liverpool and Chelsea that season, it was the historical and philosophical differences between the clubs, aided and abetted by the conduct of their players and the war of words between our managers. We relished being seen at odds with them – the working-class fighters taking on the middle-class toffs. We were going to squeeze out of our pores every last drop of sweat to stop them. And if any of us even felt a tingle of weakness, our fans were going to burst their lungs urging us to go beyond what many of us thought possible. The will to win is as important as the ability to do so. Chelsea had the class in their squad, but they couldn't beat our desire. In simple terms, our fans wanted it more than theirs.

We also knew how little they fancied our chances. Their biggest mistake was underestimating us. They presumed their superior strength in depth, and overall quality, would make victory inevitable. While we were battling to that 0–0 draw in Turin, I later heard many of the Chelsea lads had gone out for a drink in west London to watch the game on TV. Mourinho's side had come through against Bayern Munich a night earlier, and we already knew which direction the draw was taking us. Flying high in the League and having already beaten us three times during the season, naturally the Chelsea players hoped we'd be in the semi. Juventus looked a more formidable opponent. Our weaknesses had already been exposed domestically. I was informed that when the final whistle blew in the Stadio Delle Alpi it was the cue for celebrations in west London. Then, in the weeks before the semifinal, all we heard about was the inevitability of a dream final between AC Milan and Chelsea. Nothing our rivals said or did erased our suspicions that they thought they were as good as through.

Perhaps that explained their low-key approach to the first leg on 27 April, when, having anticipated a cauldron of noise at Stamford Bridge, I walked out wondering if this really was one of the biggest games of our careers. There was nothing to distinguish it from a routine Premiership game. It was as if the importance of the occasion hadn't registered with Chelsea fans. As I lined up and heard our away section in full voice, there was only one conclusion. This game meant far more to Liverpool than to Chelsea. I'm not talking about their players; I know how hungry their squad and manager were to get to the final. Had their fans shown the same intensity, maybe we'd have found it tougher to cope in the first game. But nothing exposed the difference between the values of the two clubs than the contrasting atmospheres at Stamford Bridge and Anfield.

The first game was dull, memorable solely as the only occasion I've seen Benitez lose his rag in the dressing room. He laid into a couple of players at halftime, accusing them of not working hard enough. We rarely threatened a goal, but we defended superbly. The only blemish was a late booking for Xabi Alonso, courtesy of Eidur Gudjohnsen's dive. 'I knew you were a yellow card away from being suspended,' the Icelandic striker admitted after the game. Such was our lack of resources, losing Xabi seemed a potentially crippling blow. The Kop wasted no time using the manner of his suspension to point the finger at Chelsea's 'cynical bastards'. Didier Drogba and Arjen Robben had already secured their reputation in this respect that season, so Gudjohnsen joined their rogues gallery.

A 0–0 draw was all we were playing for, so it was a job expertly executed. 'I'm sure 99 per cent of Liverpool fans think they're now through,' said Mourinho, using his mind games to try to shift the pressure on to us. It was a useless strategy, and Phil Thompson, a pundit for Sky on the night of the first leg, delivered the perfect, instant riposte on our behalf, ensuring we needn't bother rising to Jose's bait. 'Jose is wrong,' said Thommo. 'A hundred per cent of Liverpool fans think they're now through.' Was Thommo guilty of Chelsea-style arrogance? No, there was a difference. He was reminding Mourinho he was right to be extremely worried about what the fans had in store for him a week later. Nothing Jose and his players had experienced previously in football would prepare them for this.

In fact, nothing I had experienced compared to the evening of 3 May 2005.

There are three Anfield nights which, above all others, are worthy of a permanent shrine in the club museum: the first leg against Inter Milan in 1965, when Bill Shankly's side beat the Italian champions 3–1 in the last four of the European Cup; St Etienne in 1977, when Liverpool needed to score two secondhalf goals to reach the semifinal of a competition they'd go on to win for the first time; and Chelsea in 2005. Some seasoned Anfield observers claimed we topped this illustrious list.

We hadn't waited just the week that separated the two legs for a fixture of this magnitude. The club had gone through two decades of frustration to get here. We'd done everything we could to help whip up the fans in the days before the return leg, but there wasn't any need. Every interview we did we just dusted down the annual tributes to the 'twelfth man' of The Kop, but it was more a case of predicting they'd make a contribution than asking them to do so. The supporters required no rallying cry.

For every motivational quote we provided, Chelsea's players and manager tended to go one further. Stories began to appear about hospitality packages already being offered to their fans for the final. Then we heard they'd booked a club in Liverpool for a private party to celebrate after the match. I'm not sure if that's true, but the owner of the club was quoted in the
Liverpool
Echo
, so it had the desired effect of making us more determined. Chelsea certainly messed around with our preparations with their arrangements on Merseyside. Prior to every home European game we would stay overnight in the same hotel. I'm not superstitious, but when you get into a familiar routine as a player, even a minor disruption can play on your mind and fester. I was livid to discover Chelsea had booked into our usual accommodation. Did they do so deliberately? I suspect so, but most of my anger was aimed at the hotel for allowing them to get in first and stay when they should have known we'd want to be there.

'Do you want us to win this trophy or what?' I'd have asked them.

By the day of the game, the intense sense of anticipation had swept across the city and was encircling the perimeter of our very own 'Ring of Fire' – the Anfield stadium. Even during the warm-up the volume of noise was several decibels higher than most League games. The Kop was full early, there were more banners and scarves than I could remember, and a full repertoire of songs escorted us through our preparations. It was like seeing a multicoloured dreamcoat of bedspreads daubed with graffiti.

'This is going to be a special night,' I thought.

As Thommo had warned, the fans really had turned up believing we were going to win. Now we felt it too, and the Chelsea players couldn't avoid being affected by the surge of absolute conviction coming from the stands. They'd later admit they'd never known an atmosphere like it. Despite the hype beforehand about Anfield's terrifying sounds, playing in those conditions was tough for them.

Just as Juventus had needed half an hour to come to terms with the hostility, conceding two goals in the process, so Chelsea succumbed to our immediate momentum. Luis Garcia scored what became known as 'The Phantom Goal': his tame shot dawdled before deciding to cross the goal-line, sucked in by the inhalations of twelve thousand Kopites. Nobody has ever been able to prove the goal should have stood. Crucially, nobody has ever been able to disprove it either.

Plenty tried, of course. In the days following the game I was starting to think the nation's scientists had been ordered to find conclusive evidence it didn't go in. Sky TV repeated it every minute of every hour, using as many gadgets as they could to expose the scandal of the linesman's decision. What Chelsea sympathizers neglected to emphasize was the referees' explanation of what would have happened had the goal not stood. Chelsea keeper Petr Cech would have been sent off for clattering Milan Baros in the build-up to the strike, we'd have had a penalty, and Chelsea would have had to play virtually an entire game with ten men and a reserve goalie. Given the option, I might have preferred it at the time.