I came to Liverpool to do my best and it’s great now afterwards that my best gave me the kind of career at Liverpool Football Club that I had. That day when I signed my deal, if somebody came to tell me, ‘You’ll spend the next 10 years here and you’ll win this and this and this and you’ll play this many games’, I wouldn’t have believed that. It was like living in a dream for 10 years.
We didn’t win anything in my first season but I established myself as a Premier League player.
One of the biggest prizes I’ve won individually was the Player of the Month in the Premier League. It’s not many times defenders get it and that happened in the first season, in November. I still have the award at home and that’s special for me.
Also special for me was how the club was towards me, because three months after I came, I got the captain’s armband in a game against West Ham. We were playing away and we went to the dressing room and the armband was on my place. Jamie Redknapp was the first captain and Robbie Fowler was the second, and they were both injured. So then I had the armband and I was all confused that this was possible, but very happy as well.
And also after three months, the club wanted to renew my contract. That showed me how the club was. I had signed a four-year contract and after three months the club wanted to offer me a new contract.
The second season was of course unique and special as we won the League Cup, FA Cup and UEFA Cup. It was so demanding and tiring during that season, but it was the kind of experience you would never really be able to live again.
I’m quite a calm person, but I have nerves and throughout my career I always had a bad stomach before games… that I had to go to the toilet like five or six times before the game! It was because my stomach wasn’t right, but that was a good nervousness. I felt that when I had that nervousness then I can get more out of myself.
I also decided later on that if I lost the nervousness then I would stop playing. But I never lost it, I had it until the end and that wasn’t the reason that I stopped playing.
When Rafa Benitez took over from Gerard in 2004, it felt strange at first.
Maybe many players would think that when the new manager comes, somehow they are not sure what’s going to happen. Maybe that came into my head as well a little bit, but then on the other hand, if the manager doesn’t like me then there’s 100 managers who like me. So, I wasn’t worried about that at all when he came.
It was the same mentality, that I get my head down, kept working hard in training, keeping myself ready for the games and play as good as I can.
I liked to work with him because in the football things I learned a lot from him. He was very specific with the tactical things and that was great for me football-wise as well. I had always in my head that I would like to coach one day and during that part of my life I learned a lot from him as well.
I was sad when Gerard Houllier had to go. But on the other hand, we got a different kind of manager and I think the rest is history because in the first season of Rafa, we won the Istanbul final so everyone probably was happy after the first season.
20 years on, I still can’t make any more sense of what happened in that Champions League final.
