The Times Interview: Jamie Carragher

April 17, 2005

The Big Interview: Jamie Carragher
Jonathan Northcroft meets a Bootle boy who hasn’t forgotten his roots

Carragher’s Guide to Liverpool,

Part 1: You Never Walk Alone

“Just this morning, driving in to work, people were beeping their horns. For the next couple of days, everywhere you go, you’ll get people you don’t even know giving you the thumbs-up. I was in the shop buying the papers and this woman came in and you could tell how happy she was. She was made up talking about the game.”

Today is another day, but this one is all about the night before. We’re at Melwood on Thursday and it’s 11.30am, only eight hours since touching down in the plane that brought the Liverpool squad and some journalists home from Turin. Knackered? “Knackered,” Jamie Carragher nods. “The kids woke me at 7.30.” He’s smiling, though.

Sustained by residual adrenaline after eliminating Juventus in a Champions League quarter-final, Carragher has already been out and done the light training session that Rafael Benitez prescribes on the mornings after midweek games. Despite his four hours’ sleep, he is radiant. The rest of the day is his (“I’m definitely having a kip this afternoon”) and he can savour Liverpool’s feat in the Stadio Delle Alpi.

“It was right up there with anything I’ve ever been involved in,” he says, beaming. “We did well in Europe under Gerard Houllier and didn’t concede away to Barcelona and Roma, but Juventus were better than those teams and that was three years into Houllier’s reign. This is the manager’s (Benitez’s) first season. It’s incredible.”

Carragher’s accent is as sludgy as the Mersey and he is as straight-talking as an early Beatles song. If you want to know what besting Juventus meant to ordinary people on the red half of Merseyside, speak to him. Yet although Carragher is often labelled a typical Scouser, he is not: Liverpool would rule the world if that were so. Rather, with his diamond-cutter sharpness, indomitable nature and determinedly applied talent, this 27-year-old represents what can be best about people from his too-often-maligned city. Liverpool’s bold and clever performance in Turin was less about Carragher being their epitome than the team making itself more like him.

They are through to face the might of Chelsea. “If you look at our qualifying group, we were capable of getting through,” he says. “Then we faced Leverkusen, fifth in their league, similar to us. We should have beaten them — I mean, we’re Liverpool. Juventus was our first real test, and if you can beat Juventus, you should be confident against anybody.”

Chelsea’s vast points superiority in the Premiership makes them significant favourites, but like others at Melwood, Carragher nurses a certain restrained confidence about the tie, based on how close Liverpool have run Chelsea in their three meetings this season. They were injury-hit in every one. Now Liverpool have the magnificent Xabi Alonso fit and it’s Chelsea who are afflicted with crocks.

Carragher is pondering one thing. Will the two games be European or Premiership in style? “I was thinking about that last night. I’ve read a few histories of the club and it’s going to be like when Liverpool played Nottingham Forest in the European Cup in 1978. Liverpool went out because they treated it too much like league football. In the first game they were getting beaten 1-0 away, which is not too bad a result in Europe, but they went in search of an equaliser like you would in the league, and lost a late second. We need to bear in mind we’re in a two-legged tie.”

He is aware that “a lot of neutral people will be for us because they like to see underdogs do well”. Chelsea’s money and pursuit of success will draw support for Liverpool from around England, but nowhere is disquiet with the London club greater than among Liverpool’s own fans. They are already angered by Jose Mourinho’s shushing gesture during the Carling Cup final, and the continual stories linking Steven Gerrard with Stamford Bridge have kept them at boiling point. Some have expressed the almost blasphemous thought that they would rather see Manchester United win the Premiership than Chelsea. Carragher mutters something that sounds awfully like: “I would.” Does he understand anti-Chelsea feeling? “Yeah. They’ve taken a lot of plaudits this season, but also a lot of criticism, and maybe that’s not because of their players but other people at the club. But that’s the way they do things, and they ’re successful, so good luck to them. Frank Lampard’s been the best midfielder in England and I voted for John Terry as Player of the Year. I was delighted to realise the second leg’s at Anfield. If we still have a chance of going through, the atmosphere will be unbelievable there.”

It’s hard to imagine Benitez shushing anyone, although he is a quiet sort. He was as animated as Carragher has ever seen him at full-time in Turin, shaking hands, all smiles with his players on the pitch. By Mourinho’s standards, however, it was an introverted celebration. And before Benitez could enjoy victory, he had to barrel his way over to Carragher to have a word, accompanied by several stern-looking gestures. Could he possibly have been admonishing the player? “He was telling me I had to be careful about (Zlatan) Ibrahimovic coming off me and getting in behind. It was as if the game hadn’t finished! That’s the way he is. I’ve never had a conversation with the manager about anything other than football. We love him for that. It’s what sets top managers apart. There’s got to be something different about them, something special. Benitez has got football on his brain constantly.”

Now Carragher begins to chuckle. “You know what the manager did when we got on the plane? He told us off for not keeping the ball well enough: we hadn’t had the bottle to pass it and were just belting it long. That was the first thing he said. Everyone was delighted to be in the semi-final of the Champions League. And he was saying we basically bottled it in the second half . . .”