A bit more from an interview he gave in the times.
Mark Chester, of Liverpool’s Tactics 4 Families project, is picking his ideal XI for a classroom of 10-year-olds. Defenders? Easy. You can’t beat Jamie Carragher. In fact, imagine a back four where every player is as indomitable as Anfield’s No 23. Strikers? Chester wants players who would chase down every half-chance. How about two more Carraghers? Delight flashes across faces as kids realise Chester is selecting what Liverpool fans sing they dream about, a “Team of Carraghers”. “Brilliant team,” shouts one boy. “A very brilliant team,” concurs another. A third lad’s opinion: “Very, very, very bad.” Carragher is actually present, having come to Northway Primary School to help the lesson, but his critic is unabashed. This is Merseyside, where having an opinion and defending it stridently is virtually a civic duty.
The lad supports Everton.
The moment delights Citizen Carra. He couldn’t love what he calls “Liverpool life” more. He has two children himself, James, seven, who’s “totally into his football”, and Mia, five, “a character and a half who loves singing and dancing and X Factor”. In summary: “They’re not shy. They’re Liverpool kids.” He reflects how he hardly gets to see his mates any more but “my kids are my mates now really”. He’s “desperate” to take James and Mia to Chill Factor, an indoor ski centre in Manchester which the pair fixate about, but football’s relentless schedule makes it difficult. Carra laughs.
“Footballers are privileged but people look at the money we earn and the cars some drive and think we don’t do normal stuff, like we have servants to look after our babies or something . . . I’m up at half seven every morning, getting the kids ready for school, making sure they’re brushing their teeth, getting their breakfast, taking them to school. That’s the same as anyone really.”
His workplace just happens to be special. He has been Liverpool’s company man since signing ‘S’ forms 18 years ago, making 611 appearances, and a record 120 in Europe. If a Team of Carraghers is the Kop’s dream, a side without him is its nightmare. Yet Rafa Benitez says, because of age, Carragher will not be considered for a contract extension until this summer, when his current deal will be a year from expiry. Carragher only turned 32 five weeks ago, has enough juice in his legs to have started the most games of any Liverpool player this season, and none give Benitez greater service.
It is even harder imagining Carragher in another club’s shirt than Steven Gerrard. But Carragher’s outlook is as no-nonsense as his defending. He’s not going to become an old lag clinging to the red shirt or coasting as a squad player if Liverpool prove lukewarm about his future usefulness, and would consider other playing options, including abroad, provided a move suited his kids.
Benitez says: “With Carra we will have to see.”
“I’ve no problem with that. That’s up to the club. I play my football and I’ve got 12 months left in the summer. The club will give me a new contract if they want to, if not it doesn’t matter, I’ll still play my best and if I have to move I’ll move, no problem. It wouldn’t bother me,” Carragher says. “I made the England decision [to retire] very quickly. I’m not scared of making big decisions.”
His club still need him, on recent evidence. Carragher has been at his cussed best as Liverpool (one league defeat in 10 games) finally have turned their campaign round. “I’ve come through this season well because at the start it was ‘Jamie Carragher’s finished’. The whole team was struggling and probably myself, Mascherano, Stevie, since we’re classed as the spine of the team, we were getting the criticism. And people jumped on me because of my age. I had a bad first half at West Ham, a really poor game, but I’d have one of them every season. Then Drogba got the better of me for a goal in the 90th minute against Chelsea when I’d played well for the other 89. I had to get on with it. It sort of became me against the world and I don’t mean I was sitting at home crying, I was going into training every day to prove to everyone I’ve still got a career.
“I’ve always thought footballers who say they’ve nothing to prove are talking rubbish. Every day on the training pitch you have got to prove you’re better than the competition. I’m not finished and the performance I gave against Rooney, best striker in the world, the performances versus Everton, Villa away, Tottenham, big games . . . I was there.” Being “there”, on the field, is all-important.
He once had a collapsed lung and was back playing — wheezing and grimacing — three weeks later. This season he has ignored a twisted ankle and strained groin to turn out during difficult times. “I’m proud of the fact that . . . ” He chooses his words carefully. “ . . . well, I’ve played with lots of players like this and when it’s not going well it’s easy to get out of the firing line, pick up a suspension on purpose, get a little nick, stay out for two or three weeks.
“I was always there, I’m maybe too honest at times, always there to be shot at. But I don’t feel you’ve got to be 100% fit to play. I’ve got to be 100% injured not to play. And the reason is simple: I’m terrified of losing my place.” Liverpool also have status fears. The race for fourth spot is “going to the wire”, says Carragher. “Manchester City’s win at Chelsea was a big one but you don’t know if it’ll galvanise them or prove a freak result. Tottenham are the ones I’m wary of. They keep a lot of clean sheets and score goals and have fantasy players. But, when it gets to the wire, there’s games you need to win 1-0 and over the past month Liverpool have been probably one of the best teams in Europe at grinding a result out.
“That’s what we’re doing, grinding. We’ve come back through fight, desire to do well, and we could never be accused of lacking that. But we’re still not playing fantastic football, we’re not good enough to.”
In March 2009, Liverpool thrashed Manchester United, Real Madrid and Aston Villa. Why does March 2010 find the club in such a different place? “What’s gone wrong? I think about it all the time. I don’t think we’re as bad as we’ve been this season. This has been us at our worst, and last season was us at our best. The ‘real’ us is probably somewhere in the middle.”
Pundits reckon finishing outside the Champions League places would be a “disaster” for Liverpool. “Nahh!” Carragher snorts. “People talk as if we’ve finished top four every year. We haven’t. Under Houllier and in Rafa’s first season we didn’t manage it. Liverpool FC will always be there. The top clubs will always regroup. If we finish fifth or sixth I know people say this player or that player will go . . . well if they do, somebody else will come in. Good players will always play for Liverpool. This club doesn’t depend on one player or individuals, it’s a top club, always will be.”
And, for Carragher, being a top club means you chase opportunities in all competitions to finish first rather than obsess about being fourth in one. Thursday’s Europa League clash with Lille is as big as tomorrow’s Premier League game against Wigan. “I don’t understand why people rubbish the Europa League. There are only two European trophies up for grabs every year. I mean, if you asked would I rather get in the semi-finals of the Champions League or win the Europa League I’d rather win the Europa. At the end of my career I could say, ‘I won that’. We got to the Champions League final in 2007, brilliant, but what did it mean in the end?
“People ask would you rather win the Europa Cup or finish top four? Well sometimes I think, ‘Win the cup’. I always hear Leeds got to the semi-final of the Champions League in 2001. So what? Newcastle had a good run. So what? It’s about winning trophies. The only way to make this season positive is by achieving both targets, finish top four and win the Europa League. Even if we do, next season we need to move on.” How? “The squad is capable of producing better and we probably need two or three players who will go into the team and make an impact every week and three or four more to beef up the squad. We probably need six or seven signings.”
Tactics 4 Families teaches family behaviour using football metaphors. Your “family” is your “team”, whether it’s a traditional unit or involves a single parent or other carers, and members must work together. It’s an especially significant message in areas of Liverpool where social breakdown is high. “My parents split up when I was 10 but it wasn’t one of them where you never saw a parent. I saw my dad every day. I was upset but we moved on and I have a great relationship with my mum and dad,” he says. “My heart goes out to kids who are not so lucky. I’m from Bootle and stuff goes on there with families that makes me realise I’m lucky.”
Family life is the factor that, post-playing, might stop him making what seems a natural progression into coaching. “I don’t like the idea of moving my kids out of school. I would for a playing thing, because that’s my career and how we make our money as a family, but managers can be out of a job in two or three months,” he says. He’s about to do his ‘A’ coaching licence. “It’s like being back at school! The thought of coming up with a new session every day, writing it down, all that stuff . . . I’m not the most academic of people. I’d be a manager rather than a coach.” He smiles. “I think I’m a pretty strong character who’d make decisions.”
Liverpool, if they vacillate over keeping him, should not doubt that.
• Tactics 4 Families, backed by the Premier League’s Creating Chances Programme, is a Liverpool FC project aimed at supporting positive family relationships.
GROWING PAINSCarragher has followed the debate, prompted by the John Terry scandal, on whether footballers should be role models. ‘We have become like movie or pop stars and can easily be on the front pages as well as the back pages. We are role models and get a lot of attention, so people have a right to expect us to do the right things,’ he says.
‘But we’re only human. One minute you’re on a YTS contract, the next you’re on thousands of pounds a week. You go out for a drink, buy a fast car and end up in situations you shouldn’t. But then you’ve got to grow up.’
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/liverpool/article7052445.ece
