2005 was the best year ever and our campaign was absolutely fantastic but that team had many faults. Dudek wasn't reliable, Traoré was a Championship player at best, Riise was a good left back having to play at left wing, Baros was overhyped due to a good European championship but never actually scored that many, Luis Garcia was a magician on his day but more frequently went missing. Add to this that Kewell started the UCL final despite having contributed nearly nothing in the campaign, that we beat Juventus with the total nobody Le Tallec in the starting lineup and Scott Carson in goal, that Igor Biscan not only played but played well in a couple of games, that Neil Mellor actually scored some important goals, that Vladi Smicer who had been useless all season came on and scored in the final, and all that to me says a lot more about the fantastic manager we had back then than about the quality of the squad, which wasn't anything special. Just look at some of those players careers after LFC. They had just been European champions, and still Baros couldn't do better than, I don't know, Aston Villa. Traoré went to Portsmouth, wasn't it? Smicer to Bordeaux, Biscan to Panathinaikos. Dudek went to warm Real's bench, his career effectively over. Mellor ever even played in the Premier League again? I don't think so. I find it funny when people say Rafa won it with "Houllier's squad" as if that was some sort of nod towards Houllier. I see it the other way around. The squad that Gerard left us was hardly good enough to achieve European qualification, and that weight is on him. Rafa turned them into European champions, and that merit is all his.
Especially as he beat a side virtually entirely composed of legends and/or world class players in Dida, Cafu, Nesta, Stam, Maldini, Pirlo, Gattuso, Seedorf, Kaká, Shevchenko and Crespo.
« Last Edit: May 26, 2019 01:29:51 am by Diego LFC »
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