Ălvaro Arbeloa: Anfield is unique. Iâve told my team-mates to enjoy it
Ălvaro Arbeloa knew. âWhen they opened up that little ball and the piece of paper inside said âLiverpoolâ, I said: âGroup Bâ. I knew weâd be drawn against them.â The Real Madrid defender smiles. âWell, I donât know if I knew it or if I just really wanted it.â Either way, there it was: Real Madrid v Liverpool. The last time the two teams met was in March 2009 and Arbeloa was on the other side. Liverpool won 4-0. Now he is going back to Anfield, this time dressed in white.
He got lucky; Xabi Alonso did not. Moments after the draw, the phone rang. âIt was Xabi and he was fuming. âBloody hell, typical. How unlucky am I?ââ The only consolation Arbeloa could offer was to tell Alonso he might get there with Bayern Munich. Alonso knows what heâs missing; others donât yet. So Arbeloa has told them.
âIâve told everyone this is an opportunity they shouldnât miss,â he says. âTheyâre used to a stadium that holds 80,000, sure, but Anfield is la bomba, unique. Itâs only 45,000 and they say: âWell ⊠â and I say: âWell?â Those 45,000 make the atmosphere very, very special. Iâve told them to enjoy it. I can imagine what Anfield will be like, how theyâll sing Youâll Never Walk Alone and cheer every corner or throw-in close to our area as if itâll end in a goal â and I know itâll feel like that to us.â
Arbeloa has not been back since he left in the summer of 2009, four months after that 4-0, and since then he has become a world and European champion with Spain, and won the Champions League with Madrid, helping them end a 12-year wait. He and they arrive as defending champions, the wait worth it. âI read an interview with Magic Johnson saying he and LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and Michael Jordan had to go through shitty times before becoming champions; they had missed opportunities, too,â Arbeloa says. âI could relate to that.â
It is a Thursday afternoon at Madridâs Valdebebas training base and the Spaniard is looking over his career, exactly 10 years since he made his debut for the club, a youth-teamer alongside the galĂĄcticos. âMy first touch was a backheel flick to Zidane, right in front of the dugout. Straight away it was: âplay it simple! Simple!â.â If that makes him laugh, so does his first Liverpool start after his move to England from Spain: a Champions League debut at the Camp Nou marking the man who, along with Arbeloa, made his competitive debut on 16 October 2004: Lionel Messi.
âI remember it like it was yesterday,â he says. âI was training at Melwood and Rafa [BenĂtez] came over. âLeft backâ. Left? Marking Messi. I stood looking at him, waiting for him to start laughing. This has to be a joke but I saw he was deadly serious. I thought: âmadre mĂa.â The idea was that Iâd be strong on my right when Messi came inside, so we went to Portugal [for a training camp] and I was left-back every day, preparing.
Arbeloa grins. âThat was the famous golfing week ⊠Rafa had given us a curfew: 1am or 2am. There was a lively dinner then me and [Javier] Mascherano sang some Spanish song on the karaoke. I canât remember what, something so bad I wiped it from my memory. Anyway, the time came and us new players left. The others stayed and the golf club thing happened. I escaped. I heard about it the next day and couldnât believe it but of course [Craig] Bellamy played well, scored, and celebrated with the golf stroke. [John Arne] Riise played well, too.â
As for Arbeloa, he stopped Messi. It was some start, particularly for a player who had never expected to join Liverpool at all. âOne day my agent called me. âWeâre going to Liverpoolâ,â he recalls. âI pretty much had to sit down. âWhat?ââ
âI had a five year contract at Deportivo. For the first three years Madrid got half of any transfer fee and I thought: âThere isnât a hope in hell of me leaving here in the first three years.â But they had financial problems and [selling me] meant paying others. It happened so quickly that I was in shock â there was no time to prepare and I was lost.â
âI remember in my first few days looking out of the window, the snow was coming down and I thought: âWhat have I got myself into?â,â Arbeloa says, signalling halfway up his shins. âIt was up to here. Madre mĂa. I was only 23 and Iâd never been away from home. Now I had a new country, a new language, a new league, a new team.â
A new manager too. âIâd mostly played at centre-back but Rafa saw me as a full-back and training was different. Rafa corrects you the whole time â and I mean the whole time. Even if itâs just a kickabout heâll stop the game to correct you. He never stops correcting you, ever. It was a constant stream of instructions and I didnât have time to think. One-on-one he would explain in Spanish but he always spoke to us in English in the group. If he heard us speaking in Spanish heâd give us a bollocking you wouldnât believe. âEnglish!â.â
âI was lucky, Mascherano came at the same time. They set us up with homes in Park Avenue and we were neighbours, together every day,â Arbeloa says. âBut we were welcomed so well: better than it might be the other way round. If you brought an English manager to Spain and he brought in five English players, Iâm not sure it would be the same. The pressure that surrounds clubs here is different.
âAt Liverpool it helped that they already loved Rafa so much and Luis GarcĂa, Pepe [Reina] and Xabi, who was practically an honorary Englishman. And Fernando [Torres] later came, too. Itâs not like he was signing nobodies. Rafa opened the door; the fact he was doing well made Spaniards open our eyes to England.â
Arbeloa rates BenĂtez as one of the best coaches he has had, unique when it comes to analysis: more meticulous, more studious, than others. Arbeloa listened and followed, he did what he was asked not what he wanted, which is one of the reasons BenĂtez valued him and one of the reasons other coaches have. Yet there is a contradiction that Arbeloa wrestles with. He admits he is not yet sure what the answer is.
âA coach says something and you might think âthatâs not the way Iâd do itâ but you need to do it. You canât just do what you want ⊠well, unless youâre as good as Cristiano Ronaldo,â he laughs. âIâve had very different coaches asking very different things and it is hard to say what the key is because theyâve all been successful. I donât know what to think. I think the conclusion is that footballâs about the players. Of course [JosĂ©] Mourinho is fantastic, [Pep] Guardiola is fantastic but what would happen in a team that wasnât as outstanding as the ones they had?â
âI suppose the key is for everyone to believe in what theyâre doing and what the managerâs doing: that theyâre united, professional, intense,â he continues, thumping his fist into his palm. âOne player lets you down, fine, but two or three do and it comes crashing down, a house of cards. Footballâs simple ⊠but not that simple.â
Rafaâs way worked. Liverpool reached a second Champions League final in three years, losing 2-1 to Milan. Arbeloa played for two minutes: he came on in the 88th minute and Dirk Kuyt scored in the 89th but the hope was fleeting. âThere were 10 minutes left when Rafa called me but the ball wouldnât go out and when it finally did the fourth official had disappeared to look at I donât know what. I had to wait another two. I was going to play 10 minutes but played two. Kuyt scored. âCome on!â. But there was no time. We didnât win, even though we had a much better team than in Istanbul.â
That was not their only near miss. âPeople forget that we almost won the league [in 2008-09]. We didnât win it because of sodding [Federico] Macheda. There were weeks where we kicked off before United and weâd board our flight home with them losing, only to get off the plane and find theyâd come back. Again. At times we could touch the trophy but they always came back.â
That was the end. That summer, BenĂtez signed Glen Johnson. âYou think: âWeâve nearly won the league and the first thing you do is buy a ÂŁ20m right-back?â,â Arbeloa recalls. âI said: âListen, thanks for everything.â He couldnât say I had to stay. He had a right-back and I had a call from Madrid. It was an incredible opportunity: Cristiano Ronaldo was going there, [Karim] Benzema, KakĂĄ.â
Arbeloa departed having lost a European Cup final; in his first season at Madrid they were eliminated by Lyon and then lost three successive semi-finals. In May, at last, the dĂ©cima arrived, their 10th European Cup â better even than the World Cup, Arbeloa says. In the meantime, Liverpool missed out on an opportunity of their own: in two decades, the league had never been closer, not even in 2009 when Macheda got in the way. Reward came with a return to the Champions League.
âI donât think anyone expected it,â Arbeloa admits. âLiverpool played with a very attacking style and surprised us all. Luis SuĂĄrez had an incredible season scoring 31 goals and how many assists? They still have [Daniel] Sturridge and [Raheem] Sterling but Luis SuĂĄrez is Luis SuĂĄrez and you can still see the gap. [Brendan] Rodgers will have to find a way. I think he will.â
Arbeloa has watched them on TV; on Wednesday he will see Liverpool in the flesh. There are few of his team-mates left â âonly Lucas, who I have the most contact with, Steven [Gerrard] and Martin Skrtelâ â but when he walks in the surroundings will be familiar. Very different to the BernabĂ©u with its NBA-style lockers, giant player portraits and huge, state-of-the-art facilities. âYou get changed at Anfield and you have one little hook for your shirt, your trousers, your jacket, everythingâ Arbeloa says, laughing. âThereâs no space, especially in winter when youâre wearing a big coat. Itâs very, very small. Youâre squashed in but thatâs the tradition and the values the club transmits. Thereâs no luxury and maybe that helps maintain the connection between players and supporters. It has its charm.
âThen you leave the dressing room and see âThis is Anfieldâ. That signâs the incarnation of a spirit, a way of preparing yourself as you head on to the pitch. I would reach up and touch it before every game â and Iâll do the same on Wednesday night.â
http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/oct/20/alvaro-arbeloa-liverpool-real-madrid-champions-league