AT half-time in the 2005 Champions League final in Istanbul,
Jamie Carragher found himself staring into the abyss.
AC Milan had just produced a spell-binding 45 minutes of
football to leave Liverpool trailing by three goals to nil.
All hopes of winning a fifth European Cup had seemingly been
extinguished as Carragher and his team-mates walked into the
dressing room for Rafa Benitez’s half-time team talk.
Here, in an exclusive extract from Carra: My Autobiography,
Carragher talks for the first time about what exactly went on
during that mythical 15 minutes and how Benitez’s inspirational
intervention helped change the course of football history.
PEOPLE ask what was going through my mind in those moments
before half-time.
As I walked towards the dressing room, I was suffering from a
depressing combination of despondency and humiliation.
I couldn't bear to lift my head up and glimpse the faces in the
crowd, or the banners and red jerseys scattered around the
Ataturk.
I looked towards the floor and saw nothing but endless
dejection. My dreams had turned to dust.
I wasn't thinking about the game any more. My thoughts were with
my family and friends. I was so sorry.
Daft, seemingly trivial ideas scattered themselves across my
mind, such as 'What will everyone at home be saying about
this?'
The thought of going home a laughing stock disturbed me. It
would have felt like the whole city, the whole country, even the
whole world was taking the mickey out of us.
There was a sense of shame to go with my sorrow. The Liverpool
fans had taken over the stadium and there was nothing we could do
to make amends.
I almost began to regret reaching the final. All defeating Juve
and Chelsea had achieved, it seemed, was to allow AC Milan to
outclass us and possibly secure the greatest ever margin of victory
in a European Cup final.
They'd beaten Barcelona and Steaua Bucharest 4-0 in the 1994 and
1989 finals, and now I feared we'd create history for the wrong
reasons, at the receiving end of a record defeat, by five or six.
Keeping it at 3-0 and at the very least restoring some
respectability was all that mattered to me now.
Nothing was said by the players as we returned to the dressing
room. A mythical 15 minutes in the Liverpool legend was upon us,
but it didn't feel that way.
The trickiest test in such circumstances is ensuring you don't
give up.
It would have been easy for us to accept our ambitions were in
tatters, that nine months of toil were going to end in
catastrophe.
Mentally we were all over the place, but I knew it wasn't in my
nature to accept this fate. No matter how bad it was, we were going
to have to face up to our responsibilities.
Fortunately, there was at least one sane head in the room
prepared to restore our battered spirits.
In that Ataturk dressing room Rafa Benitez cemented his place in
Anfield folklore.
My admiration for his handling of the situation is unlimited.
Rafa's conduct rarely changed, regardless of the circumstances. His
calm demeanour was never required more than now.
Privately, he must have felt the same as us. He too couldn't
have failed to think about his family, or what the people of Spain
would be making of his side's battering.
Here he was, still struggling with his English, trying to
instruct us to achieve the impossible.
“Good luck,” I thought to myself.
He showed few signs of emotion as he explained his changes, but
the speed with which he made a series of tactical switches showed
how sharp he still was.
First, he told Traore to get into the shower. That was the
polite code for telling a player he's being subbed.
Djibril Cisse was told he'd be coming on to play on the right
side and was already getting kitted out.
As Djimi removed his shirt, an argument was brewing between
Steve Finnan and our physio Dave Galley. Finnan had damaged a groin
and Dave told Rafa he thought he should be subbed.
Finn was distraught and pleaded to stay on. Rafa wouldn't
budge.
“We've only two subs left because we've already lost Kewell with
an injury,” he explained. “I can't afford to make two now, and if
you stay on I've lost my last sub.”
Traore was told to put his kit back on.
Then, as if struck by a moment of clarity, Benitez made an
abrupt decision.
“Hamann will replace Finnan and we'll play 3-5-2,” he explained,
displaying an assured conviction in his voice which, temporarily at
least, gave me confidence.
“Pirlo is running the game from midfield, so I want Luis and
Stevie to play around him and outnumber them in the middle so he
can't pass the ball.”
The swiftness of this decision confirmed to me he may have
considered this formation earlier. The same set-up had worked in
Turin, although that had been a purely defensive strategy.
“OK,” part of me was thinking, “forty-five minutes too late, but
we got there in the end.” Given the circumstances, it was still a
brave move.
With both Cisse and Hamann now preparing to come on, there was
only one problem.
“Rafa, I think we've 12 players out there now.”
Djibril would have to wait a while longer for his
introduction.
When we emerged from our desolate dressing room, I wasn't
encouraged by the look of steely determination on the face of
Maldini as he led his side back out.
There were claims after the match of premature celebrations in
the Milan camp at half-time.
I was upset on their behalf by that pack of lies. Traore gave an
interview after the game suggesting the Italians were cocky at 3-0,
but I think he was naive in his answers and it was twirled into a
fairy story by the newspapers.
It simply didn't happen. Milan were far too professional for
that. There was no way their captain, with all his experience, was
going to allow anyone in his dressing room to take victory for
granted.
Nothing I saw suggested Milan were already popping champagne. I
have too much respect for them even to suggest it.
Even if they did, privately, believe they had both hands on the
cup, who could blame them?
As I headed back into the arena, I was sure Milan were going to
win, so were the forty thousand Scousers in Istanbul, so why
shouldn't they have believed it?
I could hear “You'll Never Walk Alone” in the distance, and as I
exited the tunnel it grew louder. It wasn't the usual version of
our anthem, though.
There are different moments when The Kop summons Gerry Marsden's
classic. Before every home game it's a deafening rallying cry, as
if to inspire us to perform and frighten our opponents into
submission.
If we're winning in the closing stages of a huge match, it will
be sung again, this time in celebration.
But there are other occasions the words of the song have greater
meaning, and at half-time in Istanbul the fans were singing it in
sympathy more than belief.
There was a slow, sad sound to it, almost as if it was being
sung as a hymn. The fans were certainly praying on our behalf.
To me, it was the supporters' way of saying, “We're still proud
of what you've done, we're still with you, so don't let your heads
drop.”
There was probably a hint of a warning in there too, as the walk
back to my position felt like a guilt trip: “Don't let us down any
more than you already have.”
Our coach Alex Miller's final instructions at half time were for
us to “score a goal for those fans”.
That was the mindset we had. Get one and pride might be
restored.
* This was from 'Carra: My Autobiography'.