Third and final part of an exclusive Q&A with Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher about the unforgettable 2000-01 season, which saw the club win a cup treble in the most dramatic of fashions
Jamie Carragher has been looking back on Liverpool's treble-winning 2000-01 treble-winning campaign
Jamie Carragher has been looking back on Liverpool's treble-winning 2000-01 treble-winning campaign
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It is 25 years since Liverpool's remarkable treble-winning campaign. The Reds followed their dramatic victories in the League Cup and FA Cup finals with a thrilling 5-4 success over Alaves in the UEFA Cup showpiece in Dortmund on May 16, 2001.
For Blood Red magazine, Gareth Roberts had the chance to sit down with a key member of Gerard Houllier's team, Anfield legend Jamie Carragher, to get his memories on the season to remember, a quarter of a century on.
And for Liverpool ECHO subscribers, we're now publishing the brilliant Q&A. You can read the first part by clicking HERE and the second part by clicking HERE.
And here is the third and final part. Enjoy!
GR: That second leg at Anfield, the Gary Mac pen past Pepe Reina when he had hair – no-one ever really talks about it. It’s always the other Barca game, or the Chelsea game but that was brilliant. Loads of people spilled straight out of The Kop and into town and it was buzzing. A bit more on the derby from 2001 then, it’ll be 25 years almost to the day when we play Everton at the Hill Dickinson this season since that famous win. Is it the best derby you ever played in?
JC: Oh yeah, by a mile. Stevie couldn’t play, he got sent off against Leeds. On Gary Mac’s free kick, what happened on that one – he’d taken a free kick in an identical position five minutes before and Sami Hyppia had headed it and Paul Gerrard saves it. So he’s probably getting himself ready for the same thing. Gregory Vignal got the foul, didn’t he?
Biscan got sent off so basically, Houllier is then trying to get a point because he puts Vignal on in front of me. Vignal comes on in left midfield and he gets the foul. I always remember everyone just went running to the bench, family on the pitch and everything. All my family got off. My brother got off and missed it. They are just on County Road and can just hear the roar and are like, who scored? You know what I mean? There was no way I was going home after that. F**k the refuelling!”
GR: Everyone knows your background – boyhood Blue then Liverpool legend so what was the derby like for you in general to play in?
JC: I loved it. I’d have played them every week. It was just well bigger than the Man U game; that was just a game against a top team with a bit more on than Arsenal or Chelsea.
But losing the Everton game…? I’d grown up with it. It’s the biggest game – nothing is bigger than the derby. It’s also good going into a game where you’re thinking, we’re better than them. Because you’d always be a bit nervous. Everyone thinks they’re going to get beat. Everyone’s terrified of losing. And I used to just think, right, if we play well, we will win. Even if they play well, it’s not even a guarantee they can win. I said, but if we play well, we win. That’s the end of it. And we can still play s**t and win. Know what I mean? So I’d always go in confident and like, we’ll be all right.
But the thing I love about that team, I say that team, but I always think of myself and Stevie a little bit here. At the end of your career, people go like, what did you win, or whatever. But there’s little things you create that stick with you that other people don’t remember. We changed what was going on in the derby games, and it’s never changed back since. It was like that Joe Royle stuff and all that Dogs Of War, and getting the better of Liverpool. And to be fair, in the 80s, the derbies were always like, you’d win one, they’d win one, and even the early 90s, Everton won a few at Goodison.
GR: Well this one, the 3-2, is the first win there since 1990 for Liverpool.
JC: Exactly! My point being Houllier won there four years in a row. So it was like, we changed it! Not me and Stevie as such, but being the local lads, and obviously after the Houllier thing, Benitez came in, we kept it going. You lose the odd one. But that’s something I look back at and think that stopped happening, getting bullied by Everton.
And it’s still there today to be honest. I mean, I don’t know what the record is exactly but Everton have won twice in over 15 years against us. And by the way, we’re not playing anymore but I just think there’s a mental block with Everton when they play Liverpool. To be fair, it was probably always there when I was a fan. I’d be going to games thinking, I mean, you see those red shirts come out, and you’d be like, f*****g hell. But I’m so proud of that, that we stopped that.
Liverpool's Gary McAllister celebrates his dramatic last-minute goal during the Premiership match against Everton played at Goodison Park
Liverpool's Gary McAllister celebrates his dramatic last-minute goal during the Premiership match against Everton played at Goodison Park
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GR: How did you feel about Goodison going?
JC: I miss Goodison. It’s one of those places that I think every away fan loves. It’s almost like a throwback to when you first went to a match but it’s not your stadium so you’re all right. I only have to go once. I think if you’re an Everton fan you needed to move on from Goodison, you had to. I think the league misses Goodison – it’s just one of those stadiums that’s old and it’s raucous and it’s just mad and aggressive and tight pitch and tackles. It’s like a throwback but I do think the new stadium is unbelievable. It is unbelievable. But the problem they’ve got is you don’t need an amazing team to play at Goodison because it’s a tight pitch, you can use the crowd and you can get after people. It’s why Anfield helps us in European games. And I always knew that a new stadium, it always feels like the pitch is massive. And you can’t get near people as much. So it’s not as much of a leveller. I think the first season is always tough for anybody who goes to a new stadium, but it’s difficult to get after people and win the ball off them and be aggressive.
GR: What’s it all like for you? How do you get on with Reds and Blues? You must be doing something right if that mural stays intact on Marsh Lane! Do you get stick?
JC: I do on social media but not in the city or anything like that – I’m in the city centre every day. Football fans, it’s a group mentality isn’t it? It’s like when you’re at school, you come out of school, you and your mates will give some fella a bit of stick or something but you wouldn’t do it on your own. That’s football fans’ mentality isn’t it? You see people on their own and they’re absolutely great. Everton fans are nuts, just permanently angry with everyone. I’ve got so many mates and family who are Everton and they say – and they’re right – no-one hates Everton more than Everton fans. That’s what it is. In the main, they’re alright. And actually, I hope they do okay now and again.
GR: The finals then, League Cup first of all. I think everyone still talks about your penalty. And the run up, where it ends up and everything else. I think everyone’s in the stand thinking I don’t know what this penalty is going to look like. Had you practised penalties?
JC: You know what, I don’t think we had. I don’t remember taking too many penalties in training. I don’t think we had. I wasn’t in the first five. It was a bit like there was hardly anyone left. So I think I go sixth. Andy Johnson misses. Yeah, so Didi Hamann had missed. I wasn’t nervous. I was fuming about how bad we’d been in the game, like we can’t beat Birmingham from the Championship? How have we not won this? So I didn’t go up thinking, oh my God, if I miss this pen…
The funny thing about it, the thing I always love about it is, a lad I used to play Sunday League with, he gets on the pitch when Sander Westerveld saves it. So if you watch that back, we all run to Sander Westerveld and I see a steward go to grab him, so I’m just pulling him away from the stewards to get him on the pitch. He used to play for The Byrom. So that was my first thought, making sure one of the guys didn’t get nicked on the pitch!
GR: So that’s your first silverware as a player isn’t it? Was that big, was that emotional?
JC: Besides the Youth Cup, yeah. But there was an England game midweek. I think we stayed the night and I think in the morning we all travelled to England.
GR: The FA Cup then. A boiling hot day. And I wanted to ask about Cardiff, because as fans we absolutely loved going to Cardiff. How was it for you?
JC: Loved it, yeah. I tell you what, something just came to me then about Houllier and this just sums him up as a manager. Before we played Birmingham, we travelled the day before. We went to the stadium before we went to the hotel. So we walked on the pitch of the stadium at Cardiff in our trackies just to get a feel of the stadium. Jumped on the bus and went to the hotel. He didn't want it to be the first time we’d been on that pitch when we ran on for the warm up. So when I say he was an unbelievable manager, he was. He was unbelievable. Loved him.
People say about the heart attack and he was never the same but he just f****d up the transfers basically one summer and he was kidded on Diouf. His first assistant, who was a great fella, Patrice Bergues, we got him from Lens and he went back to Lens and we bought Diouf from there. So there was no doubt he was pushing it and saying he was better than Anelka – 100 per cent that was going on. And that’s where it went awry. Little things like that he was so far ahead. I remember even like Sammy Lee and Phil Thompson, I almost felt like they were in awe of him a bit and they’d dealt with Shankly and Bob Paisley. It was different – it was the first time we had something different to five-a-sides and pass and move. There’s nothing wrong with that, but this was very different. Everyone looked up to him.
So the cup final. I remember the boiling hot day. I think I was up against Sylvain Wiltord. I remember going mad at Heskey in the first half. Emile had a great season that season. But sometimes Emile, if he was up against a really good defender, he would just go hiding a little bit.
It was Adams and Keown, they were really aggressive, they were right up for it and I could tell – I was screaming at Emile! You shouldn’t do, but I was that angry…I was like, come on lad.
I just remember Vieira just running through the midfield in the second half...
GR: I remember in the stands the mood was, they are all over us here..
JC: That’s what it felt like, didn’t it? We’d beaten them 4-0 at Anfield. We weren’t a million miles away from them in the league. We're having this unbelievable season and I think we thought, not that it would be easy, but like this is a 50-50 game, we’ll beat these and we’re a team that can go on and take on United. They won the league next season, they made a couple of signings, Sol Campbell comes in, and they win the league and it was like I said before with Stevie and Vieira but for all of us as a team it was a bit like oh, we’re not as good as we thought, that’s still another level that.
GR: It's essentially the Michael Owen final, isn’t it? It's unbelievable, the two finishes especially. The second one's just off the charts. How does it feel to you, because I know that you grew up with him, came through with him at Liverpool and you are still mates with him now. You know how a lot of Reds feel about him – does that sadden you?
Michael Owen of Liverpool celebrates his equaliser with team-mates Emile Heskey, Steven Gerrard and Robbie Fowler in the 2001 FA Cup Final against arsenal at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales
Michael Owen of Liverpool celebrates his equaliser with team-mates Emile Heskey, Steven Gerrard and Robbie Fowler in the 2001 FA Cup Final against arsenal at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales(Image: Ben Radford (Allsport))
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JC: A little bit yeah. But I get it. I understand – you go to Man U, what can you say? He'd be all right if he never went there, wouldn’t he? But I spoke to him at the time when he went to Man U. I got right on to it, I’d never done this before. I'd never speak to a manager about a signing – it’s nothing to do with me. But I remember getting in touch, not with Rafa, I think it was Owen Brown (his assistant) saying, listen, this is what’s happening with Michael going to Man U. This was a few years later, obviously, with Rafa. And I was like, listen, he wants to come. He's happy to sit on the bench. He's a free transfer. And they didn't. I don't know why. So he ends up going. His other options were Stoke or Everton.
He met Moyes and he wasn’t having Moyes at all. Moyes came and met him, face-to-face. And he’s just like, ‘I can't play for Stoke. I'm Michael Owen, I can't play for Stoke’.
So in some ways I get it, but like, what can you do? So I get it from all angles, but yeah, I do feel for him for a bit. I wouldn’t say like he was this big Liverpool fan but he was up for every game. He was an angry little player. The end of that season he was unbelievable. He doesn't play in the first final – he doesn’t even come on the pitch against Birmingham. He wasn't even in the team.
GR: The UEFA Cup final then, mad game…
JC: Yeah, I remember the Arsenal game – it felt like we were finished physically after that.
I think it took so much out of us physically because it was so hot and mentally as well. That was the 61st game of the season. And then we played on the Wednesday. I always remember going on the coach. And normally when you're in a cup final, everyone's very like wired and a little bit nervous. This didn't seem like that. I remember everyone just almost like lounging a bit. I always remember it. I think everyone was just f****d!
Because we were playing Alaves it almost doesn’t feel as big as a Barcelona and I could just feel it on the bus – it wasn’t like, this is easy, but it just felt like another game.
It felt like a game that you’re going away from home to, someone in the bottom of the Prem. We got off, 2-0 up... What a game. It was unbelievable wasn’t it?
Their manager, to be fair to him, makes a sub after about 25 minutes. He takes a defender off and brings on a striker.
I didn't have a great game. Their right-back ended up getting a move to AC Milan that summer, Cosmin Contra. So did the centre-forward, Javi Moreno, who actually, I've seen in Ibiza a few times, he's got a little gaff in Ibiza. But the right-back definitely goes past me. Or like he gets a cross in basically for one of the goals I think. But he checks about two or three times. You're going that way, you're going that way, you're going that way. I think in the second half, I was knackered. I think everyone was. I don't know how we won it.
GR: The Golden Goal rule was used in extra time. Some people in our end didn’t realise we’d won it. I presume you all knew about it!
JC: We knew, we must have… But you’re that tired, you’re that caught up in the game, you’re a little bit like, woah, what’s going on here? It wasn’t like everyone ran on the pitch because the game was over.
I always think it’s a bit forgotten, that game. As in, you think about Istanbul and there are a million pictures of it. That game – it’s like there’s not enough. It was an unbelievable stadium, it was an unbelievable game; that moment when we're all there in front of the crowd. It doesn't feel like there's as much about – like pictures and memories. I can't remember it as much myself.
GR: Me and my mate always say it was the best season to be a Red – the experiences, the trip, Erik Meijer bevvying with all the fans before the final in Dortmund…
JC: I agree. Eric Meijer, he was a good lad!
GR: And after all that, you still can’t celebrate really can you, because you’ve got to go to Charlton on the Sunday!
JC: Yep. I remember getting in the bath after the game, it was almost like a swimming pool this bath, in the changies, and you weren’t celebrating – everyone was just sat there, just thinking, what have we just done there? How did it get to that? But it was just an iconic stadium and I'd love to go back. That was proper, that. When you think of a European final, Borussia Dortmund’s ground, that’s cool isn’t it?
GR: So we finish with Charlton. That Fowler goal over his head is I think one that sticks with everyone. His second is a belter as well.
JC: I remember the first half though. So Houllier made a couple of changes for that. He put Babbel in, I played right-back that day, he put Vignal at left-back and he’d taken Henchoz off in Dortmund and he was goosed, he was done.
I think they hit the post in the first half and the keeper makes a couple saves. And then second half, we scored four, just mad. I don't know how it happened!
That was an old-fashioned, stop off at the services, load of ale on the coach! We finally got to celebrate. I think for Houllier, the two biggest things were the UEFA Cup and qualifying for the Champions League. You see all the staff at the end of the game hugging on the side of the pitch. I always remember that picture. That's for them. We still didn't realise how big it was to get into the Champions League. They knew financially, they're probably thinking about what players they could buy. And they didn't buy any! Only Riise, in my position!
Yeah, it was just like right out, get back to town, go right out. It was just one of those seasons where there’s just like so much going on. It p****s me off when people are joking saying, ah the ‘Mickey Mouse Treble’. I understand because of what City and United have done, so I get it, and we’d take the p*ss if it was the other way around, so I get it
But what else describes winning three things? You can only say a Treble, what else can you say? How else can you describe it – we won three cups! That'll never be done again. When you start the season and you play every game possible. That can’t have been done before.
GR: Houllier says after that season, ‘one day we will win the Champions League’ – and obviously he was right. Were some people a bit harsh when they made out he was almost trying to claim Istanbul? He did a lot to take the club towards that.
JC: One hundred per cent! When people were doing that, I was like…honestly. He was floating around [in Istanbul], he was around the dressing room and stuff like that I think, or just outside. He was still a massive part of Liverpool; the part he’d played in mine and Stevie's careers. And Benitez had only been there 12 months so Benitez hadn't fully got his full fingerprints on it.
But it was his achievement, of course it was. No doubt about that. But I thought it was absolutely brilliant that as a club, your ex-manager comes in, was there before, was buzzing for everyone. It’s not like he was bitter and twisted going, ‘oh, I should have been kept on, I could have done this, or I got them in the Champions League’. He was buzzing. Remember when he came back as manager of Aston Villa? He was talking like he was still Liverpool manager. He just loved it. And the Villa fans hated him for it, which I get but he didn’t have a bad bone in his body. David Ginola might say something else like. But in terms of Liverpool… He always kept in touch and I always remember him phoning me; he’d phone me every now and again or text me and all that.
“Carra, it’s boss.” Even when he wasn’t the boss. But he wasn't doing it as if like ‘I'm the boss’ it was just like that's how he was always known. He was good, I loved him.
GR: He definitely, definitely helped make Liverpool great again.
JC: Yeah, yeah, hundred per cent. He put Liverpool back on the map.