Gerrard was my toughest opponent
Lionel Messi’s significant cameo appearance against Paris St Germain on Wednesday night at the Camp Nou, despite him being hampered by a hamstring injury sustained in the first leg, just showed yet again the very special player he is.
It was bordering on comical when the camera panned to him every so often on the bench as he literally couldn’t sit still. But even though it was clear to see that he wasn’t fully fit, the effect he had on the game was frightening. Barcelona are a superb side blessed with players of immense ability, but they are simply not the same without him. He gave everyone a lift when he came on the pitch, including the crowd, and played a key role in the goal that sent Barca through to the Champions League semi-finals.
For me he is the greatest player of all time, it’s as simple as that. I’m never really one to exaggerate things or jump on bandwagons, but the level of performance he has produced on a ridiculously consistent basis for quite a few years now is staggering. Even if he was purely a goal-scorer he would still be regarded as a world class player, but there is just so much more to his game.
What endears him even more to me is the fact that, despite getting singled out and kicked week in and week out, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him react badly or feign injury.
Now, I can practically hear some of you who witnessed great players from different eras screaming at me, saying what about George Best or Pele or some other stellar contender? Since I obviously didn’t see these players play in person, I’ll concede that maybe I am slightly biased towards the modern game. And I would also accept that Messi has been playing in one of the greatest teams of all time, a team whose approach to the game suits his style down to the ground. Yet I would still argue that, such is his almost supernatural ability, Messi would shine in any team. And though I would agree that, from seeing clips of him in action, Best would have also had a massive impact on any team he played in, I’m still sticking to Messi — and keeping my fingers crossed that he’ll be back to full fitness for that mouth-watering semi against Bayern Munich.
Reflecting on the subject of greatness in football got me thinking about my favourite players when I was growing up. I’m very patriotic so Irish players had a big head start in my eyes. It was during the Jack Charlton era when I started to really take notice of football and the one I idolised in particular was Paul McGrath. The elegant way he played the game was such a joy to watch.
Like most people, I’m sure, I tend to think that centre-half was his best position but it was a mark of his sheer class that he could look equally at home in midfield. As a young fan who was in Giants Stadium on that memorable afternoon in 1994, I was fortunate enough to witness with my own eyes how good he was in a midfield role at the World Cup. The way he marked Italy’s mercurial Roberto Baggio out of the match, and enabled us to get arguably our finest ever result, was something I will never forget.
I’ll give you an insight as to how biased I was towards Irish players when I was growing up. I was about 11 or 12, and after watching an Ireland game in which Bernie Slaven scored, I went out to the park to play football with my friends. We ended up playing against a set of lads from the other side of the park and it got a little competitive. Two things stick in my mind from that game in the park. The first is of me scoring a goal and running around the green pretending to be Slaven and the second is of me stamping on one of the older kids’ bicycle wheels because he wouldn’t give us our ball back.
Now I’m not denigrating Slaven’s ability as a footballer, since he had a very good career, but I think it’s fair to say that he doesn’t go down as one of the all-time Ireland greats. But that afternoon he was my hero.
Unfortunately, I have to add that the day didn’t end too well for me, as the kid’s parents came knocking on our door demanding we get his bike fixed. My parents weren’t impressed.
As a professional footballer, I’ve been very fortunate to play against some of the best players in the world over the last few years, Messi, Ronaldo, Shearer, Scholes, Vieira, Fabregas, Iniesta and Pirlo being some of the finest. I’ve already made it clear that I think Messi is on a different level to every other footballer on the planet but, if we leave him out of the equation, then the one who sticks out for me as the most difficult opponent I’ve faced has to be Steven Gerrard.
It’s probably easier for me as a midfielder to judge fellow midfielders and, from hard-earned experience, I can assure you that Gerrard is a nightmare to play against.
Some midfielders get it off the back four and have the ability to spray passes all over that can hurt teams, so it’s imperative you try and get close to players like this — Fernando Alonso is a good example. Then you will get the ones who can operate in tight areas and play one-twos around you if you get too close to them. And there are those like Lampard who have that knack of bombing forward and arriving at the right time to punish you, so it’s vital you track their runs.
But Gerrard can do it all and also mix it with the best of them when it comes to the physical side. In the modern English game, I reckon he is as close as you’ll get to the complete player.
