Gérard Houllier returns to a country that loves football almost as much as he does
“There are those who say maybe I should forget about football. Maybe I should forget about breathing?”
Liverpool have had many quotable managers in the past, and while Gérard Houllier wouldn’t immediately jump to head of that illustrious queue in many people’s minds, what he said in the aftermath of his return to the dugout in March 2002 following an enforced five-month absence spoke volumes. In fact, it probably explains why he’s now taking the Aston Villa job.
Houllier was taken ill at Anfield halfway through a Premier League clash with Leeds United in October 2001. He was first rushed to the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, and then transferred to the city’s Broadgreen Hospital, where he underwent an 11-hour operation on a dissected aorta that didn’t just save his career, it saved his life.
Five months before that, came the apex of his Anfield career.
The Uefa Cup was clinched with a remarkable 5-4 victory over the Spanish minnows Alavés in Dortmund, with the trophy added to both the League Cup and the FA Cup that had been won earlier in the campaign. This was the golden ending to three years of hard work that the Frenchman had started when he first walked through the Shankly Gates in 1998 – initially as part of a joint-managership that was as much about “Boot Room Boy” Roy Evans saving face as anything.
Houllier changed everything about Liverpool. The bad diets, drinking culture and – what he saw as – unprofessionalism were gone, along with the likes of Paul Ince, David James and Jason McAteer. Newer, focused foreign players such as Dietmar Hamann, Stéphane Henchoz and Vladimir Šmicer were brought in. Nobody had heard of Sami Hyypiä before 1999 – he left 10 years later a Liverpool legend.
The 2001 ‘Cup Treble’ wasn’t quite the heights that the Reds had hit in their illustrious past, but for a whole generation of Liverpool supporters, this was the best it had ever been.
And then came the heart problem.
It would have finished off many, but Houllier was always determined to come back, and the rapturous welcome he received upon making a surprise return to Anfield for a must-win Champions League tie with Roma told just how highly the Anfield crowd, and the European game, regarded him. Roma boss Fabio Capello – showing more emotion than he ever does when England score – welcomed him back with a huge bear hug.
His illness had clearly taken a toll on Houllier physically – he was noticeably much thinner – but it was the unseen mental fatigue that it had done to the French boss that was soon to hit home.
The infamous, uncharacteristically cavalier decision to replace Hamann with Šmicer in Leverkusen – just as the Champions League quarter-final with the Michael Ballack-inspired Germans needed closing out – still brings shivers to the spine of many a supporter, as does the choice not to make loanee Nicolas Anelka’s transfer permanent in favour of a £10million move for El-Hadji Diouf.
Houllier had claimed that his side was “destined for greatness” before that Leverkusen tie, but after a second-placed finish in the Premier League that year came two disappointing campaigns that – the League Cup final victory over Manchester United apart – were more about lows than highs.
Yet the bond between manager and players stayed constant.
Even when opinion started to turn against the Frenchman and offensive words directed at him were daubed outside Liverpool’s Melwood training ground, players still wanted to play for him. Steven Gerrard – who turned to Houllier to help him through personal problems as a young player – sprinted towards the boss to celebrate a Uefa Cup goal against Levski Sofia with him on the Anfield touchline. Almost all of his team-mates followed.
Jamie Carragher credits Houllier for turning him from a youngster who was heading off the rails into the model, one-club man he is today, and just this week said that it will be the Frenchman’s style that he’ll look to emulate should he become a manager. The uncertainty and uneasiness around the club following Houllier’s departure in 2004 was a key factor in Michael Owen leaving.
When Houllier left Anfield, he did so with dignity, making the unusual step of attending the press conference to announce his sacking. And while his claim – both in the immediate aftermath of the classic final and again recently following the departure of Rafael Benitez – that he deserves most of the credit for Liverpool’s 2005 Champions League win does smack of sour grapes from the Frenchman, he is still held in high regard by most at Liverpool, and sat on the Anfield bench next to Roy Hodgson during Carragher’s testimonial there on Saturday afternoon.
The message to Aston Villa’s players is clear, accept his ways, and you’ll enjoy playing for Houllier.
He won’t have such a radical rebuilding job to do at Villa Park – the methods that the likes of he and Arsène Wenger brought to the English game are now universally practiced – but he can steer a club that are in danger of slipping out of that “elite eight” group at the top end of the Premier League back into calmer waters.
If asking him to forget about football is akin to asking him to stop breathing, then providing him with an exciting challenge at Villa Park is sure to get the juices flowing.
A real “football man” is about to return.
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