Big Interview with The Big Fin Sami Hyypiä. Part One.

He’s a true Liverpool Legend and as he left our club in 2009 for Germany, he left a big hole behind (not only in the defence)… Despite his 36 years of age Sami Hyypiä still is a phenomenal football player. In the Bundesliga he was chosen to the best defender of the year. In his current club – Bayer 04 Leverkusen – he’s still shining and impressing the team mates, fans and the pundits with his professionalism and an extraordinary personality. All Reds do miss him a lot. He’ll Never Walk Alone.

 The following interview was published in the leading German football magazin “11 Freunde” (eng. “11 Friends”) in March 2010.

Sami Hyypiä, you’ve lived in Liverpool for ten years. A tough city?

SH: In the beginning of my time at Liverpool FC Christian Ziege, Sander Westerwald and myself were sitting in a restaurant when suddenly gun shoots where fired.. We ducked down immediately. When you hear shooting you just duck down automatically. There were two entrances and we couldn’t see anything from the place where we were sitting. The view was restricted. Apparently there was an argument with the bouncer. Somebody was shoot in the leg. When the excitement was over, we ended our meal in style.

Leverkusen in contrast, is a very save place.

That’s true, but I only come here to train and for the matches.

Comparing the night life, isn’t it a bit boring in Leverkusen?

Those things are of no importance for me. The training conditions need to be optimal, that is what counts. Night life never really interested me.

This is one of the reasons why you’re considered as the archetype of a professional footballer.

I am just who I am. Sure, I also go to parties, if I’m able to. I definitely do not live like a monk. But I take my profession very seriously and during my whole career I’ve had to sacrifice a lot to reach the stage I’m at now.

You’re 36 years old. If we believe the English media, you declined a position as a trainer before leaving Liverpool. It’s a very unusual decision considering that Liverpool was your youth dream team. Why did you do that?

Because I thought that, as a football player, I still have got something to offer. But as I see, you believe everything what the papers say …

So it wasn’t  the whole truth?

You could say it like that … We’ve spoken about a new contract. But I decided to come here and play football. I still have time to become a trainer at the age of 40 or 50.

Markus Babbel said once, that he found you weeping in the dressing room  after a defeat against Leicester City in 2001.

Sometimes the emotions in a match are just to much to take. And sometimes you have this feeling of not giving everything on the pitch, of letting the team down. This was one of the days I felt really bad. It’s no shame at all, to cry in the dressing room. This story shows how important football is for me. On the other hand, this approach sometimes made my life as a footballer really hard.

A weeping defender – that’s not really a picture of Liverpool’s dressing room  every fan is having in mind.

Probably not. But we are all different and for me football is a very important part of my life. For some players it’s just one aspect of life and other things are more important for them. I haven’t seen many of my team mates crying after a lost match. Err …the longer I think about that … actually I only had stomach ache.

Keyword: Emotions. 2001 you became captain but were relegated to vice captaincy and third playmaker in the following years. There are many opinions about your professional handling of this situation. Some say you seemed liberated afterwards. Was it the case?

I’ve always been a person who took defeats very personally and all the burdens on my own shoulders. Perhaps the captaincy wasn’t to much for me, but I kind of felt even more responsible for everything. Relief isn’t the right word. Afterwards I had more freedom beside the pitch because in England everything concentrates on the captain.

How did the manager deliver  you the news, that Steven Gerrard would take over the captaincy?

Mr. Houllier asked me into his office and communicated his decision to me. It was very late and everyone else already left. I met Stevie the day after during our training and he looked a little bit uncomfortable. I went to him and said that if he needed help, he always could talk to me. He was really relieved, I think. Sure, I wasn’t happy with that , but it was the manager’s decision which was good for the team. Especially for Stevie.

Did you feel less pressure afterwards?

In Liverpool we had to win every single match. You can compare it with Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga. So in Liverpool we always had pressure – as a captain or not.

After the disempowerment you seemed to be the secret captain in the club. Today, Liverpool seems to miss you quite a lot – not only in the defence.

During my time in Liverpool I often thought I’d be disappointed if they didn’t miss me. I am in contact with some of the players but I can’t really change anything from here. What I do not want to do in the public is to talk about Liverpool’s current situation. I get many requests from the local media but I’vedeleted them all. I know how it works in England. I give a long Interview and they take just one sentence out and make it a big head line.

We try to do the same too … But let’s talk about the Mythos Dressing Room. The second half-time of the Champions League final 2005 is very famous in Germany too. What happened in the 15 minutes of Istanbul?

After the 0:3 in the first half we all were very disappointed, bur Mr. Benitez was very positive. He wasn’t screaming, he was very calm. He said, we’ve had 45 minutes to give to those Liverpool fans in the stadium something back. And there were more of them than the Italian fans. They came to the stadium to support us and did a fantastic job during the first half. We were able to here them singing outside even while we were sitting in the dressing room.

Did the fans change your approach? Or  was it the substitution of Didi Hamman?

We changed the line-up a bit. Perhaps Didi was the biggest change we made that helped us. It does not have anything to do with magic. The first goal was very important. But no one of us expected to score twice in the second half. When you play against Italian teams, it’s hard enough to come back after one goal in back. So there wasn’t much hope in the team’s dressing room but we wanted to score one goal at least to not go under without a struggle.

Apparently, Jamie Carragher mentioned that you didn’t go back on the pitch with eleven men.

Well, actually we did play with ten men only. Steve Finnan had problems with his ankle. He decided to be substituted just in the moment we were about to go out. That’s why Djimi Traore had to stay in even though he should have been substituted. But he already was on his way to the shower! He then put his shoes on quickly and played the entire 120 minutes.

In the last ten years there’s been many magical moments in Liverpool. Like the match against Juventus for example, 20 years after the disaster of Heysel. Was it a special match for you as well?

Stevie was injured for the match in Turin so I went to the commemoration a day before the match instead of him. Alessandro del Piero, Juventus’ captain at this time, read out all the names of the victims with me. It was a very emotional moment. I actually don’t like this kind of atmosphere at all. But I found it important to represent Liverpool FC there. Every year we commemorated the other disaster: Hillsborough. This always was a fixed date on our schedule.

You’re now sort of a father figure in Leverkusen. How does it work with the younger guys in the team?  

The beginning was a little bit stiff, because they didn’t know how they should rate me. But I’m just a normal guy. This helped a lot to adapt to the team. I’m someone who you get in touch with very easily. This helped a lot, especially in my case. They accepted me in the club very quickly.

The second part of the interview will follow tomorrow.

-Amanda

amanda@empireofthekop.com

The Daily Antoine 28/5/2010 LFC News Digest

The City will remember Heysel with a 2 minute silence today more…
(Y.N.W.A.)

King Kenny believes that Liverpool will ride the storm more…
(At the end of which there is a sweet, sweet song of a lark)

Arda Turan is being linked with Liverpool again more…
(I am hearing a lot about this, it will probably happen)

The Star is linking us with Simao more…
(And how can we afford Simao?)

And we are also linked with the Croatian 21 year old keeper Marijan Antolovic more…
(Impressive stats)

Aquilani wants to stay at Liverpool more…
(Y.N.W.A.)

David Amoo has committed his future to Liverpool more…
(Excellent)

Mourinho admires Gerrard & Lampard more…
(No one has been able to get them to play together, why does he think he can do it? Who does he think he is? The Special One?)

Tom Hicks claims that there are many buyers who are interested in Liverpool more…
(Remember this FACT : Tom Hicks lies)

The Hicksmeister claims that the Liverpool buyer will probably come from the Middle-East more…
(Then I will pour a whole barrel of crude oil on myself to celebrate getting rid of you)

England U-17 make it to the European Championship final more…
(Y.N.W.A. to Reds Conor Coady and Andre Wisdom )

Torres returns to training more…
(Good luck Nando, don’t get injured)

Even Stevie is back in training after an injury scare more…
(ouch Stevie careful)

Ryan Babel has made the Dutch World Cup squad more…
(Good luck Ryan)

Daniel Agger played for the full 90 mins in the Danish victory over Senegal more…
(Go get them Danny Boy)

We Are The Redmen

Taking a light-hearted look at all things LFC, The Redmen is an Online Comedy Show Made BY the Fans, FOR the Fans.

Produced and shot in Liverpool, the Redmen is fully independent, and 100% unofficial.  Taking its inspiration from Baddiel and Skinner’s Fantasy Football as well as the Tim Lovejoy days of Soccer AM, and various British sketch shows the series seeks to put the fun back into being a Liverpool Fan.

Website:
www.youtube.com/wearetheredmen

Facebook Group:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=8970896261

We Are The Redmen:

“Hello, my name is Paul Machin- Life-long Liverpool fan, Eternal optimist (Lucas Leiva- Future Brazil Captain, watch this space), and Creator of ‘The Redmen’.

Like most of our ideas, the concept for The Redmen came about after a few pints.

Back in 2006/7, mainly to amuse myself, I made a few footy related Internet clips. One came about after we smuggled a video camera into the Liechtenstein- N.Ireland game. Chris (now Redmen co-presenter), Joe (co-contributor) and I got wellied at half time and started to commentate on the game. As honorary Liechtenstein fans for the night we decided to put a bias of John Aldridge proportions into our efforts, and ended up making more noise than the assembled home fans put together. The second was my own interpretation of what Marco Materazzi had said to make Zidane headbutt him… if they were both Scousers. The third and final clip took shape when Tony Hibbert was sent off in the Merseyside Derby and my cousin claimed that Gerrard had used “the Jedi mind trick” to convince the Ref to pull out the red card. (The first two are still online at www.youtube.com/themachincreations but beware, our production values have gone up a bit since then! Sadly the Gerrard one was pulled down over a copyright issue- there are plans underway to re-do it for the new website).

Making those videos had been such a laugh, and I really wanted an excuse to make more, so we started talking around the idea of creating a “vehicle” for these type of clips. A gang of us were in the pub and as always we were talking about the Reds. Eventually the topic turned to the club channel. There seemed to be a consensus among us that whilst it was a good ‘back up’ channel, something to flick onto when nothing else was on, (like Babestation, only more socially acceptable), there really wasn’t anything on LFC TV that we would tune in specifically to watch. Of course aside from live games the only other footy related programmes (that weren’t centred around either highlights or live scores) that we did watch were “Soccer AM”, and “Fantasy Football,” back in the day.  From those shows we got the basic format for The Redmen.

Initially we’d decided to start virally, with the idea being to convince LFC TV to take us on (which can be seen in some of the really early, 2007 promo videos we did -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lkliEBSKa4 ). However due to scheduling reasons, the production ground to a halt.

The idea lay dormant for a year or so until by chance I bumped into Jerome (our Director for the pilot), whom I hadn’t seen since school. It turned out that he was also a film-maker (having had a 3 Minute Wonder on Channel 4, and done work on the early FA Cup rounds for ITV, amongst other things). After working on another project together I brought the idea for The Redmen to him, and he in turn brought in Darren, our outstanding Graphics man. We knocked together a proposal and then the pilot, and took it to LFC TV. Despite some initially positive feedback, we were told that “people will either love it or hate it”, and that it would perhaps better suited as part of a Fan Takeover Hour that was supposedly on the horizon. Months passed and it finally became clear that such a proposal was never going to materialise. Again it seemed as though The Redmen would never see the light of day.

So we took a break, (during which time Jerome’s son was born) and worked on a few different projects. All the while I found myself fighting back the growing number of negative “bitter” Reds in pubs and bars around Liverpool, and in doing so was reminded of why I created The Redmen in the first place; Because no matter how bad a season is going, there are still so many great things about being a Liverpool Fan. And as I was once reminded by a mate after the sale of Robbie to Leeds: “It could be worse, you could be a Stockport fan”.

So I went back into the editing suite, carved up the pilot episode into bite-sized chunks, and then set up the ‘youtube’ site to host them. The idea was to get them out to as wide an audience of Liverpool Fans as possible, and youtube seemed the most convenient way to do this. From this mad session the first four online clips were born. As with any pilot they are a little rough around the edges, but hopefully they will give people a good indication of what we are all about, at least until the next generation of clips go live.

Of course I would still love to see The Redmen make it onto LFC TV, but if that doesn’t materialise then, and if the fanbase is there, we will be looking towards live online streaming. This is of course all pie in the sky, for now our goal is simply to reach and to entertain as many Reds as possible,

For me, the aim of the show is to support those fans with the ‘glass is half full mentality’, and to bring back an air of ‘positivity’ to all of those others who succumb to ‘the doom and gloom’ that sets in during a long season.”

The Future:

“Right now I am putting the finishing touches to the scripts for the next set of clips, which should start filming in the next week or so, whilst trying to build up connections with the online LFC community. Things are going well so far, Liverpool impressionist Darren Farley (who is a top bloke by the way) has pledged his support, and the response to a casting call for local actors has turned up a few potential gems.

As far as promotion goes we are really looking to the fans for help. We have created a number of posters to promote the show, which we hope fans we will print out and display for us. These can be found on the Facebook group, or for a better quality file they can e-mail us at theredmen@hotmail.co.uk

We are also encouraging everyone to join to aforementioned Facebook group:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=8970896261

On a creative note, at the moment we are on the hunt for a new female presenter, as well as local actors for various sketches. If anyone wishes to put their name forward then send us a C.V and Headshot to theredmen@hotmail.couk

Lastly, and most importantly is the ‘The Redmen Channel’ on youtube:

www.youtube.com/wearetheredmen

Feel free to post links to the videos and to leave comments, the thoughts of fellow Liverpool fans are always appreciated.

This summer promises to be one of the most pivotal in the history of Liverpool Football Club, and it is my hope that The Redmen can be there alongside the mighty Reds both next season and many more to come…

Hope you enjoy what we’re doing as much as we enjoy doing it,”

Y.N.W.A

Paul Machin

Writer/Producer: “The Redmen”

The Daily Antoine 27/5/2010 LFC News Digest

Once again thanks for your support, Paul is doing much better thanks.

Two Liverpool academy players (Andre Wisdom and Conor Coady) in line to start for England in the European U17 Semi-Final more…
(Good luck lads, Y.N.W.A.)

Trees have been planted in Liverpool to remember the Heysel victims more…
(Y.N.W.A.)

Rushie understands that the Juve fans are still very angry over Heysel more…
(We understand too)

Darth Vader (Tom Hicks) strikes back at Moores more…
(The Force will destroy him)

And the evil-doer wants to use the money he makes from Liverpool to cover his losses from Texas Rangers more…
(Is there anybody out there that is not convinced that Tom Hicks is a very bad Sports Owner?)

The Dallas cowboy also claims that Rafa has substantial funds for transfers more…
(Hicksocchio)

Pepe Reina is afraid about the future of the club more…
(We all are Pepe, YNWA)

Rangers now want £5 million for Danny Wilson more…
(I am still listening to Mary’s Prayer)

Real Madrid have fired their coach again and make way for Jose Mourinho more…
(Will Jose be the only Real Madrid in recent times to complete his contract?)

Here we go again, more speculation of Torres moving more…
(It will not end until the transfer window has closed and then they will start again talking about the January one)

More talk of Masch to Barcelona more…
(I can’t take this any longer)

Speaking of El Nino, they have turned him into a cartoon now more…
(LOL)

Gary Cahill is the latest player linked with Liverpool more…
(Price tag of £30 million? LOL way way out of our league)

More talks on Liverpool chasing Rossi more…
(Stop calling him Italian, he is from New Jersey he is as Italian as Frank Sinatra)

If Glen Johnson was Brazilian the Press would drool more…
(What a great truthful headline)

Carra in the meantime is impressed by Capello more…
(Good luck Jamie)

And finally Diego Maradona has promised to run naked the streets of Buenos Aires if they win the World Cup.
(Lady Diegoiva for Coventry?)

The Daily Antoine 26/5/2010 LFC News Digest

Thanks again for your prayers and support

Maxi suffered an injury while playing for Argentina more…
(Hopefully he can shake it off in time for the World Cup, good luck Maxi)

In the meantime Torres is aiming to be fit for Spain’s first World Cup game more…
(Good luck Nando)

According to the Daily Fail, Danny Wilson’s transfer has been held up by the ‘Home grown’ rule more…
(If this is true then it is utter BS from UEFA. Scotland, England and Northern Ireland should be exempt from this rule after all at the end of the day they are one country.)

David Moores admits his mistake in selling to Hicks & Gillett more…
(Redemption, ok so do you want to reinvest the money you made into LFC then?)

Nikola Zigic is now a Brum target more…
(That is our story unfortunately)

Michael Johnson, Micah Richards & Nedum Onuoha are all being linked with Liverpool more…
(Three Man City players?)

Soto assisted as the Greeks drew against North Korea more…
(YNWA)

While in the Spanish camp there seems to be a rift between Reina and Valdez more…
(You have three of the World’s top keepers in the same squad)

Reds’ Friendly Visit to Germany in the press

In the May 2010 edition of the brand new “WELL RED” monthly LFC magazine, out on sale from 27th May 2010, there is an article about the recent 2010 LFC Supporters Friendship visit to Moenchengladbach. Available to buy at all good newsagents and retail outlets from Thursday 27th May 2010.

In the June 2010 edition of the “THE KOP” monthly LFC newspaper, out on sale from 19th May 2010, there is an article about the recent 2010 LFC Supporters Friendship visit to Moenchengladbach. Available to buy at all good newsagents and retail outlets NOW.

In this weeks (25/05/10 to 31/05/10) official LFC Magazine there is an article all about the the recent 4th consecutive LFC supporters Friendship visit to Gladbach. Available to buy now at all good newsagents and retail outlets from today or order on-line .

-Amanda

amanda@empireofthekop.com