It turns out Peter Crouch almost ruined Dirk Kuyt’s Champions League dream by running him over in a go-kart, the Dutchman has told FourFourTwo!
Kuyt wasn’t a Liverpool player in 2005 when we lifted the trophy, but played a key role in our run to the final in 2007 – which we sadly lost to AC Milan.
Because of the legendary victory two years earlier, 2007 gets forgotten, but we had a better all-round team and Kuyt was one of its most crucial parts.
He bagged in the final but was lucky to play after a motorised assault by his teammate!
“How annoying was it to score in the 2007 Champions League Final against Milan in Athens, but still end up losing?” Kuyt was asked in a fan Q&A…
Here’s how the story goes:
“To play in that Champions League final was a fantastic achievement, but losing it is one of my biggest disappointments. We didn’t control the game enough in order to hurt them, and they scored two goals at the right moment. In the end I scored our goal a bit too late, or we could have come back like Istanbul.
“To be honest, I was happy that I was playing in that match at all, as before the final there had been an incident that almost prevented me from taking part. When we were in the training camp before the final, the squad went go-karting. I didn’t join in, as I wanted to rest a small injury, but I went along to watch and picked a safe-looking spot to stand beside the track with Rafa.
“Out of nowhere, Peter Crouch drove straight at me at roughly 35 mph. He couldn’t brake! The only thing I could do was to jump in the air, and in the end I just managed to jump over Peter, and he crashed into cardboard boxes behind me. I was within a whisker of having my ankles torn to pieces, and would surely have missed the Champions League final. It was incredible that I saw him just in time and could jump over him! Crouchy’s face was as pale as death, he’d had some kind of blackout. Fortunately everything was all right.”
Crouch only got on for the final 12 minutes, and his presence helped Kuyt score – but it was on 89 minutes and came too late for us to stage another monumental comeback.