RE: Liverpool FC
One week on from celebrating his 650th game for Liverpool with another clean sheet, Liverpoolfc.tv columnist Kristian Walsh pays his own special tribute to Jamie Carragher.
I'm sure if Jamie Carragher should ever read this, he'd forgive me for being a week late. His Liverpool career has been founded on such unpunctuality, after all.
Countless times, the Kop's singing has transformed into an expectant sigh of disappointment as a striker goes through on goal.
As cliché as it is, time does seem to stand still when Liverpool are primed to concede.
In those few moments, your seat at Anfield becomes the best one there; a perfect position to create a feeling of omnipresence. All options are assessed, each angle is covered, and every outcome is predicted - none of them favourable.
Shearer will power this past Westerveld, we've thought, and there's no chance Dudek can stop Bergkamp. Even Pepe Reina might struggle with a one-on-one with Didier Drogba.
As Ibrahimovic, Inzaghi, Ronaldo or Raul rear back their foot and take aim, Anfield agonises in unison. Supporters' eyes clench and fists tighten, wishing they could be on the pitch and halt the inevitable.
Enter Jamie Carragher - a tenacious, red-cheeked, snarling concoction of limbs; a manifestation of every Liverpool supporter's desire to stop the ball hitting the back of the net.
As foot connects with ball, so does Carragher, seemingly out of nowhere, acting as a human shield.
The pride he takes in his profession and in his football club is personified into one brave lunge; pride which proves to be well-founded once his right foot, left thigh or backside stops a goal once again.
As the ball flies to safety, the striker stares downwards in disbelief - it's having it taken away at the latest possible moment which hurts the most.
Better late than never, the Kop proclaim, with a deep sigh of appreciative relief and ecstatic applause.
We should know what to expect by now though. It's been happening for 13 years; it's been happening for 650 games.
It was apt his milestone 650th appearance for the club was with the armband and a clean sheet in his possession.
Frederic Piquionne and Carlton Cole are not necessarily Messi and Ronaldinho at the Camp Nou, but that typifies one of Carragher's best qualities; every game is as important as each other, because every game represents Liverpool Football Club and its supporters.
That's one of the reasons Carra is revered by our support so much - he acts as any supporter of the club would if they ever stepped on to the pitch.
As You'll Never Walk Alone begins to sound five minutes before kick off, Anfield stands together in agreement that there's nowhere else they'd rather be.
Nowhere bar one place, that is - the Anfield tunnel, waiting to walk out in front of 40,000 fellow supporters and represent Liverpool Football Club.
It's the moment you picture as an 11-year-old boy, putting on your football boots for the first time, waiting to make your school debut in front of 15 people on a bitter October afternoon.
It's the moment you imagine when you slip on your shinpads ahead of a 5-a-side tournament on an Astroturf pitch that will rip your knees to shreds.
It's the moment you imagine standing on the Kop, casting a quasi-envious eye towards those on the pitch, whether it's against Rotherham or Real Madrid.
Jamie Carragher represents all of those fantasies when he steps onto the pitch. He kicks the ball how we want to kick it; he blocks a shot how we want to block it.
He did in his first game against Middlesbrough as a 19-year-old replacing Rob Jones from the bench, and he did last Saturday against West Ham as he stood as captain of Liverpool Football Club.
It would be futile to write of Carra's entire career; there's not enough space or words to give it an ounce of justice. To play 650 times for the most successful club in English football says more than any verbose scribe could.
But there's one game which made me realise I was watching a club legend, a player whose name would become synonymous with greatness and uttered with the same admiration as Yeats, Hansen and Hyypia.
Carragher may have already had an assortment of winners' medals from his time under Gerard Houllier, but on the banks of the Bosphorus, the transformation from reliable, dedicated utility man to world class defender was fully complete.
Liverpool fans had known it for a while. I remember standing in Cardiff a few months earlier at the Carling Cup final and seeing banners proclaiming Carragher's greatness adorning the Millennium Stadium, like scrolls hanging from a Roman coliseum, heralding their gladiator.
But in Istanbul, the entire footballing world discovered the defending phenomenon of Jamie Carragher. No longer was he simply woven into fabric for banners; he was now etched into the illustrious history of the European Cup.
As he made another of his patented last-gasp lunges in extra time to cut out a cross, the 45,000 Liverpool supporters in the stadium and hundreds of thousands watching at home winced. Cramp had consumed Carra.
Slowly, he pulled his face from the turf with pain imprinted upon it. Sweat rapidly trickled down his cheek and onto his soaked shirt. His left leg ached because of his uncharacteristic charge forward at 3-2 down; his right leg numb from contending with Hernan Crespo all night.
As he clambered to both feet, his red shirt merged into those worn behind him in the stand; Jamie Carragher and Liverpool Football Club supporters became one. We felt his pain, and he felt our hope - both fed off each other for the remainder of the final.
Two minutes later, cramp still enveloping his frame, he made yet another lunge for the ball. It's what any supporter would want to do in a European Cup final for Liverpool Football Club.
Istanbul was his 360th game for Liverpool, and although it's regarded as the defining one in his career, it's a mere microcosm of Jamie Carragher and what he brings to this football club. He doesn't just wear his heart on his sleeve, but his lungs serve as a waistcoat as well.
His influence off the pitch cannot be underestimated, either. His 23 Foundation helps local children to express themselves and realise their own dreams through a variety of projects and initiatives. It should come as no surprise that teamwork is an important ethic to the foundation.
To see a footballer appreciate what he has as much as Carragher is rare; but to use that appreciation to give others an opportunity to fulfil their dreams speaks volumes of his character.
He does it for his foundation now, and he's been doing it for years to those on the Kop, allowing us act out our dreams and visualise ourselves playing in front of our fellow supporters.
So next time it appears time has stopped at Anfield as a striker advances on goal, whisper a little thank you to Carra for his 650 plus appearances - and as he blocks yet another shot, thank whoever you feel fit that there'll be plenty more of those moments to come.
*****
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