NewsLiverpool's Greatest - No.23: Jamie Carragher
Years: 1997-2013
Appearances: 737
Goals: 5
Trophies: League Cup (2001, 2003, 2012), FA Cup (2001, 2006), UEFA Cup (2001), Champions League (2005), UEFA Super Cup (2001, 2005)
Bootle boy Jamie Carragher – originally an Evertonian! – is Liverpool’s second-highest appearance-maker of all time.
Carragher gave supporters everything they wanted to see on the pitch from a local lad who rose through the Academy in those 737 outings. Of that, 150 were in European competition – the most of anyone in the club’s history.
He will happily admit there have been more talented players to wear the shirt, but few have been more ready to defend the badge.
All of which, it must be said, should not undermine his qualities as a defender and student of the game.
The first sight of Carragher came away at Middlesbrough in 1997, and he marked appearance No.3 with a goal against Aston Villa – one of just five across his 17-year Anfield career.
The early phase of his time in the Liverpool team was predominantly as a full-back, a dependable figure for Gerard Houllier in the incredible treble-winning season of 2000-01, during which he played 58 of the 63 fixtures.
That would be the first of nine different campaigns that saw ‘Carra’ rack up more than 50 matches, including six in a row from 2004 to 2010.
His bravery and commitment was underlined in 2003, when he attempted to play on at Blackburn Rovers with what later emerged to be a broken leg.
Carragher’s lead-by-example approach made him the natural inheritor of the vice-captaincy, though Steven Gerrard considered him to be co-skipper.
The arrival of Rafael Benitez as manager in 2004 brought about a change in his role on the pitch, with the Spaniard viewing Carragher entirely as a centre-half.
Carragher lifted his own game to new levels, with he and partner Sami Hyypia the steel at the back of the team that went on to Champions League glory in 2004-05.
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Watch on YouTubeHe battled the world’s best players and cramp in the final against AC Milan in Istanbul to etch his name alongside Liverpool stalwarts before him by lifting European Cup No.5.
Carragher would go on to earn further FA Cup and League Cup winner’s medals in the campaigns that followed, as he remained a much-relied-upon figure all the way through to his retirement.
Anfield showed its appreciation at the end of the 2012-13 season for all of the blood, sweat and determination given.
The No.23 said then: “Everyone has an opinion on whether you were a good player or a bad player, or whether you played well in a particular game or not. We all see it differently.
“But as long as everyone knew I put a shift in for them and I was there for them, home and away, wherever we were playing, that’s important.
“As long as the supporters can say, ‘He had a go for us’ then that’s all that matters to me.”
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