NewsLiverpool's Greatest - No.64: Pepe Reina
Years: 2005-2013
Appearances: 394
Trophies: UEFA Super Cup (2005), FA Cup (2006), League Cup (2012)
Pepe Reina’s performances and figures stand him out as one of the best Liverpool goalkeepers of the modern era.
The Spaniard was brought in from Villarreal in July 2005 to demote a ’keeper who had won the Champions League a few weeks earlier – Jerzy Dudek – to the bench.
But supporters would soon learn why Rafael Benitez made that bold decision.
Reina was a master with the gloves and, in a rarity for that era, superb with the ball at his feet; so much so that he once played as a midfielder for the Reds in a pre-season friendly.
During his debut season at Anfield, Reina and those players in front of him kept a club-record 11 clean sheets in a row.
That term ended with victory in the FA Cup final against West Ham United, with the No.25 displaying his penalty-saving brilliance three times in the shootout win.
His first 50 games in the league had seen him produce 28 clean sheets – three more than Ray Clemence. Reina also beat the Liverpool great to a half-century of shutouts in all competitions, again by three games.
He was the recipient of the Premier League Golden Glove award for three consecutive seasons from 2005-06 to 2007-08.
Reina also starred in Europe and helped Benitez’s team reach the European Cup final in 2007, becoming just the third player to follow their father in appearing in the competition’s showpiece.
Liverpool narrowly missed out on the Premier League title in 2008-09 – but not for the want of trying as Reina matched his own club record by posting 20 clean sheets in the division.
Such was his quality and reliability, Reina’s position in goal was never threatened in the years that followed and he was voted Player of the Season in 2010.
His commitment to the club could not be questioned, either, as evidenced when he ran the length of the pitch to celebrate a Kop-end clincher against Manchester United in 2009.
He earned the third medal of his Liverpool career under Kenny Dalglish in February 2012, when Cardiff City were defeated in the League Cup final at Wembley.
That turned out to be his penultimate year between the sticks for the Reds, with a loan move to Napoli preceded by a permanent departure to Bayern Munich in 2014.
By then, he had tallied a phenomenal 177 clean sheets in just shy of 400 appearances.
Get exclusive early access to the next players revealed on the Liverpool's Greatest list every day on the official LFC app: iOS | Google Play