Photo: Paul Hazlewood
Okay. But they encouraged you to play
football because you played ice hockey
as well, didn’t you?
Yeah. In Finland at that time when I was
growing up, almost all the boys played ice
hockey in the winter and football in the
summer. We had long winters and it was
impossible to play football. Nowadays,
there are good facilities to play indoors
during the winter as well but back then
of course we had football training in the
winter but I also played ice hockey. So
it was good to do something else as
well and I did cross country skiing and
athletics but football was the number one.
have been but I’m happy with my decision
to try to make a career in football.
When you played for your first football
club - correct me if I’m wrong - you
played in a variety of positions all over
the pitch didn’t you?
Yeah. In my youth I played in the middle
in almost every position. Goalkeeper, I
never played there, that’s the one position
I didn’t. But I was a centre back, a centre
midfield player and a striker.
Did you score many goals as a striker?
of by the Liverpool fans. You’ve had a
career that involved being in Germany as
well as a manager but I think I know the
answer to my next question. What’s the
highlight of your career to date?
I’ve had many highlights but as a player,
the Champions League is the one thing
that maybe every player would like to
experience and to win one day. I was lucky
in my career that I managed to do that
and maybe it’s a great achievement. There
are two players in Finland who have ever
won it so it really is a great achievement
and I’m very happy about that.
If you hadn’t gone on to play football, do you
think you would have been as successful?
Maybe not as many as I would have liked
or people would have liked because I
didn’t play many games as a striker.
Who was the other one?
I don’t know. I wasn’t bad at ice hockey so
I don’t know how good a player I would
You came to Liverpool in 1999, and spent a
long time there. You are still highly thought
I thought it was - of course he also
played for Liverpool.
Jari Litmanen
103