Hyypia was rejected by Oldham after a trail there before we signed him.
Sami the legend retires
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The events of January this year mean that the views of Fernando Torres carry far less weight than they once did in these parts.
But, regardless of who his current employers may or may not be, there were still times in the past when he managed to speak for everyone and his opinion of Sami Hyypia is a case in point.
"Hyypia is without doubt the best team mate I have ever had," Torres once said. "Ten out of ten as a player and as a person. Everyone loves him. He never complains, he never sulks, you never hear a word out of place from him. I really admire him. In training sessions when we do crossing and finishing exercises 90% of his shots go in. I started calling him the Matador in Spanish; now he calls me it. I told him he had to play his last season as a professional up front because he never misses."
Sadly, Hyypia revealed at the start of the week that this is his last season as a professional and he will hang up his boots when the campaign comes to an end. Tributes have poured in and rightly so because, as Torres pointed out, big Sami is one of the most respected figures in modern football and his standing in the game transcends club rivalry. An ultimate professional in the truest sense, you would be hard pressed to find anyone who has a bad word about him and there are not many who have played at the highest level for the length of time that Hyypia has who can say that.
"In every single training session and in every single game he gives 100 per cent for the team and he has been a fantastic servant to this club," Rafael Benitez said prior to Hyppia's departure from Liverpool to take up a new challenge with Bayer Leverkusen. "He is always keen to help the youngsters and he sets them a really good example. He is a perfect professional."
Jamie Carragher, who partnered Hyypia in central defence for several seasons, is better placed than most to assess the Finn's value to Liverpool and his tribute was equally fulsome. "I don't think you could use any other word for Sami than legend," Carragher said. "If you look at the standard of his performances ever since he came to the club, his level of consistency then you would have to say he is up there with the very best centre backs we have ever had.
"And when you take into account his transfer fee you'd have to say pound for pound he is one of the club's greatest ever signings. He is definitely one of the best foreign players to play in the Premier League and he is arguably Liverpool's best ever foreign signing."
Such is the level of respect that Hyypia is held in by everyone who has been associated with Liverpool in the last decade it would be possible to go on and on, listing eulogy after eulogy in his honour. His football achievements are there for all to see and his ability as a player will linger in the memory long after his retirement but what set Hyypia apart more than anything else were his qualities as a human being.
During his final season at Anfield, Hyypia cemented his place in our hearts with a magnificent gesture that spoke volumes for his character. Listening to local radio station City FM, he heard an appeal to raise funds for a local children's hospital in a manner that told us all we needed to know about him. With the charity drive looking to raise £50,000 for a playroom at Arrowe Park Hospital, Hyypia called in and pledged to make up the shortfall if donations from listeners did not reach that figure. The shortfall turned out to be £23,000 but Hyypia was as good as his word, paying that amount in full because he "wanted to make some contribution to allow this facility to be built."
There will be those who will suggest that top level professional footballers are paid handsomely enough to make such gestures but that would be to miss the point altogether. There are scores of millionaires in the Merseyside area who could have made that gesture but none of them did. Equally, high profile sportsmen are never short of requests for charitable help and while many of them are more than happy to provide it, few do it as instantaneously and without prompting as Hyypia did on that occasion.
My own abiding memory of Hyypia came in the days leading up to his final appearance in a Liverpool shirt. Being fortunate enough to be offered the chance to interview him for the Liverpool Echo, I arrived at Melwood on the Thursday morning before his last game at home to Tottenham Hotspur and spent the best part of half an hour discussing the career highs and lows of a soon to be former player.
As usual, Hyypia was honest and forthright, his respect for the club he was leaving as evident as the emotion that he was doing so. But it was when the interview came to an end that I realized just what Liverpool meant to him. I thanked him for his time, wished him luck for the future and then expressed my gratitude for everything he had done for the club. Hyypia didn't buy into the latter, though, for him it was the club that had done everything for him and he just felt fortunate to have been a part of it for as long as he had. But as he went on to talk about his affection for the fans, his eyes began to fill up. In a hard bitten industry like football, people don't reveal their emotions too often but here was one of the game's finest exponents showing exactly how much Liverpool Football Club and its fans meant to him.
I can't say anything that will add to what has already said about Sami Hyypia by those who knew him best - his former team mates and managers. But what I can say is that I don't think Liverpool have ever had a player who was more proud to play for the club. He may hail from Porvoo in Finland but inside his giant frame there was most definitely a Scouse heartbeat. His retirement is a loss for football, the game he graced with such distinction and class, but his standing on Merseyside is secure forever and his sheer humanity will be remembered long after his boots have been hung up.
- Tony Barrett
But, regardless of who his current employers may or may not be, there were still times in the past when he managed to speak for everyone and his opinion of Sami Hyypia is a case in point.
"Hyypia is without doubt the best team mate I have ever had," Torres once said. "Ten out of ten as a player and as a person. Everyone loves him. He never complains, he never sulks, you never hear a word out of place from him. I really admire him. In training sessions when we do crossing and finishing exercises 90% of his shots go in. I started calling him the Matador in Spanish; now he calls me it. I told him he had to play his last season as a professional up front because he never misses."
Sadly, Hyypia revealed at the start of the week that this is his last season as a professional and he will hang up his boots when the campaign comes to an end. Tributes have poured in and rightly so because, as Torres pointed out, big Sami is one of the most respected figures in modern football and his standing in the game transcends club rivalry. An ultimate professional in the truest sense, you would be hard pressed to find anyone who has a bad word about him and there are not many who have played at the highest level for the length of time that Hyypia has who can say that.
"In every single training session and in every single game he gives 100 per cent for the team and he has been a fantastic servant to this club," Rafael Benitez said prior to Hyppia's departure from Liverpool to take up a new challenge with Bayer Leverkusen. "He is always keen to help the youngsters and he sets them a really good example. He is a perfect professional."
Jamie Carragher, who partnered Hyypia in central defence for several seasons, is better placed than most to assess the Finn's value to Liverpool and his tribute was equally fulsome. "I don't think you could use any other word for Sami than legend," Carragher said. "If you look at the standard of his performances ever since he came to the club, his level of consistency then you would have to say he is up there with the very best centre backs we have ever had.
"And when you take into account his transfer fee you'd have to say pound for pound he is one of the club's greatest ever signings. He is definitely one of the best foreign players to play in the Premier League and he is arguably Liverpool's best ever foreign signing."
Such is the level of respect that Hyypia is held in by everyone who has been associated with Liverpool in the last decade it would be possible to go on and on, listing eulogy after eulogy in his honour. His football achievements are there for all to see and his ability as a player will linger in the memory long after his retirement but what set Hyypia apart more than anything else were his qualities as a human being.
During his final season at Anfield, Hyypia cemented his place in our hearts with a magnificent gesture that spoke volumes for his character. Listening to local radio station City FM, he heard an appeal to raise funds for a local children's hospital in a manner that told us all we needed to know about him. With the charity drive looking to raise £50,000 for a playroom at Arrowe Park Hospital, Hyypia called in and pledged to make up the shortfall if donations from listeners did not reach that figure. The shortfall turned out to be £23,000 but Hyypia was as good as his word, paying that amount in full because he "wanted to make some contribution to allow this facility to be built."
There will be those who will suggest that top level professional footballers are paid handsomely enough to make such gestures but that would be to miss the point altogether. There are scores of millionaires in the Merseyside area who could have made that gesture but none of them did. Equally, high profile sportsmen are never short of requests for charitable help and while many of them are more than happy to provide it, few do it as instantaneously and without prompting as Hyypia did on that occasion.
My own abiding memory of Hyypia came in the days leading up to his final appearance in a Liverpool shirt. Being fortunate enough to be offered the chance to interview him for the Liverpool Echo, I arrived at Melwood on the Thursday morning before his last game at home to Tottenham Hotspur and spent the best part of half an hour discussing the career highs and lows of a soon to be former player.
As usual, Hyypia was honest and forthright, his respect for the club he was leaving as evident as the emotion that he was doing so. But it was when the interview came to an end that I realized just what Liverpool meant to him. I thanked him for his time, wished him luck for the future and then expressed my gratitude for everything he had done for the club. Hyypia didn't buy into the latter, though, for him it was the club that had done everything for him and he just felt fortunate to have been a part of it for as long as he had. But as he went on to talk about his affection for the fans, his eyes began to fill up. In a hard bitten industry like football, people don't reveal their emotions too often but here was one of the game's finest exponents showing exactly how much Liverpool Football Club and its fans meant to him.
I can't say anything that will add to what has already said about Sami Hyypia by those who knew him best - his former team mates and managers. But what I can say is that I don't think Liverpool have ever had a player who was more proud to play for the club. He may hail from Porvoo in Finland but inside his giant frame there was most definitely a Scouse heartbeat. His retirement is a loss for football, the game he graced with such distinction and class, but his standing on Merseyside is secure forever and his sheer humanity will be remembered long after his boots have been hung up.
- Tony Barrett
.
Why Sami Hyypia was picture perfect
THERE is an often cited belief that a picture is worth a thousand words. A voyage through the annals of our illustrious history gives legitimacy to that claim.
From the proud and triumphant image of Shankly on the steps of St. George’s Hall, to the poignant tragedy of Anfield enshrouded in scarves for 96 football fans who never came home – these moments are captured and engrained into our memories, collated into the ever-expanding scrapbook of Liverpool Football Club.
The allure of defining a particular character or moment through a simple snap of the camera perhaps stems from the fact our club is full of emotions, moments and memories which words fail to describe.
That lasting image of Shankly, arms outstretched before his adoring disciples after the 1971 cup final defeat to Arsenal encapsulates so many ideologies about the club.
It’s the people of the city and the football club combined as one, regardless of the result, brought together by a man who succeeded in his vision of making them – the people - happy.
A lot of the older gentleman of this club attempt to explain the impact Shankly had on the football club; the way he transformed the culture of it, both on and off the pitch.
Despite their colourful, engaging efforts, nothing can elucidate the great man’s influence more than that photograph.
Given the emotive strength these images can possess, it’s not surprising that both supporters and media search for snapshots which provide definition; there’s a scramble to assemble the vignettes of victory and the depictions of defeat.
Very few have longevity; very few have something special which transcends words.
Julian Dicks’ forays down the left-hand side, although a mercurial poetry in motion, can still be aptly summed up with a few simplistic adjectives. Likewise, Michael Stensgaard’s reign between the sticks cannot be condensed in one picture – because none actually exist.
But when Pepe Reina lifted Sami Hyypia upon his matador-like shoulders at the end of the Finn’s final game at Anfield, it seemed as apt to capture as theLiverpool skyline at night.
As Sami rose higher than ever before – some accomplishment indeed – he lowered his head, overwhelmed and humbled by his consecration at Anfield, a personal place of worship for the past decade.
The football club now has another icon forever immortalised and epitomised in one image.
As his peers looked up in awe, like they did so many on a professional and personal level, Sami was keen to be put back on the ground, almost embarrassed by the attention he was receiving.
But that was Sami Hyypia.
Even as Liverpool captain – or when he subsequently relinquished it to Steven Gerrard – he was never emblazoned on the back pages of the national newspapers; not that he would want to be. He was modest and dignified on and off the pitch.
His job was to halt headlines, not to create them. He was the reason the likes of Shearer, van Nistelrooy, Henry and many other strikers left Anfield, hoping the colossus would return to Rhodes before their next visit.
In fact, to liken Sami to the Colossus of Rhodes does him a disservice. Unlike the statue, Liverpool's towering rock at the back showed no sign of corrosion.
As the Kop chanted for Sami against Spurs, it is guaranteed a hundred different people remembered a hundred different Sami moments.
His left-foot volley against Juventus, his header against Arsenal in the European Cup quarter final, his unbelievable right-foot strike against Spurs from the edge of the box – goals to savour and goals are all that can be savoured; it would be impossible to even begin to select his tackles, blocks and clearing headers.
There’s one overriding memory of Sami that stands out above all – his goal against Wolves in the 2003/2004 season. The Reds were tussling with Charlton, Birmingham andNewcastle for the fourth Champions League spot with ten games to go.
Trudging to a stalemate, Sami powered in a header in the last minute which provided a launch pad to qualification for the Champions League. Just over a year later, Sami was raising the European Cup as a lynchpin of the club’s success.
It is contributions like that which were underestimated, even by his own support at times.
He was not just a superlative defender but a strong influence on the pitch, as well as a talented distributor of the ball. Sami did not just read the game like a book, he wrote the epilogue as well, starting our attacks on many occasions with his accurate passing.
With news of Hyypia's retirement from football, reflections on Hyypia's abilities as a centre back - a steal at £2.6million from Willem II in 1999 - will come thick, fast and glowing.
But above all of his abilities, it was the man he was and the decorum he held during his time at Anfield that will live with Liverpool supporters – and it will do, thanks to that one moment, forever frozen behind the camera lens.
If Sami Hyypia enjoys retirement as much as Liverpool supporters enjoyed his decade at Anfield, he'll lead a very fulfilling life indeed.
.
Why Sami Hyypia was picture perfect
THERE is an often cited belief that a picture is worth a thousand words. A voyage through the annals of our illustrious history gives legitimacy to that claim.
From the proud and triumphant image of Shankly on the steps of St. George’s Hall, to the poignant tragedy of Anfield enshrouded in scarves for 96 football fans who never came home – these moments are captured and engrained into our memories, collated into the ever-expanding scrapbook of Liverpool Football Club.
The allure of defining a particular character or moment through a simple snap of the camera perhaps stems from the fact our club is full of emotions, moments and memories which words fail to describe.
That lasting image of Shankly, arms outstretched before his adoring disciples after the 1971 cup final defeat to Arsenal encapsulates so many ideologies about the club.
It’s the people of the city and the football club combined as one, regardless of the result, brought together by a man who succeeded in his vision of making them – the people - happy.
A lot of the older gentleman of this club attempt to explain the impact Shankly had on the football club; the way he transformed the culture of it, both on and off the pitch.
Despite their colourful, engaging efforts, nothing can elucidate the great man’s influence more than that photograph.
Given the emotive strength these images can possess, it’s not surprising that both supporters and media search for snapshots which provide definition; there’s a scramble to assemble the vignettes of victory and the depictions of defeat.
Very few have longevity; very few have something special which transcends words.
Julian Dicks’ forays down the left-hand side, although a mercurial poetry in motion, can still be aptly summed up with a few simplistic adjectives. Likewise, Michael Stensgaard’s reign between the sticks cannot be condensed in one picture – because none actually exist.
But when Pepe Reina lifted Sami Hyypia upon his matador-like shoulders at the end of the Finn’s final game at Anfield, it seemed as apt to capture as theLiverpool skyline at night.
As Sami rose higher than ever before – some accomplishment indeed – he lowered his head, overwhelmed and humbled by his consecration at Anfield, a personal place of worship for the past decade.
The football club now has another icon forever immortalised and epitomised in one image.
As his peers looked up in awe, like they did so many on a professional and personal level, Sami was keen to be put back on the ground, almost embarrassed by the attention he was receiving.
But that was Sami Hyypia.
Even as Liverpool captain – or when he subsequently relinquished it to Steven Gerrard – he was never emblazoned on the back pages of the national newspapers; not that he would want to be. He was modest and dignified on and off the pitch.
His job was to halt headlines, not to create them. He was the reason the likes of Shearer, van Nistelrooy, Henry and many other strikers left Anfield, hoping the colossus would return to Rhodes before their next visit.
In fact, to liken Sami to the Colossus of Rhodes does him a disservice. Unlike the statue, Liverpool's towering rock at the back showed no sign of corrosion.
As the Kop chanted for Sami against Spurs, it is guaranteed a hundred different people remembered a hundred different Sami moments.
His left-foot volley against Juventus, his header against Arsenal in the European Cup quarter final, his unbelievable right-foot strike against Spurs from the edge of the box – goals to savour and goals are all that can be savoured; it would be impossible to even begin to select his tackles, blocks and clearing headers.
There’s one overriding memory of Sami that stands out above all – his goal against Wolves in the 2003/2004 season. The Reds were tussling with Charlton, Birmingham andNewcastle for the fourth Champions League spot with ten games to go.
Trudging to a stalemate, Sami powered in a header in the last minute which provided a launch pad to qualification for the Champions League. Just over a year later, Sami was raising the European Cup as a lynchpin of the club’s success.
It is contributions like that which were underestimated, even by his own support at times.
He was not just a superlative defender but a strong influence on the pitch, as well as a talented distributor of the ball. Sami did not just read the game like a book, he wrote the epilogue as well, starting our attacks on many occasions with his accurate passing.
With news of Hyypia's retirement from football, reflections on Hyypia's abilities as a centre back - a steal at £2.6million from Willem II in 1999 - will come thick, fast and glowing.
But above all of his abilities, it was the man he was and the decorum he held during his time at Anfield that will live with Liverpool supporters – and it will do, thanks to that one moment, forever frozen behind the camera lens.
If Sami Hyypia enjoys retirement as much as Liverpool supporters enjoyed his decade at Anfield, he'll lead a very fulfilling life indeed.
.
Excellent articles and fully deserved. You have to be one heck of a man, not just one heck of a player, to get hard-bitten hacks writing about you like that.
Sami Hyypia YNWA
Sami Hyypia YNWA
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