A brief guide to … Steven Gerrard, a man strong enough to carry LA Galaxy's hopes

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/jul/16/steven-gerrard-premier-league-liverpool-la-galaxy

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With the Guardian’s unstoppable rise to global dominance (NOTE: actual dominance may not be global. Or dominant) we at Guardian US thought we’d run a series of articles for newer football fans wishing to improve their knowledge of the game’s history and storylines, hopefully in a way that doesn’t patronise you to within an inch of your life. A warning: If you’re the kind of person that finds the Blizzard too populist this may not be the series for you.

Anyone who only started watching soccer in April 2014 would be forgiven for thinking Steven Gerrard is a prize galoot. Here’s how things have panned out for him since then. He slipped against Chelsea, allowing Demba Ba to score, consigning Liverpool to a defeat which ultimately cost them their first English league title since 1990. He was a slow, leggy presence in a midfield which was overrun by relegation haunted Aston Villa in the FA Cup semi-final. His grand goodbye to Anfield ended in abject defeat to Crystal Palace. And his last appearance in a Liverpool shirt was a humiliating 6-1 thrashing at Stoke, Liverpool’s heaviest loss since 1963. Hey, at least he scored a goal in that last one.

It’s certainly one angle to take on Gerrard’s career. We’d just be wasting everyone’s time, though. For Gerrard is unquestionably one of the greats of the Premier League age. His critics will argue he’s never quite been in the top tier, and yes, maybe he never had the touch of Gianfranco Zola, the none-shall-pass steel of Patrick Vieira, the in-game intelligence of Paul Scholes. And he certainly never managed a medal haul like Ryan Giggs. But there have been few players who delivered as regularly in the biggest games that matter. He’s worthy of his place in the pantheon.

Not least because unlike the other lads we mention, he’s never been fortunate enough to play in a team that expects, rather than hopes, to win the big prizes. That he’s done as well as he has, given Liverpool’s reduced circumstances since the glory days of the 1970s and 1980s, is some feat. And he’s got quite a CV, even if he never managed to claim that elusive Premier League medal. Three League Cups. Two FA Cups. Two Super Cups. One Charity Shield. One Uefa Cup. Four seasons as Liverpool’s top goalscorer. Forty-one individual awards, including an OBE. 710 appearances for one of the most famous clubs in the world. 186 goals. And he’s synonymous with an FA Cup final, and the most famous Champions League final of all. Concentrate on The Slip and that painful long goodbye if you must, but he’s done OK for himself, all told.

Gerrard made his Liverpool debut in November 1998, coming on as a late substitute for Vegard Heggem in the final minute of an otherwise unremarkable 2-0 win over Blackburn Rovers. He quickly cemented a place in Gerard Houllier’s first-team squad, though only announced himself to the nation the season after. First by getting himself sent off in the Merseyside derby at Anfield for a hot-headed two-footed lunge on match-winner Kevin Campbell; then by sashaying through the Sheffield Wednesday defence to score the signature goal of a 4-1 rout, live on television. It became clear quickly enough that his was a rare talent, a player around whom things happen, someone to keep an eye on. Not least because he’d been pitched into the side variously as an attacking midfielder, a defensive midfielder, a winger and a right-back.

Gerrard enjoyed his first success as a fixture in the Liverpool side that won three cups in the 2000/01 season. He played in central midfield as Liverpool first won the League Cup in an uncertain fashion against Birmingham City, impressively knocked Barcelona out of the semi-finals of the Uefa Cup, rode their luck to win the FA Cup against Arsenal, and finally beat Alaves 5-4 to lift the Uefa Cup in a match the Guardian named as “the greatest final”.

Gerrard scored with a thumping low drive; it wouldn’t be the last time he showed in a big game. The next high-profile contribution came in 2003, when he sent a looping diagonal screamer into the top-right corner of the Manchester United net in the League Cup final. Admittedly this one was helped by a deflection off David Beckham, but if you don’t buy a ticket, and all that.

And Gerrard has always been happy to try his luck in the raffle of life. One of the stock criticisms of the player is his habit of spraying overly ambitious Hollywood passes into the stands, and flaying ludicrous shots from distance into the darkest corners of the Kop. But it’s part of the man’s make-up, all part of the package. And this penchant for borderline absurdity has repeatedly dug Liverpool out of the deepest holes. So it’s been swings and roundabouts, and good luck finding a Kopite who would ever have had him any other way.

Exhibit A. Liverpool versus Olympiakos, 2004. Rafael Benitez’s side needed a win in their final Champions League group match to make it to the knockout stages, and avoid dropping into the Uefa Cup. Adding to the pressure, Gerrard had wondered aloud whether Liverpool were capable of meeting his professional ambitions, toying with an exit to Chelsea. “For myself personally, it has been frustrating playing in the Uefa Cup for the last few years. I’ve already won it and it plays second fiddle to the Champions League. As a player and as a club, I don’t settle for second best. The Champions League is where I want to be.” Cue the famous 86th-minute screamer that secured a place in the round of 16, soundtracked by Sky colour man Andy Gray’s famous scream of “YA BEAUTEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!”. A former Everton striker as well! Gray would prove to have many faults, but you can’t say he wasn’t scrupulously even-handed here.

Exhibit B. Liverpool versus West Ham United, 2006. The FA Cup final. Liverpool were trailing 3-2 going into injury time. Gerrard had already lashed home one magnificent equaliser, as Liverpool battled back from 0-2 down, but Paul Konchesky’s fluky cross from the left looked to have won the cup for the Hammers. Cue the famous injury-time assault on reason, a real Roy of the Rovers blooter from 30 yards. West Ham keeper Shaka Hislop had no chance. Gerrard later admitted he only hit it from such a preposterous distance because he was knackered, and could run no more. Liverpool won the cup on penalties after extra time. Gerrard buried his penalty kick, naturally, and joined the elite club of players whose names are inextricably linked with an FA Cup final: Stanley Matthews, Ricky Villa, Michael Owen, Steven Gerrard.

In between these events, of course, his greatest act in Istanbul. The 2005 Champions League final. The story is old, I know, but it goes on. Read about it here.

The rest of Gerrard’s career has been – if you look at the bare bones – strangely anti-climatic. He very nearly left for Chelsea anyway, despite winning the 2005 Champions League, but changed his mind at the death. He was instrumental in taking Liverpool to another Champions League final in 2007, but just as everything went their way against Milan in 2005, the bread kept landing jammy side down when they faced the same opponents in Athens. You can make a case to say the best side lost in both 2005 and 2007, though Liverpool should be happy enough with this particular deal, coming away with the better stories to tell and songs to sing.

In 2007-08, Gerrard played just behind Fernando Torres as the team took an improbable late tilt at the Premier League title. But they’d given Manchester United too much of a head start. All Liverpool took from the season was bittersweet memories of an astonishing week in which Benitez’s team, unleashed from their micro-managed shackles, beat Aston Villa 5-0, routed Real Madrid 4-0, then went to Old Trafford and humiliated their old foe 4-1. But it was United who ended the season with the title, the battle lost, the war won.

And finally – a couple of seasons after one last League Cup, in 2012 – that ill-fated title challenge under Brendan Rodgers. It was Luis Suarez’s swansong at the club, and in retrospect it was Gerrard’s too. He had just enough left in his legs to drive the team to the brink of their 19th English title and first of the Premier League era until The Slip against Chelsea. The cruellest blow for a player who wanted it more than any other in that team.

After that, a final season in red, which proved a step too far at the rarefied level of the Premier League. A slightly undignified exit, then, met with glee in certain quarters, football fans being football fans. But history will be kind to a player who carried the hopes and dreams of Liverpool through some testing times, delivering plenty enough success against the odds.

He also played 114 times for England, captaining his country at the 2014 World Cup. But then England was never really the point of Steven Gerrard, who will always be about one club. Even if his arrival Stateside means he’ll now never be a one-club man.