Bonnyloyal
Well-Known Member
By DOMINIC KING FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 22:30, 13 November 2018 | UPDATED: 22:30, 13 November 2018
Before the interview is over, Steven Gerrard is making plans to do another one. He wants to give a candid insight into the differences between playing and managing — the winning and the losing — but, to do it properly, something special must happen.
'We could come back to this,' he says. 'But what you have just asked me… I can't answer it, not at the minute. I do hope I get the chance to try one day.' This is the only point where Gerrard is lost for words during 30 illuminating minutes.
We meet on Merseyside on a rare day off for the Rangers manager. It gives him the chance to step into the past and discuss Make Us Dream, the biopic of his life which is in cinemas on Thursday.
The title is wholly appropriate. It charts how the wiry little schoolboy became the emblem of a team and a city, Liverpool's dream-maker.
The good times are chronicled in glorious colour, but so are the bad times and Gerrard goes into detail on some subjects like never before.
For instance, one previously untold story is about Liverpool's title-decider with Chelsea in April 2014 — the match in which Gerrard's fateful slip enabled Demba Ba to score. Gerrard needed an epidural injection to manage the pain from a back problem. By rights, he could have missed the game.
'Don't think that is an excuse,' he says. 'What happened was just pure bad luck but, when you do a book or film, especially with people who have won Oscars and made films such as Amy (the biopic of the late Amy Winehouse) and Senna, you must be as honest and open as you can.'
Honesty has never been an issue for Gerrard. He was an open book as a player and nobody needed a degree in body language to work out when things were good and bad in his world. It was always there, carved into every crease of his face.
'Looking back, I didn't hide it well, did I?' Gerrard says, smiling. 'But that's me. You could see the pure ecstasy when I was at the top end of the dream. But the low moments? I'm not one who could put on the poker face. I never have been.'
Does he not need to be able to do so now he is a manager? The past is the hook that has brought us together but the present and future are just as interesting and, typically, his views on how life has changed and how he is changing with it are compelling.
There are times — not least when he recalls the 'horrible moment' his playing career ended in Los Angeles on November 24, 2016, his body no longer able to meet the demands of his sport — when it is clear he would love, just once more, to be in the thick of a frenzied game for club or country
Management, however, offers new challenges and he accepted the invitation from Rangers six months ago to begin the next phase. So far it has been smooth going, with Sunday's 7-1 thrashing of Motherwell his most emphatic success to date.
'I have to be aware I must control my emotions a lot more,' he says. 'It's not about me now. It was about me when I played. Now the challenge is to get a group as right as I can, using my journey and experiences to help them.'
Slowly he is finding his feet, putting distance between himself and the players rather than being central to everything in the dressing room. He effectively stopped thinking like a player when he gave his first team talk on the first day of pre-season training in June.
'That was completely different to having a group of kids in front of me last year,' says Gerrard, who spent that season guiding Liverpool's Under 18 side.
'It smacks you right in the face, the size of the job, when you have 25 fellas staring at you, waiting for every word that is going to come out of your mouth. Away from the cameras, it's candid and raw. I've never had any help in terms of public speaking.
'The only experience I have had is myself, as Liverpool captain, doing it off the cuff. I've never had any advice because I always wanted to be authentic and real.
'I don't want someone to change me into this spokesman with big words and try to kid people on. I'm a Scouser from a council estate. I never want to lose that because it's me. It's the reason I've gone on the journey as a player and it's the reason that I have ended up at Rangers.'
Could he equate the feeling to the moment manager Gerard Houllier summoned the then callow 18-year-old and sent him on to make the first of 710 Liverpool appearances?
'Very similar,' he says, nodding. 'In terms of the beat of your heart, the buzz, the adrenaline rush. There's pressure. There's responsibility. But when I stopped playing, there was a void in my life.
'But I didn't see myself just having an easy, comfortable life. There's time for that. While I feel I can help players — and while there are still opportunities to have that buzz — I'm game for a challenge. I'll give it my best shot.'
He is not the only one. The way football is changing can be seen in dugouts across Europe, with poster boys from Gerrard's era — Thierry Henry, Frank Lampard, Ryan Giggs and John Terry — all pursuing coaching careers
I've nothing but respect for those people having a go at it,' he says. 'They could easily have done whatever they wanted but they are football people. They loved their careers, like I loved mine.
'From leaving school at 16, my life has been about football. I want to work and it has always been about preparing for that buzz at the weekend. I don't know how this journey is going to go, but I'm hoping it will be good.'
He is doing everything to ensure that is the case. Gerrard has moved to Glasgow, settling near Rangers' Murray Park training base. His day starts at 8am and finishes about 6pm, when he heads home to spend the evening with his laptop, preparing.
Gone are the days when he would go for a game of snooker, golf or table tennis. Gerrard made a conscious decision to dial back on the time he spends on Instagram in an era when social media can be all-consuming.
'I want to be respectful to people and my job,' Gerrard explains. 'I'm grateful for the following I get but, with due respect, I am busy. I've got four kids, I'm busy with my job. Every minute I have is taken.
'I understand the modern player. I see the characters in my dressing room. The younger ones are social-media driven, they can't wait for the next new coloured boots… football is evolving. If you want to stay involved, you have to get up to speed with it.
'I'm open to it, as long as people keep their standards and do what they have to do. I don't mind a player wearing pink boots and having lines striped all over their hair. As long as they give me eight or nine out of 10 on a Saturday, that's fine with me. No problem at all.'
Clearly he is enjoying it. There have been some fine moments, such as the longest unbeaten European run in Rangers' history, but there have also been disappointments, such as losing to Aberdeen in the Scottish League Cup semi-finals.
The question, then, is how it compares. He loved winning and hated losing, so now he can no longer shape a contest physically, what is better: playing or managing? It is here he gathers his thoughts and looks to the future.
'Winning as a player is fantastic, winning as a manager now is a great buzz,' he says. 'Losing? There is no difference in the hurt. Winning a trophy as a player? Now that's special, incredible. And I would love to be in a position where I experience that as a manager. That is what I want.
'I want to win a trophy — achieve something special. So I'd like to come back to that — what you just asked me — I can't answer it, not at the minute. I hope I get the chance to try one day.'
It's a fitting way to finish. After years making everyone else dream, now it's Gerrard's turn to do that.
PUBLISHED: 22:30, 13 November 2018 | UPDATED: 22:30, 13 November 2018
Before the interview is over, Steven Gerrard is making plans to do another one. He wants to give a candid insight into the differences between playing and managing — the winning and the losing — but, to do it properly, something special must happen.
'We could come back to this,' he says. 'But what you have just asked me… I can't answer it, not at the minute. I do hope I get the chance to try one day.' This is the only point where Gerrard is lost for words during 30 illuminating minutes.
We meet on Merseyside on a rare day off for the Rangers manager. It gives him the chance to step into the past and discuss Make Us Dream, the biopic of his life which is in cinemas on Thursday.
The title is wholly appropriate. It charts how the wiry little schoolboy became the emblem of a team and a city, Liverpool's dream-maker.
The good times are chronicled in glorious colour, but so are the bad times and Gerrard goes into detail on some subjects like never before.
For instance, one previously untold story is about Liverpool's title-decider with Chelsea in April 2014 — the match in which Gerrard's fateful slip enabled Demba Ba to score. Gerrard needed an epidural injection to manage the pain from a back problem. By rights, he could have missed the game.
'Don't think that is an excuse,' he says. 'What happened was just pure bad luck but, when you do a book or film, especially with people who have won Oscars and made films such as Amy (the biopic of the late Amy Winehouse) and Senna, you must be as honest and open as you can.'
Honesty has never been an issue for Gerrard. He was an open book as a player and nobody needed a degree in body language to work out when things were good and bad in his world. It was always there, carved into every crease of his face.
'Looking back, I didn't hide it well, did I?' Gerrard says, smiling. 'But that's me. You could see the pure ecstasy when I was at the top end of the dream. But the low moments? I'm not one who could put on the poker face. I never have been.'
Does he not need to be able to do so now he is a manager? The past is the hook that has brought us together but the present and future are just as interesting and, typically, his views on how life has changed and how he is changing with it are compelling.
There are times — not least when he recalls the 'horrible moment' his playing career ended in Los Angeles on November 24, 2016, his body no longer able to meet the demands of his sport — when it is clear he would love, just once more, to be in the thick of a frenzied game for club or country
Management, however, offers new challenges and he accepted the invitation from Rangers six months ago to begin the next phase. So far it has been smooth going, with Sunday's 7-1 thrashing of Motherwell his most emphatic success to date.
'I have to be aware I must control my emotions a lot more,' he says. 'It's not about me now. It was about me when I played. Now the challenge is to get a group as right as I can, using my journey and experiences to help them.'
Slowly he is finding his feet, putting distance between himself and the players rather than being central to everything in the dressing room. He effectively stopped thinking like a player when he gave his first team talk on the first day of pre-season training in June.
'That was completely different to having a group of kids in front of me last year,' says Gerrard, who spent that season guiding Liverpool's Under 18 side.
'It smacks you right in the face, the size of the job, when you have 25 fellas staring at you, waiting for every word that is going to come out of your mouth. Away from the cameras, it's candid and raw. I've never had any help in terms of public speaking.
'The only experience I have had is myself, as Liverpool captain, doing it off the cuff. I've never had any advice because I always wanted to be authentic and real.
'I don't want someone to change me into this spokesman with big words and try to kid people on. I'm a Scouser from a council estate. I never want to lose that because it's me. It's the reason I've gone on the journey as a player and it's the reason that I have ended up at Rangers.'
Could he equate the feeling to the moment manager Gerard Houllier summoned the then callow 18-year-old and sent him on to make the first of 710 Liverpool appearances?
'Very similar,' he says, nodding. 'In terms of the beat of your heart, the buzz, the adrenaline rush. There's pressure. There's responsibility. But when I stopped playing, there was a void in my life.
'But I didn't see myself just having an easy, comfortable life. There's time for that. While I feel I can help players — and while there are still opportunities to have that buzz — I'm game for a challenge. I'll give it my best shot.'
He is not the only one. The way football is changing can be seen in dugouts across Europe, with poster boys from Gerrard's era — Thierry Henry, Frank Lampard, Ryan Giggs and John Terry — all pursuing coaching careers
I've nothing but respect for those people having a go at it,' he says. 'They could easily have done whatever they wanted but they are football people. They loved their careers, like I loved mine.
'From leaving school at 16, my life has been about football. I want to work and it has always been about preparing for that buzz at the weekend. I don't know how this journey is going to go, but I'm hoping it will be good.'
He is doing everything to ensure that is the case. Gerrard has moved to Glasgow, settling near Rangers' Murray Park training base. His day starts at 8am and finishes about 6pm, when he heads home to spend the evening with his laptop, preparing.
Gone are the days when he would go for a game of snooker, golf or table tennis. Gerrard made a conscious decision to dial back on the time he spends on Instagram in an era when social media can be all-consuming.
'I want to be respectful to people and my job,' Gerrard explains. 'I'm grateful for the following I get but, with due respect, I am busy. I've got four kids, I'm busy with my job. Every minute I have is taken.
'I understand the modern player. I see the characters in my dressing room. The younger ones are social-media driven, they can't wait for the next new coloured boots… football is evolving. If you want to stay involved, you have to get up to speed with it.
'I'm open to it, as long as people keep their standards and do what they have to do. I don't mind a player wearing pink boots and having lines striped all over their hair. As long as they give me eight or nine out of 10 on a Saturday, that's fine with me. No problem at all.'
Clearly he is enjoying it. There have been some fine moments, such as the longest unbeaten European run in Rangers' history, but there have also been disappointments, such as losing to Aberdeen in the Scottish League Cup semi-finals.
The question, then, is how it compares. He loved winning and hated losing, so now he can no longer shape a contest physically, what is better: playing or managing? It is here he gathers his thoughts and looks to the future.
'Winning as a player is fantastic, winning as a manager now is a great buzz,' he says. 'Losing? There is no difference in the hurt. Winning a trophy as a player? Now that's special, incredible. And I would love to be in a position where I experience that as a manager. That is what I want.
'I want to win a trophy — achieve something special. So I'd like to come back to that — what you just asked me — I can't answer it, not at the minute. I hope I get the chance to try one day.'
It's a fitting way to finish. After years making everyone else dream, now it's Gerrard's turn to do that.
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