Thursday, March 5, 2009

Hala Madrid!! Where Are They Now: Steve McManaman

Hala Madrid!! Where Are They Now: Steve McManaman


Steven “Steve” McManaman (born 11 February 1972, in Bootle, Merseyside, England) is an English footballer of the 1990s and early 2000s, who played as a midfielder and winger in a career spanning two of European football’s most successful club sides in Liverpool and Real Madrid. He is the most decorated English footballer to have played in any foreign club in terms of trophies won overseas, was the first British player to win the UEFA Champions League title twice, and was also the first English footballer to win the Champions League with a non-English club. In 2008, he was ranked as 3rd in the Top 10 greatest British footballers to play overseas, just behind Kevin Keegan and John Charles.

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On 1 July 1999, after 364 appearances and 66 goals for Liverpool, McManaman transferred to Spanish giants Real Madrid (then under coach Guus Hiddink and president Lorenzo Sanz). At Real Madrid, McManaman became only the second English player to ever play for the club, after Laurie Cunningham had played for them in the 1980s. He also became the most high profile English footballer to move to Spanish football since Gary Lineker moved to FC Barcelona from Everton in 1986. Thereafter he proved an instant hit with the fans at the Santiago Bernabéu stadium after scoring three times and creating several goals in his first few games for Los Merengues.

McManaman made his debut for Madrid on the 22 August 1999 in the 2-1 La Liga win over Real Mallorca at the Son Moix stadium, Mallorca, where he assisted Fernando Morientes in scoring the injury time winner. He scored his first goal for the club a week later on the 29 August in the 4-1 thumping of Numancia at the Bernabéu.

McManaman then established himself in the team that went all the way to the Champions League Final in 2000, under new coach Vicente Del Bosque, who replaced John Toshack. It was at this European Cup Final at the Stade de France in Paris that McManaman experienced his finest hour as a player- scoring a spectacular volley in a 3-0 victory over fellow Spanish side Valencia, where he was also hailed as the Man of the Match by the English press. His part in Madrid’s eighth European Cup win saw him become the first English player ever to win Europe’s premier club competition with a foreign club.

Having established himself as a player of true worth in his first year in Madrid, in a unique sequence of events at the club that also saw Fernando Redondo depart the club, McManaman was suddenly told he was surplus to requirements with the arrival of Luis Figo and a new President Florentino Perez at the club before the start of the 2000-01 season. However, McManaman overcame initial rejection, where Real Madrid accepted first an £11 million pound offer from Middlesbrough and then a 12 million pound offer from Chelsea that included the exchange of Tore Andre Flo, in the summer of 2000, both of which the player rejected. In spite of ensuing rumors that he had been denied a squad number, according to the English FA’s report on McManaman, it was reported that McManaman shone in his second season, 2000-01, as his club side challenged for the La Liga title, and won it by a 7 point margin over the previous seasons champions, Deportivo La Coruña. McManaman reportedly won over the manager by October, and managed to feature in two thirds of the club’s matches, becoming a first team automatic for the second half of the campaign, and where McManaman held a unique distinction of being described as the only top class football player from England playing overseas at the time.

However, McManaman increasingly saw his playing time reduced each year, as that same season, the club adopted an at the time unstated policy now well known as the Galáctico system, with world class names like Luís Figo, Zinedine Zidane and Ronaldo arriving each year and standing above him in the pecking order. At the time though, McManaman was known for his dogged determination to stay positive for the club’s cause, even if it meant he had less playing time. McManaman also turned down a transfer to Inter Milan at the time when he was made available for exchange as part of Ronaldo’s signing. It was widely reported in the Spanish media that McManaman’s resilience to the team won the respect of his fellow professionals like Raúl, Zidane, Guti, Iván Helguera, and his two best friends at the club, Figo and Ronaldo, who backed him publicly on several occasions in press interviews. McManaman was also twice voted as the Real Madrid supporters’ favorite player at the club in his tenure, and according to El País, in 2001, fans saluted him with their ‘white handkerchiefs’ (as a terrace favorite) after he acrobatically scored a ‘wonder goal’ against Real Oviedo that year.

Eventually, the Board, including Florentino Pérez relented, declaring that a “man like that would always have a place in my club”. Arguably his second greatest moment in the white of Madrid came in the 2002 UEFA Champions League semi-final against Barcelona at the Camp Nou on 23 April 2002. In this match of monumental proportions, due to “El Classico” being a massive game in its own right, but also the fact that it was a Champions League Semi-final, McManaman appeared as a second half substitute to score a critical goal in second half injury time to secure a 2-0 first-leg advantage, coolly chipping over goalkeeper Roberto Bonano after being played in by Zindedine Zidane, who had scored the first goal on 55 minutes. This victory helped secure their place in the final of the 2002 Champions League at Hampden Park, Glasgow, where he came on as a replacement for Figo - and thereby ensuring his second Champions League winners’ medal, after Madrid secured a 2-1 victory over German team Bayer Leverkusen.

According to certain critics in the Spanish press, McManaman and several other players became “victims” as the policy was based more on marketing and revenue generation, and sometimes meant players were picked not according to form, but because of their marketing potential off the pitch. To his credit, McManaman never spoke ill of the Galáctico policy’s effects on him during his tenure, only critiquing the policy and ultimately describing it in his autobiography in 2004 as the “Disney-fication of Real Madrid” upon his departure from the club; a piece of foresight that proved telling for the future- as the club never reached its heights in the period ensuing with the policy, and with the term becoming somewhat pejorative till this day.

However, it was McManaman’s fourth season that really raised doubts, after only playing 21 games of which he started only 9 times, and making a meager 15 appearances in La Liga, questions arose about his ability and reasons for staying in Spain considering his diminished role, lack of first team action and international attention. Suggestions that McManaman had “sold out” for money and had grown indifferent and lackadaisical to his football were rampant in the British Press, with what was described as there being what “seems to be a selective media amnesia over McManaman’s time in Spain.”

According to Forbes Magazine in 2001, McManaman was listed as 6th on the list of highest earning footballers in the world. McManaman is believed to have pocketed an estimated 15 million Euros (just under £10,250,000) in his four years in Madrid. On top of financial rewards, McManaman also became arguably the most successful English football export to ever play overseas.

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The signing of fellow Englishman David Beckham proved the last straw in eventually forcing McManaman down the pecking order at Real Madrid. In 2003, along with teammates Claude Makélélé, Fernando Hierro and later Fernando Morientes, McManaman headed back to the English FA Premier League, where first he was reported to either join Arsenal or Everton but eventually deciding to join long-time admirer Kevin Keegan on the 30 August at Manchester City FC, resulting in a reunion with several ex-colleagues including Robbie Fowler, Nicolas Anelka, David Seaman and later, David James.

He had scored 8 goals in a career spanning over 94 matches in the White of Real Madrid. His honors with Real Madrid (1999 - 2003) included:

  • UEFA Champions League winner: 1999/2000, 2001/2002
  • La Liga winner: 2000/2001, 2002/2003
  • UEFA Super Cup winner: 2002
  • Supercopa de Espana winner: 2001 and 2003
  • Intercontinental Cup winner: 2002
  • Trofeo Santiago Bernabéu winner: 1999, 2000 and 2003
  • Spanish Cup Copa Del Rey runners up: 2001

McManaman retired from his playing career after being released by Manchester City in 2005. McManaman has personally reported that he has been working on Goal! 2, the sequel to Goal!, a movie which stars Kuno Becker becoming a fictional superstar at Newcastle United. By the film’s release, McManaman had also become an Associate Producer of the film, and appears in the film as one of the coaching staff.

McManaman has since also been active as a media commentator and pundit, and has provided analysis for ITV media for the 2005 Champions League Final, and for ESPN Star in Asia in 2006, where McManaman’s experience both as a former Premiership star as well as in Spain have enabled him to analyze the game in Europe in depth.

In July 2007, McManaman was named executive director of the Hong Kong-listed company, Carson Yeung’s Grandtop International Holdings Ltd, which subsequently took a 29.9% stake in English Championship side Birmingham City.

As of 2007, McManaman has also joined Setanta Sports as a football analyst and until the beginning of the 2008/09 season, hosted a television show, “Macca’s Monday Night”, reflecting on life in the Barclays Premier League.



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