Carra And Owen Reminisce

Jamie Carragher and Michael Owen chased the same dreams as boys, shared the same aspirations as room-mates, and realised many of their ambitions as team-mates for Liverpool and England. They bring the curtain down on glittering careers next month. The Daily Express sat in as the duo reminisced.

Retirement is around the corner - how does it feel?

MO: I decided before Christmas, but to see it in black and white and on TV felt different. You watch the interviews with ex-players and team-mates and that's when it sinks in. The reaction of my family was one I didn't expect. It was like it dawned on them for real as well. They were upset.

JC: It's the end of Team Owen and the Chrysler.

MO: When I was at Liverpool, my mum and dad, brothers and sisters, would go everywhere to watch me. Me and Carra used to room together and he'd ask, 'Is Team Owen coming today?' We bought a Chrysler because it was bigger than a normal car and could fit everyone in.

JC: My mum has only seen me play four times. One of them was the Youth Cup final, another my testimonial. She didn't go to Istanbul but Athens and one of the semi-finals against Chelsea. She'll come to my final game, though.

MO: Your dad goes to the games, though. Remember Valencia? (laughing).

JC: We came out of the hotel for the coach to take us to the ground and all the fans were going mad outside. Then Michael points, 'There's your dad'. My dad was on someone's shoulders, drunk, singing. Not just standing there, but on someone's shoulders.

MO: It was brilliant. Carra's dad was leading the encore.

How important have both your fathers been during your careers?

JC: You cannot do it on your own. You need someone to take you to the matches, to stand on the line, buy your boots. It might be your mum or grandfather, but for a lot of players it's your dad pushing.

Michael's father was a footballer. My dad had fantastic passion as a Sunday League manager and going to Everton.

MO: It's an unforgiving game. If you're not good enough, you get kicked out. People think you just turn up and you're a footballer; but you have been lucky to be given what you're given. You earn big money and all the rest of it; but it is years of hard work and practice, your dad doing miles up and down motorways.

I'm that taxi service now for my kids. If I scored a great goal when I was young, I wouldn't be bothered if there were 5,000 people there just as long as I could look behind the goal and see I'd made my dad happy. My retirement is part of my dad's life ending as well.

Can you remember the first time you met each other?

MO: I went to Lilleshall and the head teacher would sit you down and say, 'We're not having another Carragher here'. He was a couple of years before me and was supposed to have given them a hard time.

JC: School wasn't my strength.

MO: I'd never met him, but the teachers went on about him. I thought he must be a monster.

JC: Our first match was against Manchester United in the FA Youth Cup in 1996. He scored a hat-trick and it went from there.

MO: We have almost lived each other's careers. We were room-mates from the start and there is something different when you are mates with someone and they're on the ball in a game. You kick it with them. You share their problems in the team hotel and vice versa. I don't think there's anything in our careers that we didn't know or understand. I have seen him at his lowest point. He has been there for mine.

Jamie is starting every game for Liverpool, playing well. Michael, do you understand why he is retiring?

MO: Of course he could carry on playing. I still think I could score goals in the Premier League, but they say go out when you're at the top. There are players who love the game and will continue playing in the lower leagues, but it holds no excitement for me. That's not being disrespectful. I understand where Carra is coming from. I'm 33 and I feel I can play for two or three more years, but to the same standard that I am used to? No.

I'm only going to get slower and worse, and it's frustrating when you know you were very good and now you are only average. It is painful. Going on to the pitch doesn't hold the excitement for me like it used to.

Do you feel fulfilled then?

JC: When you look at what has happened with Michael over the last 12 months, you see people getting little digs in. I don't get that. Michael burst on to the scene, my progress came in steps. Our careers have been the other way round maybe but we have still done the same, although I wasn't European Footballer of the Year. You've done what you've done, whether it was at the beginning, in the middle or at the end.

MO: I always wanted to go out at as high a level as possible. Moving to Stoke I thought I'd be able to play more games and score more goals than I had at Manchester United. Go out with a bit of a bang and, in my mind, feel good about myself again. It hasn't happened. But I'm proud of what I've done, if a bit frustrated that injury robbed me of one of my main assets - pace.

JC: What striker at 33 is as good as he was at 17? People say look at Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes. Great players. But if they play well or bad, it doesn't make that much difference to how Manchester United are playing. If I play badly, I can cost Liverpool a big game. Going into Chelsea, I was thinking, 'Fernando Torres is quick, can I cope?' An element of fear comes into the decision to retire, especially being at Liverpool. If I was somewhere else, I don't think I'd have that.

You secured the FA Cup, UEFA Cup and League Cups together, played in the Champions League. What were the best times for you?

MO: When we were young, breaking through.

JC: Everything was new, the first of everything. You get in the Liverpool team, England, win your first trophy. There was a buzz with every step. Every season I've played I've had targets - this season it was 700 games.

MO: When we were young we were that excited to play a game. Wake up Saturday, get your suit on, we're going to Anfield, I'm going to score, we're going to win. It is everyone's dream, but you do lose that once you are 10 years down the road. In the good old days, of 17, 18, 19, you couldn't sleep you were that excited to play the next day. It has been a gradual process but that has left me.

What ambitions did you have as room-mates?

MO: The perception is footballers are flicking through magazines about their next car, talking about girls, planning where their next night out will be. We were full on football, him especially, desperate to play for Liverpool and win. If we lost, we'd be gutted. It was worse for Carra, who had to go into the town. It ruined your week.

JC: It still does.

Michael, people think you didn't have that feeling for Liverpool?

MO: If I had the head on me now when I was a kid it might have been different. At the time I just wanted to play in every game, score in every game, be a hero to everyone and have everyone love you. I didn't do anything wrong, but, as Carra said, I scored one of the most famous goals with England not Liverpool.

I wasn't a Scouser. My mum and dad were, but my dad finished his career at Chester so he set up camp there. There is a little detachment for me because there were the Fowlers, McManamans, Gerrards and Carraghers. It was circumstance. It annoys me because my heart was full of Liverpool. Perhaps scoring in a World Cup, not living in the city and then going to Madrid hasn't helped.

JC: It's strange when you move. Ian Rush left and came back a hero. I still feel sorry for Steve McManaman. People say he left for nothing. Well, you got him for nothing. Michael came for nothing. We got £8m. People say we could have got £20m. Well, the year before we got Markus Babbel for nothing. I was disappointed with Michael's reaction. He came back with Newcastle for the first time - 'Where were you in Istanbul?' Before Istanbul there was Cardiff in 2001 when Michael won the FA Cup for us. People were talking about it for weeks. That was the best thing that had happened to Liverpool in a decade since winning the league.

Jamie, you tried to talk him out of going to Madrid?

JC: I said he wouldn't get in the team, with Raul and Ronaldo there. But he said, 'I had Fowler and Collymore ahead of me at Liverpool'. I thought, 'Fair play'.

MO: The perception is I went out to Madrid, hardly played, and came back. I started 20 and came on in 18. You can have no regrets, but I was driving to the airport and thought, 'Oh sugar'. I never wanted to leave Liverpool. That needs to be stressed. If I could have gone over for a week, put the kit on, played with all those stars in that stadium, and then come back to Liverpool I would have been happy. I thought I'd be like Rushy and come back after a year. That's what got me through; but then it didn't happen, for lots of reasons.

How will you feel on the first day of pre-season?

JC: I love pre-season. Come back in, training in nice weather, a few new signings. It's like the first day back at school. I've told the lads I'll be texting them pictures of me on the beach when they step off the plane in Australia after travelling for 24 hours. I know a lot of footballers let themselves go when they finish, but I can't think of anything worse. I'll keep myself trim.

MO: Mentally I'm ready to retire. It happens to everyone. I've other things to try.

Pre-season was about excitement, but towards the end there's a dread because the clubs I've been at you go to parts of the world for three or four weeks at a time and it can be quite hard.

Will coaching be on the agenda?

JC: We all look at Ferguson and Mourinho and think we'd love to be them - on the sidelines, winning games, big trophies - but you have to think where they started.

Mourinho was an assistant for years. Brendan Rodgers hasn't just got the Liverpool job. He has been working for 20 years. Would I be prepared to go and work at an academy? Maybe, but it's not top of my list of things that I want to do.

MO: It takes over your life.

JC: I'm not sure players in our situation will go down that road. Maybe if you get a good job straight away, but think of the journeys the managers have gone on to get to the top. Very few top players now would be prepared to do that.

MO: Some days you look at what you've learnt and think, 'I'd love to give it a go'. But then the work you have to put in is a lot. If I'm missing football, I'll see. But the doubt is whether you can do 10 to 15 years of hard work to get there.

Sum each other up in just a few words.

MO: Aggressive. And zero tolerance. Passionate.

JC: Greedy...

MO: Get lost.

JC: Scorching pace, great goals and lots of mental strength.

Source http://www.express.co.uk

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