Gerrard: My Autobiography (49 page)

That horrific thought only lingered for a couple of seconds. I’m not going to cheat. Even when I got a bit of criticism for winning a cheap penalty against Hungary at Old Trafford on 30 May, I had legitimate reasons. It did look bad, and I’m a bit ashamed I dived, but their right-back, Csaba Feher, was flying into me with a challenge that was definitely dangerous. I saw the two feet and the
studs coming in and I thought, ‘I either get out of the way or I get hurt.’ The World Cup was days away; I couldn’t risk getting injured, so I dived for cover. I’m gutted I did it, but I could see my metatarsal being broken by this reckless challenge. But many foreigners dive all the bloody time. I watch them. They are so clever at it I’m convinced they practise in training. Do they get told to dive by coaches? It’s coached into them that when an incident like the Rooney one happens, they go to work on the ref. Bang! They are like magnets, straight over to the ref, signalling, keeping their hands behind their back so as not to risk a caution. Fucking Ronaldo was at the front. Go on, ref, go on, send Rooney off. The blame does not rest just with Ronaldo. Five or six of the Portuguese were at it. It angers me. Portugal’s deviousness got one of my best mates sent off in the World Cup. England would have won if Wayne had stayed on.

FIFA held meetings up at Buhlerhohe during which their officials stressed to us that any play-acting would be punished. England’s players assumed that because all the other teams were getting the same talks, there wouldn’t be a problem. Everyone would behave. But the majority of the teams at the World Cup were diving and play-acting. What really pissed all the England players off during the Portugal game was Ronaldo’s wink to his bench as Wazza walked down the tunnel. It was a wink that said ‘job done’. How could he do that to his Manchester United team-mate? It’s unbelievable.

On the bus after the game, Wayne asked me, ‘What do you think about the wink, Stevie?’

Simple. ‘Honestly, Wazza,’ I replied, ‘if we were playing
Spain, and Xabi Alonso or Luis Garcia winked at the ref or gave a signal for me to get sent off, I would never speak to them again. Never. No fucking way. I just couldn’t. I would be that frustrated at one of my own team-mates.’

Wayne listened to every word. He could tell how angry I was over Ronaldo’s behaviour.

‘Look, Waz, Ronaldo is trying to do everything to get into the last four of the World Cup, but there is this big thing in football about fair play and respect for other professionals. Ronaldo showed none of that.’

Wayne agreed. He was deeply frustrated with Ronaldo at the time, but he soon calmed down. He sent Ronaldo a text, and seems now to have let it go. Fair play to Wayne for not holding a grudge.

The ten Englishmen who remained on the field in Gelsenkirchen seethed at the injustice, which doubled our determination against Portugal. You can cheat us, but you can’t beat us. That was the message coming out from me and JT, Rio and the rest as we resisted everything Portugal threw at us. ‘Stick together!’ came the shout. Everyone was stirred up. Everyone was screaming encouragement, particularly JT and Rio. Ashley too. I went over to the left to help Ashley as Portugal tried to open England up by going wide. No chance. Ashley and I would not let anyone through. All ten of us were helped by the positive approach from Sven and Steve. I thought the order would be ‘hold out for pens’. Sven and Steve thought differently. ‘Push on!’ came the instruction from the bench. ‘Go and win it on the break!’

But as soon as we reached extra-time, my mind turned to pens. I knew I’d be on one. Sven had indicated his main
penalty-takers in training. So as extra-time went on around me, I spent half an hour worrying about the only kick that counted – my penalty. Sweat poured even faster off my forehead. Stay calm. Focus. You must get through extra-time. But I was already distracted, the clock only showing how long it was until I had to make that soul-destroying walk from the centre-circle. Nearer and nearer. My pulse raced madly. My head was pounding. Penalties, penalties, penalties. Fuck it. ‘Where am I going to put it?’ I thought. ‘Has their keeper seen my Liverpool pens? Soon find out.’

Elizondo’s whistle went, and the teams gathered in two tense groups in the centre-circle. Jesus, I wish I was first up. Get it out the way. The wait’s killing me. I envied Frank, taking penalty number one for England. Standing in the line, given support by team-mates, I felt weak with nerves, expectation and pressure. I could hardly watch as Simão scored. Don’t worry, Frank will get us level. Go on, Lamps. In training, Lamps had been lashing them in. No problem. He stepped up. Ricardo saved. Shit. The knot in my stomach tightened. I had never felt this bad on a pitch in all my life.

The shoot-out continued its grim course, making heroes and villains. Viana and Petit both missed, Hargreaves stuck his away. Now the spotlight burned on me. Here goes. I broke away from the safety of my friends in the centre-circle. Suddenly I was alone, making my way towards the penalty spot, towards my fate. The journey was only forty yards, but it felt like forty miles. I recalled Sven’s advice. ‘Count your steps,’ he told us in training as we practised pens. ‘That will take your mind off the
walk.’ How could it? Strolling up and taking a pen in front of two men and a dog in training was a world away from this torturous walk in Gelsenkirchen. Even if I counted the steps, what difference would it make? Nothing could hide the fact that in a few seconds I’d be taking a pen in front of a billion or more people.

As I neared the spot, my body went numb. God, I wouldn’t wish that walk on my worst enemy. Yet even with all the doubts building, I had belief in my technique. That penalty was going in. I will score. I went through my penalty routine. Set the ball right? Yes, done. Remember all the good kicks in training? Yes. I had hit the target nine times out of ten at Mittelberg. Know where you’re going to place it? Yes. Ricardo’s good, but if I place the ball exactly where I want, at the spot where Robbo, David James and Scott Carson told me about in training, Portugal’s keeper can’t stop it.

I was ready. Elizondo wasn’t. Blow the whistle! Fucking get a move on, ref! Why the wait? I’d put the ball on the spot, Ricardo was on his line. Why do I have to wait for the bloody whistle? Those extra couple of seconds seemed like an eternity, and they definitely put me off. Doesn’t he know I’m on edge? Jesus Christ! I was screaming inside. In training, it seemed so easy: ball down, step back, run in, goal. No wait, no tension. Not here. Not with Elizondo delaying everything. At last he blew, but my focus had gone. The moment I made contact with the ball I knew it wasn’t going where I’d planned. It was eighteen inches away from my chosen spot, making it easier for Ricardo. Saved. Nightmare.

A feeling of utter helplessness washed over me. The
walk back to the halfway line was really, really bad. Question after question ate away at me. My FA Cup final penalty had been so good a few weeks before, so where had my accuracy gone? The pressure just got to me. For months, now, it had played on my mind that I would have to take a penalty in the World Cup. I knew we would come up against a shootout in Germany. My nerve, and my accuracy, just went. Shit. But wait. There’s still hope. The lads can get me out of this mess. Surely? Even when Helder Postiga tucked his away, I felt Carra could make it 2–2. Sven brought Carra on with a minute remaining simply because he had been deadly in training: one miss from thirty. Carra is not one for hanging about, so he quickly took his pen, which flew past Ricardo. Elizondo hadn’t blown, and he pulled Carra back. That was out of order.

When Ricardo got to Carra’s second kick, my heart sank. England were going out of the World Cup. Ronaldo would finish us off. The story was set. It had to be Ronaldo, the kid involved in Wayne’s sending-off, one of the best foreigners in the Premiership, sending us back home. Empty-handed. Broken-hearted. Ronaldo showed no mercy.

England were down and out. I collapsed in the centre-circle, my body shutting down. I’ve never experienced such depression on a football pitch. That own-goal against Chelsea in Cardiff was bad, so was getting knocked out of Euro 2004 in Lisbon, but Gelsenkirchen was much, much worse. I sat there with a lump in my throat, fighting back the tears. A few got through. People came across to console me, first Sven, then Steve and Gary Lewin. Becks tried to pull me up. Thanks, guys, for your
support, but leave me to my pain. ‘It’s football,’ I told myself. ‘Shit happens. Get it out of your system and go and win something else.’ And as I sat there, I promised myself that I would seize the next chance to take a penalty, and I’d fucking bury it.

Eventually, I climbed to my feet and joined the rest of the England players in a slow, mournful lap of Schalke’s ground to thank our brilliant supporters. They stood and gave us a salute we did not deserve. I felt bitterly that I’d let every one of those magnificent fans down. Every one. They followed us across Germany, lifted our spirits during dark moments. Before each match, when we drove from our hotel, they would be there in their tens of thousands, lining the route, waving at us. We love you. We believe in you. Every game felt like a home game. And how had we repaid them? More heartache.

Why did England screw up? It cannot have been simply down to Portugal’s gamesmanship. Everyone called us the Golden Generation. We should have coped. I hate using the word, but we failed. England went out of the World Cup in the quarter-finals, and that stinks. The reasons are scattered around: we didn’t keep the ball well, we didn’t take our chances, we took some crap penalties. Fucking pens. We practised pens every day for six weeks and missed three out of four in Gelsenkirchen; even the one that beat Ricardo didn’t go exactly where Owen Hargreaves intended. England must overcome this mental block over penalties otherwise we will carry on returning early from tournaments. We must use international friendlies to stage practice shoot-outs after the final whistle while the stadium is still full. The England management
must consider that. It’s the only realistic way of practising penalties. That draining walk from the halfway line. The tension. The feeling that everyone is watching, jeering or cheering. At training, your team-mates are the crowd and you get five goes. Some rehearsal.

The real reason behind England’s short stay in Germany is simple. It pains me to admit this, but it needs saying. We were just not as good as we think we are. On arriving in Germany, England were guilty of over-confidence. It was ours for the taking. No-one better than us. Me and the other players placed too much pressure on ourselves by constantly claiming we could win the World Cup. Stupid. We talked ourselves up too much. Never again. In future tournaments, we must learn to be humble. Be calm. We went around Germany blowing our trumpet and returned home mute with embarrassment. I went back to England with only regrets for souvenirs, and I was not alone. I talked to all the other players and we all accept none of us did enough. Nobody came back thinking, ‘I was brilliant, the rest were rubbish.’ We screwed up together. That’s why the mood in the Gelsenkirchen dressing-room afterwards was so terrible. Devastation entered our lives. I have never experienced such a bad atmosphere in a dressing-room. The silence was broken only by the sound of boots being thrown off and the occasional swear-word.

Sven was deeply upset. The media paint him as a cold, unemotional man, but that’s wrong. He hurt badly in Gelsenkirchen. The media heaped the blame on Sven, but that’s unfair. The players who crossed the white line must share the responsibility with him for England’s failure. But I will have another chance with England. Sven won’t.
That was it. Game over. I was sad to see him go. I loved working with him. He was always constructive. Sven definitely improved me as a player, developing my positional play and stressing the importance of retaining possession. He always believed in me, and for that I will always be in his debt. I have so much respect for him. Sven kept leading England to quarter-finals but not beyond, and that’s one of my biggest regrets. I let Sven down. I just wished I could have scored the goal, or hit the pen, that got England into the semi-finals in Germany. I would have loved to see Sven’s face as I scored the winner because he is a great guy.

Of course we knew Sven would get coated for England’s failure. He knew it as well. I don’t think he was too cautious, as many people claimed, but I did understand some of the criticism towards him. A few decisions were wrong, like not taking five strikers. He certainly shouldn’t have brought Theo to Germany. As well as Theo, Sven also didn’t seem to have any intention of using certain players. In midfield we had three or four guys who were really, really similar. Sven never showed any interest in playing some of them, so why bring them to Germany? Take those who are going to play.’ And another forward would have been nice.

The retreat from Germany took us first to Buhlerhohe to pack. It was late when we arrived at the hotel, but Sven immediately gathered the staff and players together and spoke for fifteen minutes. ‘Thank you all for your support,’ he said. ‘I really believed this was our year. I can’t believe we have gone out on penalties again. We should have been last four at least. All the best.’ Sven then
turned to Steve McClaren, his successor. ‘Steve, I wish you all the best.’ Sven was all dignity. He went round and shook each player’s hand.

The next morning, in reception, as we checked out, I spoke to Sven again.

‘Keep doing what you are doing, Steven,’ he said. ‘Keep enjoying it. See you around.’

‘Thanks, Sven,’ I replied. ‘All the best in whatever you decide to do.’

It was an incredibly emotional moment. I just couldn’t find the words to tell him how I felt. I’d worked with him for five years. To lose someone like that was terrible. Sven is one of the best blokes ever. The love is there. He’s an interesting guy to talk to, a manager I will really miss. He had some embarrassing front-page moments which didn’t help him, but everyone is entitled to a private life. Sven’s human. He learned from being England manager that you have to be really, really careful in your private life.

Sven was off, and Becks was stepping down as captain. It was the end of an era. I had no idea David was thinking of giving up the armband. I was in my room at Buhlerhohe on the Sunday morning, getting my stuff packed and thinking about holidays, when Becks came on the telly at a press conference. I assumed he was just going to say a few words, expressing the players’ disappointment. I was stunned when he announced he was finished as captain. But, looking back, I feel Becks resigned at the right time. He’d led England at three tournaments and was under a lot of pressure. I’ll always remember him as a great captain. Becks loved the job, and I know how
much it hurt him to hand over the armband. Watching him read his statement, I was just pleased to hear him say he would carry on playing for England. Becks has so much to offer the squad, whether he is in the starting eleven or not.