Former Liverpool midfielder Didi Hamann recalls the unforgettable night in Istanbul when he shared a cigarette with the chairman and got a new contract off the boss

Jan 24 2012 by James Pearce, Liverpool Echo

DIDI HAMANN feared his Liverpool career was about to end with a whimper. Left out of Rafa Benitez’s starting line up to face AC Milan in the 2005 Champions League final, the midfielder sat and watched in horror as the Reds were torn apart in the opening 45 minutes at the Ataturk Stadium.

With his contract coming to an end and Benitez having informed him no new deal was on the table, Hamann had verbally agreed to sign for Bolton. This was his Liverpool swan-song and it was a living nightmare.

What happened next is the stuff of legend. Benitez turned to Hamann at half-time and ‘The Kaiser’ came off the bench to help inspire the greatest comeback in history.

In his new book ‘The Didi Man: My Love Affair with Liverpool’ the popular German recalls that emotional rollercoaster in Istanbul.

How he defied a broken bone in his foot to score in the penalty shoot-out and celebrated the Reds’ triumph by smoking in the showers with crying chairman David Moores.

His contribution that night not only earned him cult status among Reds fans but the new contract he craved to extend his stay at Anfield.

“Rafa walked in looking quite calm. He looked over at me. ‘Kaiser, you get ready, you are coming on.’ I whipped off my tracksuit and began to head outside to do a warm-up during the half-time break,” Hamann said. “And then there I was, standing in the centre circle of the Ataturk Stadium thinking, ‘I could think of a lot better places to be on a Wednesday evening than right here right now’. The Liverpool crowd had somehow set aside their shock and despair and had lifted themselves. They were alive to the sound of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, almost hoping against hope that somehow, some way, they could lift their team.

“My thoughts were that we had to try to get one back and if we could do that it would be a good start. If we carried on as before it would end up as a humiliation. The fans would never forgive a humiliation.

“I did think though that they would forgive us if we at least made a fight of it, and if we could get a goal back then that would be something. This was not the way I imagined my last game in a red shirt to be.

“I dug in to try to tighten up our midfield, which gave Stevie Gerrard more of an opportunity to push forward. If anyone had a chance to make something happen it was Stevie. Bombing forward he met Riise’s cross on the move and headed into the far right corner. An inspirational captain had written the first paragraph of history.”

Liverpool were transformed as Vladimir Smicer soon made it 3-2 and then Xabi Alonso restored parity. However, there was more pain for Hamann deep into extra-time.

He continued: “With about five minutes to go I felt a little crack in my foot. I found out later that it was a hairline fracture of a metatarsal in my right foot. It hurt for sure, but I was in no doubt that on this night of all nights, in this game of all games, I was carrying on.

“The period between the final whistle and the start of the shoot-out must have lasted about six minutes. Rafa came over and asked me a question. ‘Do you want to take a penalty?’ I had a broken bone in my foot, although of course Rafa was unaware of this, but I said nothing about it and had absolutely no hesitation in replying ‘Yes’.

“A few minutes later Rafa came back across to me. ‘You’re taking the first penalty,’ he said. That was either an inspired decision or a peculiar one. I don’t know which. I wasn’t really a penalty-taker. I’d only taken a couple in the whole of my senior career and I missed one of those in the League Cup final against Birmingham.

“But I was ready to stand up and be counted for my team. I figured that psychologically Milan must be feeling a bit fragile now, and if I could get us off to a good start it could be instrumental in furthering the doubts that were inevitably beginning to grow in their minds.”

Hamann scored and when Jerzy Dudek saved Andriy Shevchenko’s spot-kick the party started.

“That night, one moment summed up the genuine link between the Liverpool players and the Liverpool fans,” he added.

“The fans were not simply people who helped to pay our wages, they were part of the Liverpool family.

“Once the players had embraced Jerzy for his magnificent performance, they charged over to embrace the fans with an intensity of a mother whose son has just returned from war having been presumed dead.

“It was not a case of us, the players, celebrating for our fans. We were celebrating together. We were as one. It was our victory, all of us together.

“Everything after that is hazy in my memory. We were out there celebrating on the pitch for maybe an hour. The game finished at 12.30 am local time, so it must have been about 1.30 am when we eventually made it back into the dressing room.

“After all of the hurly-burly and the high drama that had gone on out on the pitch, when we got back to the dressing room everything went strangely quiet. There was a hushed atmosphere.

“I sat reflecting for a moment, when I saw the Liverpool chairman David Moores come in. He had a big smile on his face and tears were running down his cheeks.

“I watched as he made his way across the room, shaking hands and hugging people as he went along. When he got within earshot I leaned over to him and said, ‘chairman, I need to see you in my office for a moment.’ I gave a surreptitious nod towards the showers.

“He stood with me in the shower room looking confused, but he tolerated my odd behaviour. We had become pals because we had something in common. We were the only two people in the club who smoked. Having bundled him in I said, ‘chairman, I need a cigarette; quick, let me have one of yours.’ He looked at me as if I had asked him to let Milan take the cup home. ‘But Kaiser,’ he said, with the whispered sense of urgency of a naughty schoolboy, as if he would be in trouble if anyone heard, ‘I can’t do that. What if Rafa comes in?’

“Unbelievable. I was now speaking with a whispered sense of urgency, but more because I was gasping for a cigarette than through fear of being found out. ‘Chairman,’ I said, ‘you own this ****** club. Remember? If he comes in you just say “Kaiser’s having a cigarette” and we take it from there. OK?’

“He reluctantly agreed and pulled out his pack of cigarettes. Eventually, I stepped into a shower cubicle and the chairman lit both of our cigarettes. We both took a long, long drag and then we just looked at each other for what seemed like an age, him with tears running down his cheeks, shaking so badly that the ash from his cigarette was falling to the floor at will. We stood looking at each other in total disbelief.

“Not a word was spoken. Because there were no words that could describe what it was that we were feeling.”

The Didi Man: My Love Affair with Liverpool’ is published by Headline in hardback and ebook on February 2 priced £16.99.