Steven Gerrard
Steven Gerrard is a former professional soccer player and manager, renowned for his exceptional career primarily with Liverpool FC. Born on May 30, 1980, in Whiston, England, he was a passionate Liverpool supporter from a young age. Gerrard joined Liverpool's youth academy at 13 and made his first-team debut at 18. Throughout his career, he was known for his versatility, athleticism, and leadership qualities, eventually becoming Liverpool's captain.
Gerrard played a pivotal role in Liverpool’s successes, including winning the UEFA Champions League in 2005, where he famously led a comeback from 3-0 down in the final. He also contributed to Liverpool's FA Cup victory in 2006 and enjoyed a prolific spell in which he scored in multiple cup finals. After leaving Liverpool in 2015, he played two seasons in Major League Soccer with LA Galaxy before retiring as a player.
Transitioning to management, Gerrard coached at the Rangers in Scotland, bringing home notable titles, and later managed Aston Villa and Al-Ettifaq in Saudi Arabia. His influence on the game has been recognized with numerous awards, including induction into the Premier League Hall of Fame in 2021. Gerrard remains a celebrated figure in soccer, particularly in Liverpool's storied history.
Steven Gerrard
Soccer Player
- Born: May 30, 1980
- Place of Birth: Whiston, Merseyside, England
SPORT: Soccer
Early Life
Steven George Gerrard was born in Whiston, a suburb of Liverpool, England, on May 30, 1980. He grew up on the Bluebell council estate in Huyton, about five miles east of the city center. A boyhood fan of the Liverpool soccer team, he was first spotted by scouts from the club at the age of nine while playing for a local team, the Whiston Juniors. In 1994, he joined Liverpool as a youth player and signed his first professional contract three years later. Although his talent was obvious, he was not a child prodigy like his friend and contemporary Michael Owen. He never played for the England Schoolboys team. Growth spurts restricted the number of games that he played in his later teenage years.
The Road to Excellence
In November 1998, at the age of eighteen, Gerrard made his Liverpool debut coming on as a substitute in a league game against Blackburn. His versatility, athleticism, and skill were obvious, and he became a first-team regular during the 1999–2000 season. In December 1999, he scored his first Liverpool goal in a 4–1 victory over Sheffield. In May 2000, he made his English national team debut against Ukraine and played a small role in England’s disappointing campaign at that summer’s European Championships in Belgium and the Netherlands. Persistent back problems threatened his career at the time, curtailing his ability to play a full season. These problems were not resolved overnight and forced him to miss the 2002 World Cup Final in Japan and Korea in order to undergo a groin operation. Subsequently, his body held up much more reliably to the demands of professional soccer.
The Emerging Champion
Gerrard’s breakthrough season came in 2000–1 when Liverpool won a “treble” of cup competitions. He was an integral part of the team coached by Frenchman Gérard Houllier, who played in a counter-attacking style heavily dependent on Gerrard’s midfield drive and Owen’s pace and goal-scoring instincts. He made fifty appearances that season, scoring ten goals, including one in the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Cup final, a 5–4 triumph over the Spanish side Alavés. He was also voted Young Player of the Year by his peers from the Professional Footballers’ Association.
The following season, Gerrard helped Liverpool to finish second in the league and scored his first goal for England in its 5–1 victory against Germany in a World Cup qualifying game in Munich. His form during the early part of the 2002–3 season was patchy, but he recovered to score the opening goal in Liverpool’s 2–0 victory over Manchester United in the League Cup final in February 2003. At the start of the 2003–4 season, Gerrard replaced Sami Hyypiä as Liverpool captain, becoming the first local player to take the job since Phil Thompson more than twenty years earlier.
Continuing the Story
Although Gerrard played well in his first season as captain, the team did not perform to expectations, finishing fourth in the league and winning no trophies. Houllier was fired at the end of the season, and media speculation that summer—when Gerrard played for England at the European Championships in Portugal—suggested that Gerrard might seek a transfer. However, Liverpool appointed the Spaniard Rafael Benítez as its new coach, and he decided to stay. In domestic competition, Benítez’s first season was modest: Liverpool finished fifth in the league, was defeated in the League Cup final by Chelsea, and lost embarrassingly to Burnley in the Football Association (FA) Cup.
In European soccer’s elite competition, the Champions League, the story was different. Gerrard ensured that Liverpool made early progress, scoring the decisive goal in a 3–1 victory over Olympiakos. To many people’s surprise, Liverpool reached the final, defeating Juventus and Chelsea en route. The final, in Istanbul, Turkey, against Italian team AC Milan was arguably the greatest match in Liverpool club history. Losing 3–0 at halftime, Liverpool scored three goals in six second-half minutes to tie the game. Gerrard scored the first—a powerful header. Liverpool then crowned its astonishing comeback by winning the match in a penalty shoot-out.
Following a second successive summer of transfer speculation, Gerrard decided to commit fully to Liverpool. The results were immediate. Gerrard enjoyed his best season in 2005–6, scoring twenty-three goals from midfield in fifty-three league and nonleague games. The season culminated in another dramatic performance, this time against West Ham United in the FA Cup final. With Liverpool trailing 3–2 with just seconds to go, Gerrard scored a superb long-range goal—his second of the game—to send the game into extra time. Liverpool then won the cup in a penalty shootout, with Gerrard scoring one of the penalties.
Gerrard captained Liverpool to a second Champions League final in three years in May 2007, where the team lost 2–1 to AC Milan. When available for selection, he remained one of the first names on every England team sheet and was appointed captain of the national team by Coach Fabio Capello. Despite minor surgeries, he continued to make major plays and score necessary goals over the next several seasons. In 2010, Roy Hodgson replaced Benítez as Liverpool's manager and assured fans that Gerrard was not going anywhere. Indeed, he was a large part of the effort to bring the team to the FA Cup finals for the first time in several years in 2012. He and his teammates went on to defeat Cardiff City to claim the championship title. After serving as captain for his country's team in the World Cup for the first time in 2010, he fulfilled that role once more in 2014. That same year, he announced that he was retiring from international soccer.
After extending his contract with Liverpool in 2013 and propelling his team to a second-place finish in the Premier League for the 2013–14 season, Gerrard announced at the beginning of 2015 that he would be leaving the club following the conclusion of the 2014–15 season. Amidst statements indicating that he would have accepted a contract extension with Liverpool had one been offered earlier and he could have the opportunity to coach as well as play, he had signed a contract with the LA Galaxy instead, making the move to Los Angeles, California, to play in the United States Major League Soccer (MLS). In his first season, he failed to accurately anticipate the level of competition, managing only two goals in thirteen starts. In 2016, Gerrard retired as a player at the end of his second season with MLS in the hopes of returning to England to move into a coaching position. In 2018, the Netflix documentary Make Us Dream premiered, detailing Gerrard's career.
He coached the Liverpool Youth Academy's youth team before entering a managerial role in 2018 with the Scottish Premiership Rangers Football Club, where he remained until 2021. During his time with the Rangers, he earned the title Manager of the Year from the Scottish Professional Football League, the Professional Footballers' Association Scotland, and the Scottish Football Writers' Association. He was also Scottish Premiership Manager of the Month seven times between 2019 and 2021. He left the Rangers and spent less than one year managing Aston Villa beginning in late 2021. In 2023, he was hired to manage the Saudi club Al-Ettifaq. Among his numerous awards, Gerrard was inducted into the 2021 Premier League Hall of Fame.
Summary
Steven Gerrard has been widely recognized as one of the finest midfielders in the world: supremely fit, defensively able, a persistent attacking threat, and a leader by example. His big-game mentality was illustrated by the fact that he was the first Englishman to score in each of the Champions League, UEFA Cup, FA Cup, and League Cup finals. Gerrard will always be recognized as one of the greatest players in Liverpool’s history.
Bibliography
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Croft, Andy, and Dylan Gibson. Steven Gerrard. Barrington Stoke, 2011.
Gerrard, Steven. Steven Gerrard: My Liverpool Story. Headline, 2012.
Murphy, Chris, and Kate Riley. "Steven Gerrard: Finding Peace and Quiet in Hollywood." CNN, 16 Feb. 2016, www.cnn.com/2016/02/16/football/football-gerrard-galaxy-liverpool/index.html. Accessed 20 June 2024.
Oldfield, Matt, and Tom Oldfield. Steven Gerrard: Captain Fantastic. Dino, 2017.
"Steven Gerrard." The Football Association, www.englandfootball.com/england/mens-senior-team/squad/Legends-profiles/Steven-Gerrard. Accessed 20 June 2024.
Williams, John, and Steven Hopkins. The Miracle of Istanbul: Liverpool FC from Paisley to Benitez. Mainstream, 2005.