Pepe Reina

[Daniel 7]

Publishers would have been looking at when other books are released rather than our fixture list

[BringbackBiscan]

Leaving books until you retire removes any doubt about fixtures. There will always be a big game around the corner doing so during their career.

Pepe's been in English football long enough now to know that ****e will be taking out of context and used before a game with this. As it was last season when he starting mouthing off about he thought about leaving too.

[Mostar]

@rorysmith_tel
Have you ever wondered if players can perform sexually after losing major finals? Pepe Reina's autobiography -out tomorrow- tells you.

[Daniel 7]

Biscan, I made exactly the same point about 5 posts earlier than you did

[BootRoom]

Great player but the book should be saved until he retires - and that goes for all players.
On the point about causing distarctions, that also goes for general comments and interviews, not just books.

[Mostar]

Some more details from Pepe's book:

Pepe: "I have been through three dark nights of the soul at Liverpool and on all three occasions I have questioned whether I should stay at the club that I have come to love,” he declares.

“On each occasion I could have walked away.

“I had opportunities to continue my career elsewhere, but I never took that final, decisive step that would have severed my ties with Liverpool forever. Thankfully.”

The first occasion, in 2006, came as a personal crisis of confidence.

Doubts that had festered after an unconvincing FA Cup final appearance, were magnified by an error in the Reds first home league game and reached crisis proportions in the Goodison derby match.

“Everyone – especially the Evertonians – remembers the day we lost the Merseyside derby 3-0 at Goodison Park on September 9, 2006,” he explains.

“The moment that stands out the most for me was when Andy Johnson scored Everton’s third. It all started when Lee Carsley had a shot from outside the area in the 94th minute. I parried it away, but as the ball went into the air, it headed back towards the goal. I turned to get it but in a split second opted to try and catch it, realising too late that I would carry it over the line. I tried to push it over the bar but could only direct it into the path of Johnson, who had an easy task to head it into the roof of the net.

“When things like that happen you feel like you have let everyone down, especially when it happens against your local rivals in a game that the supporters are desperate to win. But that wasn’t even the worst of it for me because that mistake wasn’t a one-off. If anything, it summed up my form as I struggled to get out of one of the most testing slumps of my career.”

“Like every other player when things go wrong you need the help of the people around you and in this case it was the support of Rafa Benitez that made the biggest difference,” he said. “He gave me such strong backing at the time, and showed he believed in me.

“I knew that Valencia were there and their interest was in the back of my mind. Rafa changed everything and put all those fears to rest. He made me forget about the possibility of leaving Liverpool before I had even proved myself here. With the help of the boss and Jose Ochotorena, the goalkeeping coach, I came through it.

“From the middle of January to the beginning of May 2007, we conceded only 12 goals and managed 11 clean sheets – including one against Everton in the return league fixture at Anfield.

“I had been strong enough to cope with a difficult situation with their support, and I ended up having a good season.”

“When I signed my contract, I hoped that better times were just round the corner, a feeling that was fuelled by the promises of improvement from people at the club,” he explained.

“It didn’t take me long to feel that their promises were hollow. I felt betrayed.

“At that time, you’ll remember well, our owners were at war with each other, the club’s debts were spiralling out of control and a change in manager had failed to dispel the feeling that we were on the road to nowhere.

“Instead of getting better, things had only got worse.

“The club was walking through a storm. The sparks of doubt were back, ignited by broken promises, and now fanned by new interest from a major Premier League rival.

This came from Arsenal – they were ready and willing to offer me an escape route from the turmoil at Liverpool.

“For the second summer in succession we lost one of our most important players as Javier Mascherano followed Xabi Alonso out of Anfield to Spain, signing for Barcelona.

“The club was up for sale because the banks wanted to force Tom Hicks and George Gillett out, we were in massive debt, Roy Hodgson replaced Rafa Benitez as manager – but it happened too late for him to build a team – and the mood around the club was not the best.

“It was a very difficult time.

“Arsenal had made their determination to sign me clear by offering £20 million – a phenomenal amount for a goalkeeper.

“A part of me felt that I was well within my rights to consider my future even if I did so with a heavy heart.

“When Liverpool received the bid they rejected it. Things never went any further because Liverpool were not willing to do business.

“This was not because I had been told that I was too good a keeper to leave or that, as a senior player, the club could not afford to let me go no matter how big the financial offer.

“The reason I was given was quite different – and it left me feeling down.

“I was told that my continued presence at the club, along with some of my team-mates, was crucial to the sale of the club.

“I was simply a bargaining chip in the sales process. The same was true for Fernando Torres.

“They wanted to keep us to sell the club.

“This news was broken to me by Christian Purslow.

“Purslow had been recruited by the club as its managing director in June, 2009. As far as I knew, he had never even been involved in football, but he was the one who told me that I could not leave for these reasons.

“Purslow said that no big players or star names would be allowed to go.

“That didn’t turn out to be true. As I’ve said, Liverpool ended up selling Mascherano.

“Looking back, I still don’t know what to think of Purslow because I understand that he was there to look for new owners and to try to sell the club, but ultimately he was making big football decisions that he was not qualified to make.”

Reina explained: “By the end of December, 2010, I was at my lowest ebb.

“No matter how positive I tried to be, I just couldn’t shake the feeling that we were going nowhere.

“We were even threatened by the prospect of a relegation battle following some really bad defeats to Blackpool and Wolverhampton Wanderers at Anfield, and a terrible run away from home. We lost at Goodison and at both Manchester clubs, not to mention suffering miserable trips to Tottenham, Newcastle and Stoke in the first half of the season alone.

“After Arsenal came in for me during the summer and the club had told me that I could not leave, I had asked for – and got – a buyout clause inserted in my contract. This meant that I would be able to leave if anyone offered £20 million for my services.

“I was thinking that if Liverpool were unable to improve and show that they were able to get back to where we belonged then maybe I would have to put my own career and my family’s happiness first.

“The clause was an insurance policy, nothing else. By the time winter came, I had become really tired of the lies, of the broken promises that we had all heard.

“I was considering my future again, only this time it was worse because it was getting harder and harder to find reasons to stay.

“Yet once more I pulled back from the brink and by the spring of that season I knew that I would be going nowhere.

“I could list countless reasons for my decision to stay, but the biggest one by far was the influence that my family had on me.

“At times back then, my wife Yolanda was actually begging me to stay because she and the children are so happy in Liverpool.

“We have met lots of good people since we came to the city, people who have shown us great kindness and who will be our friends forever.

“Our life is so good compared to when we first arrived in Liverpool.

“She was desperate for us not to walk away and leave all that behind.”

[Carras_Shin_Pads]

cracking read

[Mostar]

I wish he left the clause bit out. Now the entire world knows any club including Mancs can get him for 20m at any time..


After reading this and and some more, I really think he should have waited until he either retires or leaves the club for good to publish this book..

[Tee]

Maybe he has had the clause taken out now? I would hope so anyway.

A genuine good guy is our Pepe. I don't really read players' autobiographies but may make an exception for this very special man. He will go down as a proper legend of Liverpool.

And fair play to Yolanda.

[Alex]

I wish he left the clause bit out. Now the entire world knows any club including Mancs can get him for 20m at any time..


After reading this and and some more, I really think he should have waited until he either retires or leaves the club for good to publish this book..

Does not mean he will leave though does it. Its simply there incase a situation like before happens again. I agree Purslow needs ****ing shooting for putting it in there though.

[Neil Young]

I wish he left the clause bit out. Now the entire world knows any club including Mancs can get him for 20m at any time..

I suspect these things are common knowledge inside the game. And, even if no one knew, his agent could easily inform any club if Reina wanted to leave.

And if he doesn't want to leave then it doesn't matter if any other clubs know about it.

[Chris]

I wish he left the clause bit out. Now the entire world knows any club including Mancs can get him for 20m at any time..

Thats a bit naive mate, the whole world knows he had that clause anyway.

[Mostar]

Does not mean he will leave though does it. Its simply there incase a situation like before happens again. I agree Purslow needs ****ing shooting for putting it in there though.

I suspect these things are common knowledge inside the game. And, even if no one knew, his agent could easily inform any club if Reina wanted to leave.

And if he doesn't want to leave then it doesn't matter if any other clubs know about it.

Fair point.

I initially understood it as it meant if that offer is matched by any club (and his wages are the same or better) he would have to leave regardless how he feels.

[Mostar]

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/sport/football/clubs/liverpool/article3188833.ece

More from Pepe.

Pepe: "As I sat with a pen in my hand, preparing to sign the contract that would commit me to Liverpool for the next six years, the worries that had been dogging me for some time began nagging away at me a little more. “Am I doing the right thing?” “Will the ownership situation be sorted out soon?” “When will the club start making good on the promises that have been made?” “How soon will we be able to challenge for honours again?” I had been constantly asking myself the same questions for more than a year.

Liverpool’s standards had been lowered and we found ourselves drifting aimlessly as the problems in the boardroom caused a malaise that was affecting everyone. If anything, my concerns seemed even more justifiable as I got ready to put pen to paper but I put them to the back of my mind. “This is Liverpool,” I said to myself, “it won’t be long before we are back to where we belong.”

The thing was, I really wanted to be a part of the good times at the club. I was so desperate to enjoy the kind of special moments I had imagined when I first signed for Liverpool five years earlier that I was prepared to gamble the rest of my career on it. It was April 2010 and as I signed the deal I was relieved that my future had been sorted out once and for all.

Or so I thought. Just three months later I was thinking about leaving as my fears resurfaced once again. It was not the first time my loyalty to Liverpool had been tested and it would not be the last.

When I signed my six-year contract I did so because my belief in the club outweighed my doubts about it. But as early as the following July I was already asking myself if I had done the right thing as Arsenal came in for me, ready and willing to offer me an escape route from the turmoil at Liverpool.

At that time, our owners were at war with each other, the club’s debts were spiralling out of control and a change in manager had failed to dispel the feeling that we were on the road to nowhere. Instead of getting better, things had only got worse. That hurt me because only a few months earlier I had pledged my future to Liverpool in the hope that better times were just around the corner, a feeling that was fuelled by the promises of improvement from people at the club. Their promises were hollow, though, and I felt betrayed.

So when I got the offer from Arsenal and they made their determination to sign me clear by offering £20 million — a phenomenal amount for a goalkeeper — of course it put me in a position in which I did not know what to do because nothing was clear about Liverpool’s future at that moment.

It was an unbelievable turnaround for me because I had ended the previous season knowing that Rafa [Benítez, the manager] could go but hoping that the situation could be sorted out quickly enough for the new manager to do something with a team that had finished a distant seventh in the league. When this did not happen and the other problems got even worse then Arsenal’s offer was made to look very attractive to me. They were in the Champions League and were almost certain to qualify for it again and we were a long way short of that kind of standard, so it was inevitable that my head would be turned, but when Liverpool received the bid they rejected it, telling me that I was going nowhere.

Despite all of this and even though I was extremely worried at about the direction the club was heading in I never actually got to the point where I felt I had no choice that I had to leave. At one stage there was a report claiming I had asked to leave but that never happened either, all that did was make me angry because I did not want the supporters to think I was pushing for a move".

Reina on . . . the damage done by Hicks and Gillett

"If Tom Hicks and George Gillett were still the owners of Liverpool, I would no longer be at the club. It is as simple as that. But it wouldn’t only be me. There would have been plenty of others who would have walked through the Shankly Gates never to return. That wouldn’t be the biggest problem for Liverpool either because I honestly believe that had the American duo had even a year longer as owners then the club would have become a mid-table outfit or even worse. They created a nightmare that only began to end with their departure and if I ever see either of them again it will be too soon.

What Hicks and Gillett put Liverpool through was disgraceful but, I have to confess, that when they first bought the club in February 2007 I thought, like everyone else, they were the right people to command the board and to take us to a higher level. They were saying all the right things and were making all kinds of promises — to build a new stadium on Stanley Park, to provide cash for players, and so on — but at the end of the day nothing was delivered and they put us in a really bad situation for a couple of years, one that we are still recovering from.

Like all of the players, I met Hicks and Gillett on a few occasions when they came to Melwood and when they came to Anfield for games. I never had any big conversations with them. It would just be small talk about our kids or the weather, stuff that people talk about all the time. But I was told all about their grand plans by the people who were working with them and in the end it all turned out to be a lie. There was no new stadium, there was no spade in the ground within 60 days as Gillett had promised and they were not prepared to fund the signings of the players who would take us to the next level. They cheated us and that is why they were so hated by the supporters.

The Liverpool fans are loyal, sometimes to a fault, but if you lie to them and you cheat them, then they will turn on you and this is what happened to Hicks and Gillett".

Reina on . . . the takeover by Fenway Sports Group

"After the pain caused by Hicks and Gillett, Liverpool needed a fresh start. We got one when Fenway Sports Group bought the club in October 2010 and at the time the takeover gave everyone a mixture of emotions because, although we were all so relieved to see the back of the previous owners, we were going into the unknown with the new ones.

We all wanted to know what the future held and whether we would have money to spend on the players we desperately needed to become competitive again.

It wasn’t long before the senior players were given an opportunity to get the answers that we were looking for but it didn’t turn out as planned. When I was called into a meeting with John W. Henry, the principal owner, I thought I would end up quizzing him but it was the other way around.

He wanted to know what my views were about how Liverpool could improve and by doing that he earned my respect straightaway.

The meeting took place at Melwood. Stevie, Carra, Fernando and myself were invited in and introduced to Mr Henry. We all shook hands with him and sat down, expecting to interrogate him about his plans for the club.

But he had other ideas. He was going to be the one asking the questions. It was as if he had realised that he was new to a sport and to a club that we had been part of for a number of years and wanted to learn from us.

I thought straightaway that he was a good guy. It was obvious that he was looking to improve our club and increase our chances of being successful and by making his starting point a meeting with the senior players to listen to our views he made a positive impression on all of us.

Most others would have come, told us what they were going to do and then disappeared. It is rare to find one [owner] who actually cares about the players’ opinions and our ambitions. Most of them just think they can do whatever they like because they have spent their money to buy the club and it doesn’t matter what anyone else has to say.

It was a good start. It’s always nice to listen and be heard.

He spoke to me about my situation and how I thought the club could make progress but because it was still a feeling-out period and we had as many questions for him as he had for us, I answered him with some queries of my own. It was really important for us to have the opportunity to sit down with the new owners and ask them face to face what their plans were because the trust between the dressing room and the owners had been broken by Hicks and Gillett. This was the starting point for the restoration of that bond and it was absolutely crucial that it happened so early because it gave everyone an opportunity to start again.Only time will tell whether the new owners can restore Liverpool to former glories but in their first year at the club they have done all that could have been asked of them and more".

[Mostar]

http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/latest-news/exclusive-chapter-of-pepe-s-book

Another chapter from Pepe's book

Pepe: "When Liverpool won the Champions League in Istanbul on May 25, 2005 there was one player missing from the celebrations - me. Not many people know this, but the £6 million deal that took me to Anfield was already done by then. It was not announced until July, but on the night that Liverpool won their fifth European Cup in the most incredible fashion imaginable I belonged to them. Villarreal had approved my sale and I had agreed terms, so on the greatest night in my new club's history I was at home, alone, watching the dramatic events unfold on my television with only some beer for company.

That game is one of the greatest examples of how beautiful football can be. It showed that nothing is impossible and that even the worst situations can be turned around.

I didn't see it that way at half-time, of course. With Liverpool 3-0 down and seemingly on their way to defeat I was absolutely gutted. Being a Liverpool player by then, my first instinct was that I was about to leave a club which had qualified for the Champions League for one who would not be in it. I called my agent and said to him: "We're ****** now. We are not even going to play in the Champions League."

The worrying thing about the whole situation was that going into the game Liverpool were not even sure that winning the Champions League would get them into the competition the following season because they had failed to finish in the top four in the Premier League. But the feeling was that if they won the trophy UEFA would have to give them the opportunity to defend it.

None of that mattered at half-time with Liverpool three goals behind. At that point UEFA being faced with a tricky situation didn't even look like a possibility. It was Liverpool who had all the problems and the question was whether they could even get a goal to make the scoreline more respectable. So I was really in a bad mood.

Then everything changed. After the three goals in six minutes I was back on the phone to my agent. "Manolo, Manolo, we are back," I shouted. Like everyone else I could not believe what I was seeing. Teams had come back from the dead before - but not like this. Not in European football's biggest and most important match - and certainly not against an AC Milan team which had played so well that the trophy could have been packed up and sent to Italy at half-time and no- one could have complained.

I was glued to the game as it went to extra-time and penalties. Everything turned crazy. I was so nervous that I kept on drinking and drinking. By the end of the final I was flat out on my bed after the 10 beers I drank. But I was happy. I had celebrated Liverpool's goals as if I was playing and when Stevie lifted the trophy I celebrated like the rest of his team-mates.

I might not have been out there, dancing around the pitch at the Ataturk Stadium and singing 'You'll Never Walk Alone', but in effect I was already one of his team-mates. The deal to take me to Anfield was actually signed at the beginning of May. But Barcelona had a sell-on clause put into my contract when I moved to Villarreal and they were entitled to up to 40 per cent of any future transfer fee. That clause expired in July so the transfer was not formally completed until then to allow Villarreal to keep all of the proceeds. I eventually went to Liverpool to finalise everything on July 4. It is a date that is etched on my mind, and will be forever.

I had been aware of Liverpool's interest in me for some time before then, with the first contact probably being made as early as February that year. I share the same agent as Rafa Benitez, Manolo Garcia Quilon, and I became aware that Rafa was having a few problems with his goalkeepers and was not totally satisfied with them during his first season at Liverpool.

I was having one of the best seasons of my career at Villarreal and Liverpool made an offer for me in the springtime. They met with my agent and Benitez, being the annoying - in a good way - manager that he is, rang me every single day to convince me to make the move. Every morning when I was on my way to training my phone would ring and before I even answered it I would know who it was.

"Pepe, it is Rafa," the daily conversation would begin. "Things are the same as yesterday. I do not want to bother you because I know you need to focus on qualifying for the Champions League with Villarreal, but I just need to tell you that we are really keen to sign you and we are working very hard to make it happen."

I even ended up playing a part in the negotiations for my own transfer because Rafa was asking me to ask Villarreal if they could lower their asking price! He also asked me if I could get my agent to reduce my wage demands! It was an unusual situation but I just had to laugh about it. I was really grateful to Rafa because he wanted to take me to Liverpool so much. He gave me that opportunity, the chance of a lifetime. If I had to put up with a few phone calls and being asked to negotiate lower wages for myself then so be it. That's just Rafa.

This wasn't the first time I had been aware of Rafa's interest in me. He first wanted to sign me when I was with Barcelona B. I was only 17 years old at the time and he was making a name for himself as manager of Tenerife. With a team that included Luis Garcia, they enjoyed a good season in 2000/01 and ended up finishing third in La Liga. We were playing in a friendly tournament in Gran Canaria and before one of our matches I saw him standing behind my goal, watching me warm up and go through my routine. This was before the game had even kicked off. It was clear that he was keeping an eye on me as he didn't focus on any of the other players.

That made me nervous because I already knew that he was looking to sign me, but I came through the game with no mistakes and it wasn't long after that he tried to recruit me on loan. I turned the move down because at that stage I just wanted to stay and fight for a place at Barcelona. I wasn't ready to leave. Even that didn't put him off as a few years later he tried to sign me again, this time when he was in charge of Valencia. That move didn't happen either.

But anyone who knows Rafa at all will tell you that he isn't the kind of person who just gives up. If he wants something he will keep on going until it either happens or it is impossible to happen. His persistence is unbelievable. In my case it was a good thing because he came back in for me after he became Liverpool manager and this time he got me. It was third time lucky. I will always be grateful to him for not giving up on me, even after I turned him down a couple of times. He gave me the opportunity to play in England for one of the greatest clubs in the world and I appreciate that so much.

Because I knew Liverpool wanted me early in the year I was able to take an interest in their run to Istanbul in the knowledge that they were going to become my club. I was already interested because there were so many Spanish people there, but their exploits in the Champions League meant I was getting more excited about the possibility of moving to Anfield with every passing round. The victories over Juventus and Chelsea in the quarter-finals and semi-finals stick in my mind, but as special as those occasions obviously were, they never made anything like the impact on me that the final against AC Milan did. I suppose that is the same for everyone in football. Whenever anyone mentions Istanbul it conjures up the most wonderful images.

I had spoken to Xabi Alonso about Liverpool beforehand because we were together in the Spain squad and I had a good friendship with him, but most of the conversations I had about the city were with Mikel Arteta. At the time, he was an Everton player through and through, but because of our friendship he was happy to help me and answer all of the questions that I had as I made my mind up about the transfer.

When it came down to it, it was definitely easier for me to make the decision to move to Liverpool because there were five Spanish players already there. The manager was Spanish, the goalkeeping coach was Spanish and so were a number of the staff. This wasn't crucial in my decision to join Liverpool, but it was definitely a factor because I knew it would be easier for me to settle in than it would have been if I'd gone to a very English club with a totally English mentality.


The way I looked at it, Liverpool were a Spanish English club and that meant they were perfect for me. By signing for them straight after they won the European Cup it made me feel that I was joining something special and that the work that Benitez was doing at Liverpool would have to be respected because they had lifted one of the most important trophies. Rafa had become an important figure at Liverpool in just one year and he would have the respect of the supporters forever, so when he came for me I knew that the time was right to sign.

I arrived thinking that even if this only lasts for two or three years it could be really good, but something inside of me was making me feel that I would be there even longer than that.

I was only 22 when I made the move, an age which some people say is too young to go abroad to a new league, particularly for a goalkeeper. But as well as Liverpool being too good an opportunity to turn down, I also had personal reasons for wanting to go.

At the time my girlfriend, Yolanda, and my parents were not getting on too well so I thought it would be best for everyone if we went abroad together as a couple and put some space between my family and ourselves, just to allow everything to settle down. It wasn't as if there were major problems, but when you are a young couple, sometimes it is a good idea to find your own way in life. The way I saw it, this would be a chance for Yolanda and myself to start a family together in a new country. It was as much about establishing our own independence and our own way of doing things. Whatever the reason it worked because I am now happily married to Yolanda. We have three wonderful children, and our relationship with my parents is better than ever. Whoever said a change can do you good was spot on because moving to Liverpool was the making of us as a couple and as a family. We have never looked back.

When we first arrived in Liverpool we stayed at the Hope Street Hotel, which is a beautiful place in the city centre where the staff were really helpful to us as we tried to settle in.

Despite this, we found the first 15 days really hard. In fact, they were absolutely horrible. This was the middle of July and every single time I looked out of the window it was pouring down with rain. Not just short, sharp showers, these were full on downpours that meant we could do nothing much apart from sit in our hotel room and think of the roasting hot summer we had left behind in Spain.

I can remember saying to my wife: "What the hell is going on? Is it ever going to change or are we going to spend the rest of our lives carrying umbrellas and staying inside so as not to get soaked?"

It is something that you cannot prepare yourself for when you leave a country with a hot climate and go to one where it feels like it rains all the time. Credit to my wife, though, because when we had these moments of doubt about the move she made sure that I never even got close to the point where I questioned my decision to come to Liverpool. Now, we look back on that time and we laugh. It is quite funny to recall because the whole family is now totally settled and my wife has become a proper Scouse mum.

I didn't really care about the weather or the food. I had no qualms about moving to Liverpool, despite some people suggesting that Liverpool had some problems. If you look at any place, anywhere in the world, you can find reasons why it might be better to go somewhere else. If anything, the idea of going to Liverpool excited me. I knew it was a city of fighters with people who are willing to stand up for themselves, even when it seems that everyone is against them. I liked that idea. It is easy to live in the richest city where you have everything on your doorstep and the politicians are helping you all the time. Liverpool is not like that and that makes it a challenge for everyone who lives there. There was something about that which captured my imagination. Then, when I looked at what the football club had achieved throughout its history, it made moving to Liverpool a no-brainer. The city and the club attracted me and no amount of rain or freezing cold summer days were going to put me off. Well, not in theory anyway.

Driving wasn't the problem that I had perhaps expected it to be. I got used to driving in the left-hand lane fairly quickly and my only trouble is that I still use a car that is left-hand drive because that is what I prefer. Whenever I pull over to get a ticket to go and park I have to throw myself across to the window on the opposite side of the car to grab it. It surprised me how quickly I got used to driving on the opposite side of the road, so much so that there have been a couple of times when it has almost got me into trouble when I am back home in Spain.

On a couple of occasions I have been driving along the road minding my own business and then all of a sudden a car is travelling towards me in my lane. 'Where the hell is this lunatic going?' I think and then I realise that it's me who is in the wrong lane and I have to get across to the right-hand side of the road before I cause an accident. That shows how much I have got used to the English way of doing things.

Sometimes people don't realise that a foreign player has to take all these new ways of life into account when they move to a new team. They look at the fabled lifestyle of a footballer, the kind that they see in the newspapers and on TV, and it makes them think that it must be easy no matter who you are or where you are from. But it doesn't matter what your job is, when you move to a new country your life changes altogether and that can be tough. You have to pick up the language, adapt your culture, get used to a new way of driving and adjust to a different climate - and you do all this without the support network that you had at home. Ultimately none of that mattered to me. I knew that I was going to a fantastic league and to one of the greatest clubs in the world. For all of the natural concerns I had about going abroad at a young age it was an easy decision for me to go to Liverpool.

My first impression of Liverpool Football Club was that it was totally different to Villarreal. It was a massive club that had been crowned champions of Europe only weeks before my arrival and it was based in the north of a big city. Villarreal has a population of only 40,000 people and every single person at the club knows one another. After six years at Liverpool there are still people who work for the club, particularly in the offices, who I do not know because the organisation is so big. So it was the size of the club that struck me first, but then I began to realise and understand its history, appreciate the supporters and started to come to terms with the expectations of playing for one of the most successful clubs in the history of European football. At Barcelona it had been different because I had grown up at the club. That meant I knew almost everything about it by the time I broke into the first-team. At Liverpool it was all new and it did take getting used to.

The first challenge I had was to establish myself in the dressing room. This is not as it easy as it sounds. When I first walked in, I saw Stevie Gerrard, one of the best players in the world; Sami Hyypia, a Liverpool legend; Xabi Alonso, a great player who had scored in the Champions League final, and so on and so on. Everywhere I looked there was a European champion and I was stood there with hardly a winners' medal to my name.

I had confidence in myself but I also knew that I could be punching above my weight so all I could do at first was keep my head down, work hard and try to prove myself. There were a few characters at Anfield when I joined. Didi Hamann was a very funny guy and we hit it off straight away. Crouchy joined the club in the same summer as I did and he was also funny, so it was good to be a part of a dressing room where there were people who would have a laugh. But this shouldn't give the wrong impression because that dressing room was also more professional than any I had encountered in my career to that point.

Every single player was more professional in the way they trained and the way they prepared for games than I was used to in Spain. That sent a message to me. I realised how serious football was taken in the Premier League and I knew that I had to reach that level. I had to look after myself and I had to give my all at every single moment because if I hadn't it would have been noticeable. The players didn't tend to socialise that much outside the dressing room - not because there was a problem or a bad atmosphere, it's just that we did not tend to go out for dinner or nights out together much. It was friendly but professional.

Like I say, there was a community of Spanish players there. Xabi, Luis Garcia, Fernando Morientes and Josemi were all at the club - and this undoubtedly made it easier for me to settle in. They were telling me everything that I had to do, all the rules I needed to follow and showing me where I needed to go. Thanks to them, the adaptation process was much easier than it might otherwise have been.

There was a massive interest in us in Spain. Liverpool had won the Champions League the previous year and because there were so many Spaniards in the team one newspaper even called us "El Benitels". Every single Liverpool game was shown on television in Spain and the people in my country were loving the club because they saw us as unofficial representatives of our homeland. That was really important for us because it showed that the project we were involved in mattered a lot. Had we been at a club that had no chance of success or that noone was interested in outside of their own supporters then we would have been a curiosity in Spain, but not much else.

There are some things that even my compatriots could not help with though and the English language, or rather the Scouse accent, did take some getting used to at first. I was looking around the city one time, seeing a few sights, and I thought I would go to see the cathedrals. I didn't know exactly where they were so I stopped someone in the street to ask for directions.

"Excuse me, can you tell me where the church is?" I asked in my very best English accent.

"The wha'?" came the reply.

"The church," I repeated, making a cross with my fingers to illustrate what I meant. Still all I got were more blank looks as if I was crazy.

"The church. You know, Jesus Christ and all that."

"If yer wanted to know where the cheerch was why didn't yer say?"

I'd stood there for five minutes repeating myself over and over again, doing hand signals and all kinds, but I still couldn't get across where I wanted to go because I couldn't say church like a Scouser says it.

Most of the staff at Melwood didn't speak English, they spoke Scouse. It was very difficult to understand because it is so fast and there is so much slang. Now, when I speak with English people when I am abroad, they ask me if I am a Scouser. It is one of the best compliments I can have because it means I am a part of Liverpool and one of the people. I wouldn't have it any other way. Now even my daughters sound Scouse when they talk. Not Scouse like Stevie or Carra, but you can definitely tell that they come from Liverpool and that makes me proud. But it was hard to get used to at first.

I only spoke a little bit of English when I arrived - only as much as I had learned at school. It was a handicap for me to have so many Spanish speaking players and staff with me at Melwood because it was easy to lapse into speaking in our native tongue. Rafa kept on going on at us, telling us that we had to speak English all the time. Sometimes it was annoying because you just want to get a message across quickly and the easiest way would have been just to talk in Spanish.

But the principle that Rafa was trying to enforce was right. We needed to show respect to our team-mates by speaking in English, even if it was hard sometimes. We were playing in England so it was only right that we should do that. Still, there were times when no-one was around that we would have a chat in Spanish. We would always make sure Rafa couldn't catch us first though!


I was taken on a tour of Anfield and the museum at the stadium. When I saw the stadium without any people in it, it was still really impressive and it made a big impression on me. But it could not compare to my home debut which came against a team that I had never even heard of before I came to England.

Total Network Solutions, or TNS as they are better known, a team from the League of Wales, were my first opponents as a Liverpool FIVE STAR RED player after we were drawn to play against them in the qualifying rounds for the 2005/06 Champions League. Because we entered the competition at such an early stage after UEFA had only allowed us to defend the European Cup on the basis that we started in the qualifiers it meant our season, and my Liverpool career, kicked off in mid-July.

The game was always going to be memorable for me, particularly as Stevie made my debut even more special by scoring a hat-trick in a 3-0 win, but there was another player who will never forget that night. The TNS game was the first time I had played alongside John Arne Riise - and I ended up punching him! He was a really good team-mate and I didn't mean it, of course. A cross came into the box and I punched the ball away, but I caught Riise as well and knocked him down.

As he was getting up off the floor he started laughing and said to me: "****ing hell, what have you just done to me?" I said: "Listen, I shouted 'keeper, keeper' and when you hear that you have to move otherwise I hit your head." It was an important moment because it showed the way I was intending to go about things.

The main difficulty for me settling in at Anfield was that I was replacing one of the heroes of Istanbul. A few months earlier I had been dumbstruck when Jerzy Dudek made that save from Andriy Shevchenko in the Champions League final, and I had celebrated when he stopped a penalty from the same player to win the European Cup for Liverpool. But here I was taking his place in the team. It was a pressure for me, there is no question about that.

However, everyone knew that I was not coming into the team because of anything he had done in that game. I was given the opportunity because Rafa had not been convinced by his goalkeepers over the course of the entire 2004/05 season. The goalkeeper's position had been filled in turn by Jerzy, Chris Kirkland and Scott Carson. The stability was not there. It was clear that Rafa wanted someone to be his number one in every game and I was the person that he thought was right for that role. I could not do anything about the situation with the other keepers and I could not afford to worry too much about them, not even Jerzy, because if I had done then I would have been distracted and would not have been able to do my best. But of course I was a little bit scared because I was following in the footsteps of someone who had played a crucial role in Liverpool winning their fifth European Cup. It wasn't as if I was replacing a player who the fans did not like. I managed to get my head around it by realising that if the manager had phoned me 25 times in two hours telling me to come to Liverpool it was because he wanted me and trusted me.

My decision to join Liverpool was vindicated because in the first few years we were fighting for every trophy apart from the Premier League. We won the FA Cup and we were one of the teams to beat in Europe.

That Liverpool team is the one that the fans want to watch again and it is where we need to be. We need to be one of the best eight teams in Europe every year, not failing even to qualify for the Champions League. If you are lucky enough to be at a club that has set the standards for everyone else then you have to do everything that you possibly can to live up to expectations. We have to be fighting for the league every year and fighting for the European Cup. This is not optional at Liverpool, it is the way it always has to be and if it were ever to stop being like this then the club would be changed forever. It was once said that Liverpool Football Club exists to win trophies, but it is even more than that, as far as I am concerned - it exists to win big trophies. We are like Barcelona, Real Madrid, AC Milan, Juventus and Bayern Munich, giants of the game. When you are a member of the elite you have to act like one and this means competing for the biggest prizes.

I actually got my hands on a winners' medal just two months into my Liverpool career when we won the Super Cup against CSKA Moscow in the Stade Louis II Stadium in Monaco. It was another comeback in a European final. We went behind in the first half and took it to extra-time through substitute Djibril Cisse's equaliser late on. Another Cisse goal and one from Luis gave us victory without the need for any heroics from me in a penalty shoot-out.

The temptation may have been to think that this was what it would always be like, playing for a big club in a showpiece occasion and walking away with a trophy. But for me it was more about the past than it was about the future because I look upon the Super Cup, the Charity Shield and the World Club Championships as trophies for last year. What I mean by that is you only get to play in those matches because of what the team has achieved in the previous season. It is not like the FA Cup Final or the Champions League Final, which are your rewards for what you have done during that campaign. So while I was happy to pick up a medal in Monaco it did not satisfy my desire to win trophies in the slightest because I knew that the big competitions for that season - the ones that mattered most to the players, management and supporters - were still to come.

Even if I had thought that winning the Super Cup was a sign of things to come then I would have had my mind changed pretty dramatically just a month later when Chelsea beat us 4-1 at home in the Premier League. We had actually drawn 0-0 against them at Anfield in the Champions League just a few days earlier and there were no signs in that game that we were about to be on the receiving end of the kind of hiding that makes you realise how big the challenge is that you are facing. Chelsea were the English champions at the time and they were the most powerful team in the country thanks to the spending power of Roman Abramovich. It was a really bad day for us because Liverpool do not lose games 4-1 at Anfield, but after Stevie had equalised Frank Lampard's goal in the first half, Chelsea took control and we had no answers. It was a reality check for us and for me in particular because it showed how far we had to go.

Again though, the consolation was provided by our supporters because I did not see them being really angry with us, even though we had lost so heavily to one of our biggest rivals.

If that happens in Spain, then the supporters are outraged. While the Liverpool fans were not happy - they would have been crazy if they were - they still supported us all the way and did not turn on us. There are times when things go wrong on the pitch that you are still able to take something positive from the game. This was one of those occasions. It showed me that if we gave everything for Liverpool then the supporters would always be with us. That is a special feeling and it convinced me even more that I had joined a special club.

Sometimes it is the small things that help you realise that you have made the right decision. That was one of the reasons why I felt settled at Liverpool straight away. I had an instant sense of belonging and that was thanks to my team-mates, the manager, the staff and the supporters. I was more than one thousand miles away from my hometown of Cordoba, but I had never felt so at home.

I knew I had come to the right place".