Legends of club football – Sami Hyypia

In April 2008, Hyypia signed a new deal keeping him at the club till the summer of 2009. Rafa Benitez appreciated his contribution to Liverpool, and said that he would be a perfect role model for young defenders like Daniel Agger and Martin Skrtel. Hyypia managed to play just 19 games for Liverpool in his tenth and final season for the club.

Prior to the game against Spurs, Hyypia had played no role in the four preceding games, and fans, who were aware of his pending departure from the club, grew desperate to see him play. There were expectations that he would lead out the team in the final game, but Benitez kept everyone waiting till the 84th minute, despite frequent chants of “Sami, Sami, Sami, on, on, on!” all around the stadium.

As Gerrard handed him the captain’s armband, he repaid back the favour to Hyypia, who was the first to congratulate Gerrard when he was appointed Liverpool’s captain.

Liverpool tried to keep Hyypia at the club as a part of the coaching staff, but he believed he had some more football left in him and he went on to play at Bayer Leverkusen for two seasons. Roy Hodgson tried to bring him back when he took charge of Liverpool, but couldn’t get him released from his contract at Leverkusen. Hodgson’s reason for attempting to re-sign Hyypia was simple: “He’s one I would also put in the Jamie Carragher and Steven Gerrard mould, Liverpool for life.”

Hyypia captained Finland in his hundredth game for the national side on August 12, 2009 against Sweden and went on to make five more appearances before retiring from the international scene after a 2-1 loss to Hungary in a Euro 2012 qualifying match on October 12, 2010. Hyypia announced at a press conference on May 1, 2011 that he would be retiring as a player at the end of the current season. However, he would remain at Leverkusen as the club’s assistant manager and would also join the coaching staff of the Finnish national team. In April 2012, following the dismissal of Robin Dutt, Hyypia was named as caretaker-coach at Leverkusen. He was to work alongside the club’s Under-19 coach, Sascha Lewandowski. A month later the club announced that both men had signed permanent contracts that would last until 2015.

On August 12, 2012, Hyypia’s Leverkusen team played a friendly against Liverpool at Anfield in a game where the home side won 3-1. The game will be remembered fondly for Hyypia’s first return to Anfield after leaving Liverpool.

The Hyypia- Lewandowski duo led Bayer Leverkusen to a third place finish in the Bundesliga in 2012-13, behind Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund, and the reward of this performance was a direct entry in the group stage of the 2013-14 edition of Champions League.

Hyypia’s profile on Liverpool’s official site describes him as “one of the finest centre-backs ever to wear a red shirt”. The best tribute to him was paid by his defensive colleague Carragher, who said “I’ve been saying it for years, Sami will go down in history alongside the likes of Ron Yeats, Alan Hansen and Emlyn Hughes. When you think of the foreign players who have played in this country, for me Sami is up there with Dennis Bergkamp and Gianfranco Zola. Not many players have come to the Premiership from abroad and played for just one club for as long as Sami has and in all the time he’s been at Liverpool you could probably count his bad performances on the fingers of one hand.”

Former German national team coach and current sporting director at Bayer Leverkusen, Rudi Voller has said “Sami has all the ingredients to become a great coach… At some point he will go to Liverpool. This is his dream.”

And it is the dream of most Liverpool fans to welcome him back at the club. Hyypia will always be revered by the Kop faithful for all his contributions on and off the pitch. Indeed, he will never walk alone.