When a player garners searing adulation from all sections of football fans – whether neutral or impartial – it’s nearly always a sign of greatness.
So when Frank Lampard announced his decision to retire from football at 38 years of age, it was clear that with every passing compliment, positive appraisal and endearing comparison that filtered through, he was rightfully claiming his final status as a genuine legend of the game.
His was a career mainly littered with tremendous highs, a glittering reminder that whatever is said about English players’ ability to sparkle on the international front, they can still produce club football magicians, who are all too capable of reaching the peaks of both domestic and European football, with the spells they cast on the field of play.
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Essentially, to talk of the ex-Chelsea central midfielder is to enter into a discussion about the sort of genius required to score goals.
Because while playmaking and exquisite passing, a couple of traits Lampard perfected, are two of the cornerstones required to make it in the top flight of British football, it is surely his ability to rattle the back of the net which has seen him most celebrated and adored by so many followers of the beautiful game.
Hyperbolic elucidations of his skill, however, only go so far to hammering home just how good – and indeed how rare – Lampard truly was.
Statistics and numbers, on the other hand, tell an irrefutable story that ‘Lamps’ was one of the greatest midfielders of his generation. There was once a time he was FIFA’s second-best player in Europe, finishing runner-up to the legendary Ronaldinho back in 2005.
With the Pensioners, he pocketed 211 goals, an astonishing haul even considering his obvious ability. It saw him eclipse the previous record which had been held by Bobby Tambling, ensuring his rapport with the fans will live long in the memory, another veritable sign of his greatness.
Simply put, he wasn’t just a very good player with the Blues, who chipped in with goals here and there – the legacy he constructed was like the sumptuous strikes he produced: full of precision and life, that has always acted as inspiration for the fans and the youngsters looking to emulate him.
After his 13 years at Stamford Bridge, Lampard remains an icon and that’s even after he departed to play briefly with Manchester City, before moving on to try out MLS action with New York City FC, and that’s because the ex-England international developed at Chelsea, grew out there and played his best football there.
His devotion to Chelsea, albeit interrupted, will always be an unending one, because that was where he won his trophies, made a name for himself and helped transform the club from title pretenders to outright winners.
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In all, he got his hands on the Premier League trophy three times, grasped the FA Cup on four occasions as well as the UEFA Champions League once.
Then there’s the matter of his League Cup triumphs, his UEFA Europa League win, his Player of the Season awards and Community Shields – plus so much more. The resonance of his achievements will reverberate for many more years to come, and rightly so.
Arguably his greatest achievement of all, however, will be how he was able to keep fighting at the pinnacle.
Having started out with West Ham United, he was tipped for big things from the get-go, with Harry Redknapp predicting that the then Hammers man would go ‘right to the very top’.
As if hell-bent on proving his manager at the time right, Lampard never looked back after a very promising spell at the club, and although he flourished and improved incredibly after leaving them, certain aspects remained constant for ‘Lamps’ throughout the rest of his career.
Call it stamina, passion, desire or whatever you will – Lampard had reservoirs of each and more to back up his natural ability and it was each of these key strengths which allowed him to persevere and succeed even when some of the foreign imports and glitzy, flashy players around him were floundering and spluttering.
The sheer number of his English top-tier appearances tells its own story.
After all, not many performers have logged out for a PL match as many times as he did. In fact, there are only two names ahead of him on that particularly exclusive shortlist.
Even on the international stage, where success evaded him with the national team, he performed admirably on a personal level and gave almost 15 years of service to the Three Lions, notching up 29 goals which is just one less than Alan Shearer and eight more than Steven Gerrard.
He didn’t win any trophies with England but he won 106 caps, placing him joint-seventh on the all-time list alongside the great Sir Bobby Charlton. How’s that for an indication of just how dedicated to the cause he was, collecting as many caps as the famous midfielder of the 1966 World Cup-winning side.
Battling against a figurative media scrum that appeared intent on creating ructions between himself and Gerrard, the two played little together and Lampard saw his superpowers drained of much of its natural vivacity as a result, as well as being stifled by unfathomable managerial tactics and uninventive formations that did little to bring out the best of a usually talismanic star.
However, while it would be unrealistic to ignore the blighting disappointments of his outings in an England shirt, it would be equally so to not at least mention the good times, such as playing a part in five major tournaments.
A wickedly brilliant player, who was the midfield engine of a burgeoning Chelsea side in the early noughties, he captured the essence of what it meant to be a creative midfielder, unafraid to test goalkeepers from long range, and what’s more, he did it all while playing as part of a team, cajoling the best out of those around him and reaching highs most overhyped English starlets can only ever dream of.
