The sun is shining in Ormskirk, 40 years on from the moment he admits “changed his life”, but a little part of Alan Kennedy will always be in Paris.
Scoring in a Champions League or European Cup final transforms careers, cements legacies and ensures the phone will never be quiet in the run up to the biggest game in club football.
“You’re speaking to me, 40 years on because of the goal I scored. That tells you everything about how important those moments are,” Kennedy tells i.
There’s a serendipity that for the anniversary of Kennedy’s goal against Real Madrid in Paris, the two sides play again for the most prestigious trophy in European football.
More from Football
Kennedy spent the evening of Real Madrid’s semi-final against Manchester City willing Carlo Ancelotti’s side into the stirring comeback that set up Saturday’s classic.
“I just desperately wanted it. Red versus white, there’s something about it isn’t there?” he admits.
It is a time for heroes to join a small club of footballers who have scored on the biggest stage.
So, what did it feel like to score in the biggest game in club football? Well, Kennedy is candid enough to admit it happened by accident, pretty much.
“It didn’t know it was happening until the final seconds. When Ray Kennedy picked up the ball, he had choices,” Kennedy, who was speaking on behalf of 101goals.com, said.
“I had made a run to try and take a player out of the way. I didn’t particularly want the ball, Ray was just so accurate that it hit me on the chest and bounced up.
“I remember the centre half coming towards me and thinking ‘If he hits me here it’s a penalty’. He had a wild swing, I went past him and then I was thinking ‘What am I going to do?’ I was ten yards from goal, the angle was poor so I said to myself ‘If I aim for the far post, the goalkeeper might save it and one of our players might put it in’ but for some reason or other I changed my mind at the last minute and instead of the ball coming off my foot and going to the far post I hit it to the near post and it went there.
“I thought to myself ‘You lucky, lucky so and so’. I ran behind the goal to the Liverpool fans who were trying to get on the pitch but there was a moat.
“I was standing there for what felt like ages taking the adulation. I was just thinking to myself ‘I’ve done alright there’.”
For Steve McManaman, another Liverpool hero indelibly etched in the history of the competition, scoring in the final is about legacy.
It helps that his in 2000 for Real Madrid against Valencia was a special one, a clearance dropping to him on the edge of the penalty area as he opened up his body and volleyed with his right foot. “Sheer enjoyment,” is how he sums up the feeling.
A greater pleasure was that it put Real two up with 15 minutes remaining. “You can relax and enjoy it at that point. That never happens in big games but I remember it did then. It was a magical feeling knowing you were going to do it,” he says.
No-one forgets. “I was in Madrid on Tuesday for the press conference and people were reminding me about it because it was 21 years to do the day,” he tells i.
“Real Madrid fans remember and for them it’s not necessarily the league campaigns, it’s the European Cup – they can tell you when it happened, where it happened, who was playing, who scored the goals, how they occurred. It’s ingrained in them and I’m lucky that it happened to me that scored.”
Ten months earlier his mother Irene had died, tragically early at the age of just 44. So the celebration was one of relief, elation and euphoria, aimed at his father David in the stand.
“To leave my father, who had just lost his wife, and leave Liverpool was tough,” he recalls.
For others, like Aston Villa’s Peter Withe, a stand is etched with a banner in his honour that will never be removed. Trevor Francis described the moment he scored for Nottingham Forest as “magical”.
“I used to write a column in Roy of the Rovers comic and that was my Roy of the Rovers moment. A European debut in a cup final and scoring the winning goal, no-one had ever done that, had they?”
Kennedy’s advice to today’s players who want to emulate him?
“Just take a moment to enjoy it. You don’t realise at the time but those things don’t go on forever. This Liverpool team is, in my opinion, one of the best ever and you’re part of it. People will be ringing you up forever,” he says.
from Football | News and analysis from the Premier League and beyond | iNews https://ift.tt/qMj7042
Post a Comment