I once collapsed in the Anfield dressing room but injuries aren't why I didn't play much for Liverpool
Jari Litmanen will play at Anfield for the first time in 10 years on Saturday as Liverpool legends face Ajax.
The boyhood Reds fan is a club legend for the Dutch giants, winning five Eredivisie titles and the Champions League across two stints in Amsterdam. As a result, the 53-year-old is one of the star names in the travelling Ajax squad.
However, he has also been confirmed as a late addition to the Liverpool squad, and will make a belated official debut for the Reds legends as a result, having last played in the ‘Celebration of the 96’ charity match in 2014. Such an appearance comes 13 years after hanging up his boots and 22 years after his last first team outing for the club.
It is not the first time he has made a belated debut, of course. The Finn joined Liverpool on a free transfer from Barcelona in January 2001, but that wasn’t the first time the Reds tried to lure him to Anfield.
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“In the end, three clubs made an offer in 1999: Liverpool, Barcelona and Bayern Munich,” he recently recalled to the Guardian when looking back over his career. “It was not difficult to choose Barca: they had the same philosophy as Ajax.
“They are two different clubs who are built from the same source. I have heard [Pep] Guardiola say: ‘Cruyff built the chapel, and we just painted it.’”
Liverpool would get the boyhood Red 18 months later though, after a frustrating spell at Camp Nou. But despite being signed to wild fanfare, his fortunes did not improve much on Merseyside.
Litmanen would register nine goals and six assists from
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