Interview: Sami Hyypia

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Thank you to the good people at Astro SuperSports for extending the invitation towards padangbolasepak.com to interview a former professional football player, a professional footballer.

I had the privilege to spend quality 10 minutes with one of my childhood heroes, Sami Hyypia. Growing up a Liverpool fan, Hyypia, amongst other players, shaped my views on the club and what a player can do to influence how a game of football goes.

Starting off with a little small talk, I found that that this was only Sami’s second trip to Malaysia, his first trip being only a few months ago during the MotoGP in Sepang. Skewing away from the topic, I found out that he is a proper sportsman, being able to follow and enjoy various sports, as well as playing them.

Of course, with many having read a bits and pieces of him outside of the world of football, one would know that a young Sami Hyypia played two sports; ice hockey and football. On being asked why football trumped the former in his career choice, he said; “I think I loved football more than ice hockey. I still play ice hockey, a bit more than before nowadays, but football, for me was number one. During school breaks I’d play football with my classmates, 15 minutes of football  and then back to class, and then repeat again in the next 15 minutes”.

“I still believe I love football more than ice hockey, and the latter never competed, football will still be number one for me. I did many other sports as well, but football was always what I liked to do the most,” he then added.

Sami also looked up to his parents in his career choice, with his father being a coach of his local football club, and his mother an amateur goalkeeper.

“I would say it had a very big impact, my father was my team’s coach until I was 16. Sometimes it can be difficult, but I don’t recall any big arguments that we had with each other. It was also because he wanted to do it (coach football). I have two sons myself, and I also bring them for training. One advantage of having a father as a coach of a local team was how close I was to the training grounds. My house was only 200m away from the pitch!”, with that being said, he lived, breathed and ate football, and that has guaranteed him a pathway to the greats, one of them being the biggest clubs in England, Liverpool FC.

Sami spent 10 whole years in red, with the Liverbird on his chest. I was fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to watch his last match against Tottenham Hotspur, which Liverpool won 3-1. Letting him reminisce of the time he spent in Merseyside, I asked him who was a better center-back partner; Stephane Henchoz, or Jamie Carragher.    

“I honestly don’t know.”, Sami answered with a chuckle, “I think they were both good, because of the circumstances of some game situations, it was easy to play with both of them, and we had good understanding with each other. Carra was louder on the field compared to Stephane, so that always helped me, advising me when someone was behind me, whilst Stefan was quieter. I can’t choose, because again, I could work with both of them. Both didn’t score a lot of goals, but they were both quality players.”

When we talk about Liverpool, we have, and I repeat, have, to talk about that one night in Istanbul, where a piece of history was made. More so, if the person we are talking to is one that experienced it first hand. We spent most of the time in the interview talking about it, but I’m pretty sure you’d like to hear it from him (or at least, read what he had to say about it).

“I think Milan were a great team, they did their homework on us, like the first goal, on how we defended a goal, and they scored after a minute. It didn’t take us down, I felt, because you concede goals like these, and we just carry on, but when the 2nd and 3rd goals went in, we started doubting, asking ourselves ‘What was going on?’”

“When we went to the dressing room at halftime, the dressing room was quiet, our heads were down, and then we started to hear the fans singing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’. That gave us a little bit of strength, and honestly I didn’t believe, nor did anyone, that we could come back from this deficit. That night showed me that if you doubted the impossible, it wouldn’t happen, but it would happen if you believed in it hard enough, and to work towards that impossible.”

“Benitez stood up and said that we have to give the fans something to cheer about, we cannot continue like this, and we changed our tactics. Hamann came on, and we played 3 at the back. Apart from the tactics that worked, we just wanted a comeback. 3 goals in under 7 minutes was an amazing feeling, and we were back in the game. The double save from Dudek in extra time was brilliant and as always, when it comes to penalties, it’s like a flip of a coin to see if we could win it or not. I’m glad that we won, and they got their revenge in 2007 when they won in Athens. I think we’re even now.”, Hyypia ended that account with a wry smile on his face.

Time wasn’t on my side, but I had to end my interview, with a bit of a request, on advice for the readers who want to go pro, or even thrive in recreational football, on what it takes to be a football player.

“First of all you have to enjoy it. You also have to enjoy the hard work.You cannot make it with just talent alone. You have to constantly be working hard, to improve.”, Sami said.

“I wasn’t the biggest talent in my youth, so I put everything in football all the time. When I went professional, I wouldn’t say I enjoyed life. I wouldn’t say I didn’t enjoy being a professional footballer, but I was focused 24 hours a day to be a professional footballer. I think you have to sacrifice a lot ot have a professional career, but I enjoyed it, I was very happy that I was able to do something that I loved to do, and somebody was paying for it. That was the ideal situation. Just enjoy it, but you need to prepare to work very hard to improve.”

“A doctor in Finland told me this, you don’t have to be perfect, but you have to be better than yesterday. You have to do whatever you can to improve, even if it means a small win on that day.”

I considered it a big win, to be able to interview one of the Premier League’s greatest, and went along my way, hoping that we will cross paths again in the future.