There are certain episodes of bravery which have embedded themselves over the years into Liverpool folklore.
Chief among them will always be Gerry Byrne’s heroism at Wembley in 1965 when the Reds' full-back played 117 minutes with a broken collarbone against Leeds United at Wembley in the days before substitutes to help bring the club’s long wait for a first FA Cup triumph to an end.
Phil Neal once played on with a broken toe for six weeks by wearing a bigger boot with a mini plaster cast fashioned by Ronnie Moran while Titi Camara turned out for Liverpool the night his father died and scored the winner and Jamie Carragher’s determination to push through the pain barrier in Istanbul while racked with cramp is as much a part of the legend of the Reds’ fifth European Cup win as Steven Gerrard’s waving arms or Jerzy Dudek’s miraculous saves.
The Bootle- born defender was not the only member of Rafa Benitez’s unlikely heroes to dig deep that iconic night in Turkey with one of the Spanish boss’s chief lieutenants who scored one of the crucial spot-kicks in the shoot-out doing so with what was later discovered to be a broken foot.
Dietmar Hamann’s resolve that night was no surprise though when you consider the German midfielder had been overcoming setbacks and displaying that same kind of steely resolve for much of his career.
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He was only 24 and just starting to make a name for himself with Bayern Munich when in 1997 he was left temporarily paralysed down one side of his body after collapsing at home.
A stroke was feared after doctors identified bleeding on the brain but he made a complete recovery, later saying of his mysterious illness, "That sort of thing makes you realise how unimportant football is.”
Waldsasson-born Hamann had arrived in the Bavarian capital as a 16-year-old in 1989 from little-known FC Wacker Munich, making his first-team debut four years later in a star-studded side featuring the likes of Lothar Matthaus, Thomas Helmer, future Liverpool team-mate Christian Ziege and Oliver Kahn.
His first German title came while he was still a ‘Vertragsamateur’ - an amateur player licensed to play in the professional game - usually featuring as a right winger but he gradually established himself in the Bayern side with his ability to also play a defensive midfield role coming to the fore and providing stability in a squad riven with in-fighting to help the German giants with the UEFA Cup in 1995/96.
The following campaign under new manager Italian Giovanni Trappatoni would be Hamann’s real breakthrough season, despite his health scare, as he made the defensive midfield spot his own while helping Bayern regain the Bundesliga title they’d lost to Borussia Dortmund and, having now made his full international debut for Germany, by the summer of 1998 a big-money move to the Premier League beckoned.
Shortly after being one of the few shining lights in his country’s surprise quarter-final exit to Croatia at France 98, Kenny Dalglish paid £5.5m to bring him to Newcastle United with the former Liverpool legend looking to help the Geordies kick on after taking them to the FA Cup final in his first full season in charge at St James Park.
A regular feature of Hamann’s career in England was his ability to adapt to changing circumstances around him and he got an early taste of it during his opening weeks on Tyneside with Dalglish being sacked just two matches into the Premier League game after a goalless stalemate at home to Charlton and 1-1 draw at Chelsea.
He was replaced by Dutch legend and former Chelsea manager Ruud Gullit who saw his new side taken apart 4-1 at home by a Michael Owen-inspired Liverpool in his first game, with Hamann suffering a knee injury in his third game for his new club which ruled him out for three months.
The German was back in the side ahead of the return fixture at Anfield just after Christmas but suffered further misfortune against his future employers by getting his marching orders for a second yellow card after half an hour just after Nolberto Solano had put the visitors in front, four goals in 17 minutes late in the second half eventually securing victory for Gerard Houllier’s side after they had fallen two goals behind.
Hamann’s precise, disciplined and effective midfield performances were garnering attention however, a superb solo strike against reigning champions Arsenal in February further demonstrating his impressive skillset, and after helping Newcastle to another FA Cup final where again they would fall short against opponents - Manchester United this time - who had just won the Premier League title and were eyeing the Double, Houllier made his move having identified the German as the man he wanted to help form the spine of his new-look Liverpool side.
Gullit’s ill-fated time on Tyneside would end barely a year after he took over at St James Park with his well-publicised fall-out with star-striker Alan Shearer and chaotic squad-building leading the ambitious Hamann to conclude his future should lie elsewhere, one his team-mates having inadvertently helped engineer his move away.
"We had a squad of 35-40 players and we didn't even play in Europe. It surprised me, it certainly wasn't the norm in Germany”, he admitted years later on Jamie Carragher's 'The Greatest Game' podcast.
"We had a great social team. We had some great lads in the dressing room. Shay Given, Stuart Pearce, John Barnes and Gary Speed - who sadly is no longer with us - was a big help to me.
"Most of the time I played with Speedo in centre-midfield and sometimes I didn't do my defensive duties as well as I should have done because I knew Speedo would mop up for me. I scored five or six goals that season and I wouldn't have done it had it not been for Speedo being there.
"If that hadn't happened, maybe I wouldn't have got the move to Liverpool."
It seemed initially however that Hamann may be heading for London. In late June 1999, acting under the misapprehension that he had a verbal agreement with Newcastle that he would be released from his contract if a suitable bid was received, Hamann announced he was expecting to join Arsenal after Arsene Wenger lodged a £7m offer.
Gullit was less than impressed and fined the midfielder two weeks’ wages which led to an apology although tensions were heightened when he reportedly threatened strike action if he was not allowed to leave.
Houllier, in his first summer in sole charge after the doomed joint-manager experiment with Roy Evans, had already bombed out club captain Paul Ince to Middlesbrough as he looked to revamp and improve the squad after a dismal season which had seen Liverpool finish seventh having only won one more Premier League game than they lost, Manchester United’s Treble triumph having further highlighted the club's fall from grace.
The Frenchman had already undertaken one of Anfield’s biggest recruitment drives in years by moving for Sami Hyypia, Stephane Henchoz, Vladimir Smicer, Sander Westerveld, Titi Camara and Erik Meijer but when Hamann’s availability became clear he paid out a further £8m to secure the man whose ability to provide a defensive shield in midfield would become critical to the success to follow for both him and his successor in the LFC hot-seat.
Looking back after the Frenchman’s sad passing in 2020, Hamann revealed how Houllier’s influence in those early weeks after his arrival at Anfield played a major role in re-instituting a family feel as well as revolutionising a club which had fallen behind the times.
"There was a bit of a stand-off between Newcastle and Liverpool so it took a bit longer," Hamann said on his arrival at Anfield.
"I think Titi Camara, Sami Hyypia, Sander Westerveld, Vladi (Smicer), he signed about five or six before me.
"So I came to Liverpool a few weeks later and went straight to Belfast with (chief executive) Peter Robinson. When I got back we had dinner together and it was me, my wife and his wife.
"It can be a bit awkward sometimes when you first meet a manager but it was just a fluent conversation for a couple of hours.
"He told me what he was trying to do. He was just a very charismatic and genuine man. He was very caring, and this is why my love for the football club is mostly owed to him.
"Looking back, he took a chance bringing six or seven foreign players. I don't think he bought one English player in '99 but he probably felt that with the continental flair and experience, it was the best way to nurture the English talents.
“He had fantastic people around him and every single day you came to work with a smile on your face because it was such a nice atmosphere in the camp. He built new facilities there which took us up another level and that was the reason we were able to gel in a pretty quick time.
"He changed the football club. Liverpool was in the doldrums in the late 90s.
"They hadn't been too successful and they hadn't won a trophy for a number of years and I think if it wasn't for Gerard, I don't think there would have been a Rafa or maybe a Klopp now.
"He put Liverpool back on the map, he made them successful again and made people realise again that Liverpool can be a force and he really galvanised the whole city in that time.”
Just like at Newcastle however, Hamann would suffer a serious setback which meant it would be some time before fans of his new club could learn just what he was all about.
Only 25 minutes into his Liverpool debut away to Sheffield Wednesday, a tackle from Owls midfielder Gerald Sibon left him with an ankle ligament problem which ruled him out for over six weeks.
He was back in the side at the end of September for the visit of neighbours Everton to Anfield in the season’s first Merseyside derby but Kevin Campbell’s early goal handed Houllier’s men a fourth league defeat in only eight games with, perhaps inevitably, a significantly overhauled squad taking some time to find its feet.
A further injury setback saw Hamann miss four more games in October but after returning for the 3-1 Anfield victory over Bradford City at the start of November, the German became a permanent fixture at the heart of midfield as the Reds embarked on a campaign of real promise with the match in which the £8m man scored his first goal showcasing the progress made.
David O’Leary’s Leeds United were emerging as one of the teams most likely to challenge Manchester United’s dominance - 1999/2000 would see Alex Ferguson’s side win the second of three league titles in a row - and were top of the table when they arrived at Anfield on the first Saturday in February, although United had two games in hand.
The Reds had endured a difficult January winning only once away to newly-promoted Watford and being knocked out of the FA Cup at home by second-tier Blackburn Rovers but a resounding 3-1 win over the Yorkshiremen breathed new life into the campaign with Hamann opening the scoring with a fiercely-struck albeit slightly deflected free kick from 25 yards.
Lee Bowyer’s leveller on the hour mark hinted the visitors may take charge but further long-range stunners from Patrik Berger and Danny Murphy sealed a memorable victory and set the tone for a spring push for Champions League qualification, Houllier’s men winning away to Arsenal the following weekend and also gaining a creditable point at Old Trafford soon afterwards.
Hamann’s calm presence in midfield allied to the verve of Czech mates Berger and Smicer along with the dynamism of an emerging Steven Gerrard was rapidly making Liverpool a force to be reckoned with again, Hamann accurately predicting the Scouse youngster’s performances would likely lead to a summer reunion for them in that summer’s European championships in Holland and Belgium where England and Germany had been drawn together in the group stages.
“Steven has been outstanding all season and I think he will be up against me in Euro 2000”, he said.
“If he was German, he would be in the national team already. There is not a better midfielder in the country at the moment.”
Kevin Keegan would indeed give Gerrard his first international cap against Ukraine that May and named the Liverpool youngster in his squad for the finals where he played only in one match, the only one England won, against Hamann and Germany in Charleroi.
Defeats against Portugal and Romania meant an early exit but Gerrard’s tactically mature 29-minute substitute showing against the Germans added handsomely to his development and included a crunching tackle on his Liverpool team-mate which in a moment of youthful indiscretion he mentioned to the media after Hamann had ’squealed like a girl’.
The German exacted some form of revenge only a few months later when scoring the only goal in a World Cup qualifier between the sides which proved to be the last ever goal scored at the old Wembley Stadium before it was rebuilt but Gerrard’s comments in his 2006 autobiography were a more accurate reflection of his true feelings.
“When Didi arrived at Liverpool, I was ecstatic, a great player who I learned off day in, day out”, Gerrard wrote.
“He is the ultimate holding-role player, a clever sentry who allows other midfielders to bomb forward.
“My admiration for him as a man grew during my twenty-nine minutes in opposition to him in Charleroi. After my first few passes, Didi ran past and said, ‘Keep doing what you are doing’.
“Unbelievable. I was stunned. We were sworn enemies until the referee’s final whistle, representing rival countries in a vital game with half the world tuned in. Yet here he was, helping me. Incredible.
“Didi’s kindness to an opponent that evening showed he was a real mate. As long as I live, I will never forget our exchange of words in Charleroi.
“I still wanted to thrash his team though. A couple of minutes after our chat, he went past me with the ball. F****** cheek. That did not even happen at Melwood.
“Time to raise my game some more. ‘I’m going to have him’, I thought. I chased after him as he was making a dangerous break and hit him with a full-whack tackle. Bang. Take that.
“Didi shouted something in German and I didn’t need to understand his words to realise he was not happy. He was rolling around on the ground, moaning. I lost it and screamed at him while standing over him, ‘I didn’t f****** touch you. Get up!’
“After the game I told the press that Didi had ’squealed like a girl’, which was naive of me, totally unnecessary and a stupid comment I regret deeply. I have so much respect for Didi, particularly after he helped me settle into such a difficult game.
“I treasure the shirt he gave me at the final whistle and when I look at it all the memories of that night come flooding back. The nerves, the tackle, the three points. ‘All the best in your next game’, said Didi before heading off to the demoralised German dressing room. Typical Didi. Even then, in what must have been a time of real heartache, he was prepared to think about someone else.
“My life took a turn for the better the day I met Didi Hamann.”
Liverpool’s fortunes enjoyed a similar upturn once Gerrard and Hamann’s partnership started to blossom. Although a shocking end to their first season together with no wins and no goals in the final five matches of the season cost the Reds the Champions League place they had looked well set to achieve for much of the campaign, they did achieve that in 2000/01 for the first time in the club’s history along with, unforgettably, an unprecedented cup treble.
Hamann started all three of the League, FA and UEFA Cup finals and featured in 53 of the 63 matches Liverpool played that marathon campaign, clearly relishing being able to play the elder statesman to the talented youngsters emerging in the Reds side the way one of the legendary midfielder of German football had guided him during his early days at Bayern Munich.
"When I came through at Bayern I was looked after by Lothar Matthaus," he revealed.
"He had just returned from Italy and played his last three or four years in Munich and he always tried to look out for me. He was an awesome player, a fantastic player. He always gave you a feeling that if something went wrong, he would be there to help you. He wouldn't say much, but I don't think much needs to be said. You learn more by watching what a player like him does. The most important thing is that a young player doesn't feel intimidated and cannot play his proper game because he is scared of making mistakes.
"I've played with people who have deliberately tried to show they are superior to younger players and I think that's wrong. That's the coward's way, in a sense, because it doesn't help the kids and it is a sign of weakness as well. The best way is to show the kids they belong and to feel comfortable at this level. I try to teach them, but the kids are a lot different to when I was at their level."
Hamann almost followed in Matthaus’s footsteps when becoming the first Liverpool player to feature in a World Cup final since Roger Hunt in 1966 against Brazil in Japan in 2002 but had to settle-up for a runners-up medal and, despite having more than proved his worth on the global stage, returned to Merseyside with his future somewhat up in the air.
Although he had been firmly established as Houllier’s defensive lynchpin for some considerable time, the Frenchman’s strange and costly decision to substitute Hamann for Vladimir Smicer at a critical juncture in the Champions League quarter-final second leg defeat at Bayer Leverkusen indicated the manager still had doubts over the man who had been such a pivtoal part of the Treble triumph, as did the decision that summer to bring Senegal’s Salif Diao who was expected to play the midfield anchor role.
The contrasting levels of their performances meant Hamann saw off the Senegalese World Cup star's challenge and a further League Cup medal followed in 2003 after victory over Manchester United in Cardiff with the German again showing his selfless nature when, uncomfortable with the fact his only appearance in that season’s competition had been in the final, he offered his winners medal to one of the younger players who had appeared in the earlier rounds, saying, “Valuing everyone who had made an effort for us was more important to me than personal gratification.”
With hindsight, Houllier’s bizarre decision to withdraw Hamann in Leverkusen in April 2002 was perhaps the first real sign of the Frenchman’s powers beginning to wane after his life-threatening heart problem the autumn before and by June 2004 Rafa Benitez had taken over from him in the Anfield hot-seat.
The Spaniard’s tactical nous was clear to the savvy German midfielder when his Valencia side had beaten and in at times schooled Houllier’s Reds home and away in the Champions League group stages in the autumn of 2002, Hamann later commenting in his autobiography that Benitez - who he labelled ‘a footballing genius’ - had made “a few people that mattered in the higher echelons of LFC notice him, becoming a blip on the Liverpool radar.. a blip that was going to shake the world”.
Hamann also credited Benitez with unifying a Liverpool squad which by the time of his arrival had developed a set of cliques by forcing them to leave their squad and move outside the groups they had formed.
"(Benitez said) You finished 30 points off the top last season but are you a 30-points-inferior squad? No? Then why, he challenged players”, he told The Sunday Times.
"Rafa said, 'I’ve been here three days. The last person comes to dinner and the first's already gone. Here's the English [clique], here's the French and here's the united nations... from now on I don't want to see you sit next to the same person twice. And the first doesn’t get up before the last finishes dinner. It's about respect.'
"I don’t think I'd ever spoken to Harry Kewell until Benitez arrived. Not a bad lad, just not my cup of tea.
"So I sat down next to Harry, 'How's it going H? Missus? Kids? How old are they now, are they in school?'
"Twenty minutes later I'm in my room thinking, 'He's actually all right’. I'm not saying that's the reason we won the Champions League, but Rafa started a thought process in everybody that day."
The similarities in playing styles between Houllier and Benitez meant Hamann was always likely to remain a key component of the Spaniard’s side and he played 43 out of Liverpool’s 60 competitive matches in 2004/05 yet bizarrely, as it had done with Houllier in Leverkusen, Benitez’s faith in his German midfield general wavered at a critical moment and could have cost him everything.
Having figured in the majority of games during the Reds’ remarkable run to the final in Istanbul, including a vital goal direct from a free kick in the last 16 first leg win over Bayer Leverkusen, Hamann was surprisingly left out of the starting line up against AC Milan in favour of Harry Kewell.
Liverpool supporters filing into the Ataturk Olympic Stadium for what would become the night of their lives were stunned to find out the man whose defensive resolve had played such a big role in seeing off newly-crowned Premier League champions Chelsea in the semi-final only weeks before was on the bench, as were Hamann's team-mates.
“We got the team wrong, Didi Hamann should have been playing from the off”, said Jamie Carragher, while skipper Steven Gerrard admitted, “Rafa was the most reliable strategist I’d ever played under. But, for me, he made a blatant error even before we walked out.
“Rafa played the wrong formation. Harry was not 100% fit, but I was more worried that we had lost the steady anchor and vast experience of Didi.”
Hamann’s reaction though was typically phlegmatic.
“We had the same routine for such games: We’d have a look at the pitch and the stadium about 90 minutes before kick-off, then we’d go back into the changing room prior to the warm-ups and Rafa would tell us the starting lineup. He ran through the team as he always did, and that’s when I found out I wasn’t going to be starting the game.
“There had been no indication that I wasn’t going to start. I’d had a medial ligament injury a few months earlier, but I’d played against Chelsea in the semi-final and a few games thereafter, so there were no issues on that front. As a player, you have a pretty good idea of whether you are going to play at any given game, and I was pretty confident I was going to start the final. It was a surprise that I didn’t.
“Rafa didn’t explain his decision to me, but he didn’t need to. He can only pick 11 players. I wasn’t one of the 11 he selected for the game, and that’s just the way it was. There is nothing to explain really—he obviously wanted to include Harry Kewell, a player who could make a difference, and that was probably the reason. I was disappointed, but at the same time, I had to stay focused because if someone got injured in the warm-up or early in the game, then I'd have to be in the right state of mind to come on.”
Concerns over Kewell’s fitness proved correct when he broke down within 20 minutes with Liverpool already a goal down to Paolo Maldini’s first minute opener but still Benitez did not turn to Hamann, bringing on Vladimir Smicer who had only started two matches all season and was set to leave the club that summer.
It was only at half time, with Milan now three goals up and the Reds looking down the barrel of humiliation of historic proportions, that the Spaniard turned to the German to get a grip of Brazilian schemer Kaka who had run amok in the first 45 minutes.
The apparent chaos in the Liverpool dressing room during that pivotal quarter of an hour is well-documented with Hamann initially being told he would be coming on for Djimi Traore only for an injury to Steve Finnan meaning he would make way but the German’s calm demeanour which helped one of sport’s most famous comebacks happen was evident in his recollections of that hectic 15-minute period.
“Whatever Rafa said, it didn't work out too well in the first half! He didn't usually speak a lot but I found him fascinating. He made people think and he was just brilliant in not saying much but making people think about certain aspects of the game and he would say things that made people think. In four games against the Italian and English champions, we had only conceded one goal, so one thing we could do was defend.
“The longer I was warming up, the more I thought: 'well they scored three in the first half, why can't we?' and the finals we had won, when the games got close and it was a dogfight, we always came out on top. I was convinced if we got one, we could get a second. After the first one went in, I was sure we would.”
Hamann’s presence, along with a tactical switch to three at the back, almost immediately gave Liverpool a platform in midfield and a foothold in the game and, incredibly, before the match reached the hour mark they had restored parity thanks to Gerrard’s header, Smicer’s strike from the edge of the box and Xabi Alonso’s penalty rebound.
As the Italians steadied the ship following the astonishing whirlwind six minutes which had seen the Reds draw level, the match resumed the general pattern of before with Liverpool straining every sinew to repel Milan's efforts but this time strengthened by their German defensive shield and Gerrard's eventual switch to right-back held out to force extra time and ultimately penalties.
Hamann’s only previous experience of a shoot-out with Liverpool had been four years earlier when he missed one in the Worthington Cup triumph over Birmingham City in Cardiff but his courageous decision to step up and take the Reds' first kick in Turkey was even more admirable given he had broken a toe after joining the match at half time.
“With about five minutes to go I felt a little crack in my foot. I found out later that it was a hairline fracture of a metatarsal in my right foot. It hurt for sure, but I was in no doubt that on this night of all nights, in this game of all games, I was carrying on.
“The period between the final whistle and the start of the shoot-out must have lasted about six minutes. Rafa came over and asked me a question. ‘Do you want to take a penalty?’ I had a broken bone in my foot, although of course Rafa was unaware of this, but I said nothing about it and had absolutely no hesitation in replying ‘Yes’.
"When I took my penalty, all that mattered was that I scored.”
There was pressure but also a glorious incentive given Milan’s Serginho had already blazed the first kick of the shoot-out high over the crossbar and Hamann cooly held his nerve to put Liverpool in front for the first time on the night.
Minutes later he was half-leaping, half-hobbling around the pitch in delight after the Reds completed one of the greatest fightbacks of all time to seal Liverpool's fifth European Cup before celebrating soon afterwards in his own inimitable style with chairman David Moores in the dressing room.
“David liked Marlboro Red cigarettes and they are a it stronger than Lights, let me tell you”, Hamann told Simon Hughes for his book Ring Of Fire.
“I thought to myself, This is the perfect time to sit back, kick back and take it all in. So I said to the chairman, "David, come into my office," and led him by the hand to the showers, which hadn't been turned on yet.
“’David, can I have a cigarette?" I asked him. He always called me Kaiser: "Kaiser, what if the manager finds out?" he said, the strain showing even more.
“’Just tell him you own the f****** club," I told him'.
“Rafa had asked me on his first day in charge about the rumours, whether I smoked. It was best to be honest. ‘Yes I do, boss’. He showed no expression and walked away.
“David took ages to open the packet because his hands were shaking so much. I think both of us needed a drag to settle us down. We stood there for five minutes in the dry shower saying nothing to each other, me in my full kit and David in his suit.
“Ash had fallen on the floor. It felt like that cigarette you have after sex.
“Coming back (to Liverpool) was probably the highlight of the whole few days. To see up to one million happy people from two years old up to 100 years old, some of them had tears running down their cheeks, it was just an incredible sight and that is why you play the game. If you make the fans happy then you did OK. It was just a brilliant time that I'll never forget.”
The Champions League final was looking like it may have been Hamann’s Liverpool swansong with his contract expiring that summer and Bolton Wanderers eyeing him on a free transfer but he signed a new two-year deal to keep him at Anfield and remarkably 12 months on history repeated itself as - after being part of the squad which travelled to Japan in a bid to bring the Club World Cup back to Anfield for the first time and ending up in a Tokyo police station - he came off the bench with the Reds behind in the FA Cup final against West Ham to help force a 3-3 draw and penalties before stepping up from 12 yards to give his side the lead in the victorious shoot-out.
That would however prove to be his final strike of the ball in Liverpool colours as, with the emergence of Momo Sissoko in his role having reduced his involvement and Benitez telling him not expect to feature a lot in the first team, he decided to move on in what become one of the more bizarre transfer sagas of the modern era which saw him sign for Bolton Wanderers, only to move from there to Manchester City 24 hours later for £400,000.
"In my final year at Liverpool I played 30 games, but for my liking that still wasn't enough”, Hamann recalled.
“I missed out on some important games and after all the good years I'd had there it wasn't an option to sit out my last year and just play 10 or 15 times. I'd had a few offers and, as much as I loved playing for Liverpool, and as hard as it was to leave, I wanted a new challenge.
"I had the offer from Bolton for a few weeks and thought it was the right thing to do. But after going on holiday I felt it wasn't the right decision. It is something I have got to live with and they allowed me to speak to other clubs. As soon as I heard Man City was interested I made my mind up pretty quickly."
He made 54 appearances over three years for City before moving to Milton Keynes Dons as a player coach and, following spells with Leicester City and Stockport County, now works in the media.
