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Steve McManaman (born February 11, 1972 in
Liverpool) is an English football
(soccer)|footballer, who plays as a midfielder. A
vastly experienced player after a career that
spanned two of World Football's biggest club sides
in Liverpool F.C.|Liverpool, and Real Madrid, a
documentary on ESPN in 2004 stated that McManaman
holds the coveted reputation of arguably being
English football's most successful football export
to have ever plied the trade overseas, after an
immensely successful time at the Spanish giants- a
club FIFA also crowned as the Club of the 20th
Century in 2000. 

Nonetheless, albeit the fact that McManaman holds
several records for being the only Englishman to
have won several continental honours with a
foreign club, McManaman is currently without a
club after being released by his final contracted
playing club since 2003, Manchester City
F.C.|Manchester City on May 20 2005 and seems
likely to take the route of retirement in favour
of media commentary and pundit work as was last
reported by ITV media network, where he provided
analyses for the 2005 UEFA Champions
League|Champions League Final. Retirement aside,
McManaman also talked to ESPN about the fact that
he was going to obtain his coaching badges, and
hence, a foray as a Coach or into Football
Management in the future should not be ruled out
as well. Despite all this however, doubtlessly, it
is the scouser's exceptional decade long career at
his home town club -- English football giants
Liverpool F.C.|Liverpool, that he will perhaps
best be remembered for. 

Kevin Keegan once commented that there were "few
finer sights in world football than that of Steve
McManaman dribbling the ball down the length of
the pitch". It was that kind of accreditation that
backed McManaman as he developed into the player
reputed for his exceptional stamina and incredible
pace when dribbling the football, and McManaman
himself revealed in his autobiography of sorts
released in 2004- the Sunday Times' "Book of the
Year", published by Simon & Schuster, and titled
El Macca: Four Years with Real Madrid- that he ran
long distance as a youth and was educated at
Merseyside's Campion High School – a school
with a reputation for producing local footballers.
Oddly enough, the book also talked about how
McManaman was rejected by the club he supported as
a boy – Everton F.C.|Everton, only to sign
for Liverpool, who were the dominating force in
the English game at the time and was managed by
Kenny Dalglish. Dalglish apparently gave McManaman
a free pair of boots when signing the youngster on
professional forms after McManaman had been talent
spotted by the late Jim Aspinall – the
Liverpool scout who also went on to pick up the
precocious young talents of Robbie Fowler, Michael
Owen and Steven Gerrard. The 6ft tall slim framed
McManaman began his career at Liverpool in 1990,
was touted as a future International talent at the
age of 18 and interestingly, was picked for
England national football team|England Under-21 by
Lawrie McMenemy even before he made his debut for
his club. 

Outside of football, according to an article by
International Herald Tribune IHT's Rob Hughes,
McManaman grew up a bright young lad in a home
where "horses" were in his blood, where he was
exceptionally close to his horse-punting Liverpool
street bookmaker (gambling) grandfather and
football-adoring father, who adored Alfredo Di
Stefano and Real Madrid. The Official United
Kingdom horse-racing website lists McManaman as
one of the big British Celebrity National Hunt
racing owners alongside fellow known acquaintances
of his like Rod Stewart, Andrew Lloyd-Webber,
Eddie Jordan and Vinnie Jones, citing McManaman's
company, 'The Macca and Growler Partnership' and
its most prolific horse, "Seebald". The horse,
bought by McManaman and Robbie Fowler from
bloodstock agent Graham Bradley, finished second
in the 2002 Arkle Trophy and was famously trained
by Martin Pipe and raced by ace jockey Tony McCoy
as it went on to become the winner of the 2003
Queen Elizabeth the "Queen Mother Celebration
Chase" as well as taking part in several Grand
National races over the years. The extent of
McManaman's horse infatuation came to light when
he famously commented: "I'm a racehorse fanatic
rather than a football fanatic," speaking via a
telephone interview with BBC radio in 2002. "I'm
even more nervous about Cheltenham Racecourse than
I am about playing for Real Madrid. Its a
different kind of buzz. When I play football, its
more controlled; at horse racing I'm an outsider.
You just have to hope they go well, really." 

As a football player, throughout the 1990s,
McManaman rose the ranks at Anfield and shot to
fame not only as a constant in the team throughout
the decade, but emerging as arguably the biggest
star out of a largely unsuccessful era for
Liverpool where the club won only an FA Cup in
1992 under Graeme Souness, and a League Cup in
(1995) under Roy Evans. A tricky and skillfully
pacy player whose laid back demeanour masked
innate natural abilities in the game, McManaman
won over Liverpool fans worldwide, being one of
the only sparks in an abysmal period for the club.
Early on in his career, he was given a leg up when
injury crises at the club enabled him constant
opportunities to coast into the first team.
McManaman jumped at the chance and his
performances in the 1991-92 season lit up the Kop
as he formed a prolific partnership with both Dean
Saunders, and Liverpool legend, Ian Rush. It was
McManaman who scored several crucial goals en
route to the 1992 FA Cup final before going on to
Wembley to create the winning  goal for Michael
Thomas in only his first full season as a
professional. McManaman also solidified his
reputation in the next few years as one of the
game's two best young wingers- the other being
Manchester United's Ryan Giggs. In 1995, McManaman
scored both goals in a man of the match display in
the League Cup Final, often dubbed the McManaman
Final, picking up the 'Alan Hardaker Trophy' and
an individual commendation from Sir Stanley
Matthews, the great "wizard of the dribble", with
whom McManaman earnt strong comparisons to.  

McManaman enigmatically struggled to repeat fine
club form with England national football
team|England, drawing comparisons to his mentor at
Liverpool, John Barnes, but managed to string a
series of splendid match winning performances for
his country under Terry Venables, in Ec|96,
earning praise from even Pelé, who according to
the BBC, touted him as the tournament's best
player. Together with team mates David Seaman and
Alan Shearer, McManaman was also listed in the
official team of the tournament. McManaman
blossomed even further in the years ahead and was
an ever present for the next four seasons, playing
some remarkable football for Liverpool as the
playmaker of the team, winning three consecutive
'Player of the Year' awards at the club. 

By 1997 and 1998, 'Macca', as he was
affectionately known, was a household name and had
a reputation continent wide as well as in Asia.
His form echoed no less than world class, and he
was linked to many top football clubs including FC
Barcelona|Barcelona and Juventus. The former even
made an official bid that involved McManaman
flying out to meet them after Liverpool had agreed
to sell him to the tune of 12.5 million pounds:
what would have been a record transfer at the
time; standing just behind Alan Shearer's record
breaking million pound fee to Newcastle United
F.C.|Newcastle United in 1996. McManaman was
arguably put up for sale because there was the
risk of him allowing his contract to expire and
leaving on a Bosman ruling|Bosman transfer for
free, at a time when his estimated value was that
of one of the top ten midfielders in European
Football. 

However, according to an article in the Far
Eastern Economic Review by Stephen Thanabalan,
along with Fowler, Jamie Redknapp, David James
(footballer)|David James, Jason McAteer, Stan
Collymore, and later Jamie Carragher, Paul Ince
and Owen, what started out as an effectively
positive affirmation of their talents as the
'hottest young Liverpool idols' since The Beatles,
McManaman et al. was at the fore of a labelling
culture that hung like an innuendo around the team
of the 1990s. An unsavoury combination of fame and
excesses emerged and was notoriously fused with an
underachieving label on the professional football
circuit where the whole shebang came to the fore
in British tabloids in  the 1996 FA Cup Final,
where Liverpool were beaten by Alex Ferguson's
Manchester United F.C.|Manchester United after
Eric Cantona scored a late goal in a game where
the Liverpool players like McManaman were
sashaying around in cream colored Armani suits
during the Pre-Cup Final reception. McManaman,
Redknapp and James were reported to have cashed in
on their newfound fame and good looks as stars of
the nascent FA Premier League, exploiting their
fame with modelling contracts and deals with
fashion labels like Top Man, Hugo Boss and Armani,
culminating in the players getting derogatorily
labelled, the Spice Boys. 

McManaman was not just labelled as such because of
what was a collective culture at Liverpool, but
more so because the lively and cheeky McManaman
(and his best friend Fowler) had been no strangers
to controversy when they already suffered tainted
reputations for being photographed enjoying high
jinks through some of their close associations
with fellow controversial England colleagues such
as Paul Gascoigne and Teddy Sheringham in the lead
up to Ec|96. Much of these scarring rumoured
excesses played out in the form of tabloid fodder
and would continue to dog them for the rest of
their careers, with the nature of these ranging
from soap opera star girlfriends; fast cars; and
drink claims all the way to the more controversial
including: nightclub brawls; outrageous goal
celebrations (miming the snorting of cocaine off a
goal line in 1999; dentist chair celebrations at
Euro 96); and a sordid sex 'roasting' session
detailed by News of the World, in 2003. According
to The Football Association's official website,
Fowler was even humourously quoted as quipping:
"Steve looked like a choirboy - but he wasn't."
 

Wild card behaviour with Fowler aside, ironically,
or rather concomitantly, it was in these years
that McManaman was named as one of the sexiest
persons on the planet by a top British Magazine,
alongside George Clooney, Antonio Banderas and
Leonardo DiCaprio, and McManaman famously did
spreads for British magazines like Loaded
(magazine)|Loaded, and The Face. McManaman also
earned himself some pop avenue fame when it was
publicly declared that he was the favourite player
of one of the famous Spice Girls, Mel C, who,
incidentally, was managed by McManaman's then
sports agent, and subsequent Pop Idol and American
Idol pioneer, Simon Fuller. There were always two
sides to McManaman though and in 2002, The
Guardian, wrote a piece on McManaman's
intelligence, describing how he would have
"waltzed into university" like his barrister
fiance (they wed at the Palma Cathedral in Majorca
that year) had he not played football, remarking
that McManaman was one of the few footballers to
give articulately intelligent interviews almost
all the time. 

Despite fame, or as some argued, as a result of
too much of it, the underachievment tag in
football hung around McManaman and the Liverpool
team and remained ostensibly rampant under then
Liverpool Manager Roy Evans, albeit the fact that
until then, it was McManaman who starred as the
lynchpin and playmaker of the team - the key
distributor in whom the side had arguably been
formulated around, producing some of the
continent's best attacking football flair in the
game at the time, with McManaman garnering most of
the attention and also becoming reputed for being
a scorer of spectacular albeit few goals- most
notably an injury time solo dribble past an entire
Celtic F.C.|Glasgow Celtic team in the UEFA Cup,
with Aston Villa and Arsenal F.C.|Arsenal also
familiar victims of his over the years. 

Still, true to what many critics highlighted,
McManaman, unlike his favourite player from
childhood-  Bob Latchford, was a poor goalscorer
per se: yielding just 66 goals for Liverpool in
364 official appearances. In fact, it was his
uncanny ability to conjure up huge numbers of goal
assists that made him indispensable and earnt him
placements in the PFA's Premiership XI of the
Season rankings for several years running, as well
as accolades like Match magazine's Mr.Consistent
awards over the years.

Nonetheless, McManaman and the Liverpool team
failed to replace Manchester United as England's
No.1 club of the 1990s. They had played well but
never enough to consistently see themselves
through to Premier League title glory, proving to
be 'nearly men' in the challenge for honours. That
failure meant inevitable changes at the club, and
in November 1998, Liverpool appointed Gerard
Houllier as the new manager. McManaman despite the
arrival of the new coach, or rather, arguably as a
result of, decided nonetheless, in his opinion, to
seize the opportunity to "pursue a desire to test
himself abroad", after he admitted having gotten
advice from Gascoigne, Ince and Chris Waddle, who
in his words in an interview on ESPN in 2004,
"spoke very highly of it". 



The Cup final goal was notable also because
McManaman famously reserved his goal celebrations
for the Real Madrid substitutes' bench and players
like Christian Karembeu and Iván Campo|Iván
Campo. However, in his corresponding three seasons
there, in what would be a recurring theme for
McManaman, Il Dandy the Dancer as he was known
there (thanks to his playing flair), ironically
found himself 'benched' more often and saw his
playing time reduced each year as competition for
spots was fierce with the arrival of superstars in
the form of Luis Figo in 2000, Zinedine Zidane in
2001, and Ronaldo in 2002. McManaman though,
showed his resilience to the team and won the
respect of his fellow professionals like Zidane,
Raúl González, Jose Maria Gutierrez|Guti and
Iván Helguera|Iván Helguera, who backed him
publicly alongside the Real Madrid supporters who,
according to El País, in 2001, voted him with
their 'white handkerchiefs' (a terrace favourite)
after he scored another one of his memorable goals
for the club against Real Oviedo. Eventually, the
Board, including Florentino Perez relented,
declaring that a "man like that would always have
a place in my club". McManaman's jovial and
easy-going, humble personality enabled him to
assimilate into Spanish culture and like another
mentor of his, Michael Robinson, won over the
Spanish press too, and often resulted in in him
being photographed having a good time even with
more illustrious teammates like Ronaldo, Figo and
Roberto Carlos. An interview with Marca
(newspaper)|Marca, in 2001 saw Figo pay McManaman
the ultimate compliment of "genius", while Ronaldo
was quoted by a Daily Telegraph reporter
describing how McManaman and him (neighbours in
the upmarket district that also had residents like
Pedro Almodóvar) would have lots of fun together,
with McManaman translating lyrics to his favourite
songs by artists like Eminem.

However, the signing of fellow Englishman David
Beckham in 2003 eventually forced McManaman down
the pecking order at Real Madrid and in 2003,
along with teammates Claude Makelele, Fernando
Hierro and later Fernando Morientes, McManaman
headed back to England, joining Manchester City
F.C.|Manchester City, where he played for two
seasons and suffered a torrent of abuse from his
new club's supporters, who expected more from such
a top player, eventually leaving after spending
much of his time coming in and out of injuries,
occasional 'handbags' with Gary Neville and
dealing with speculation of his career as one that
was 'over the hill'.

For England national football team|England,
McManaman will forever remain an enigma at
international level, where England coaches with
the exception of Terry Venables and Kevin Keegan,
utilised McManaman's talents sparingly. McManaman
made only one appearance at the Wc|1998 and once
more in Ec2|2000, where he scored the last of his
three goals for England in that one game against
Portugal national football team|Portugal. The last
of hist caps came in 2001 where Sven Goran
Eriksson utilised him for his first games for the
2002 World Cup qulifiers, but apparently left a
message on McManaman's answering machine to inform
him that he was not going to be in the final
Wc|2002 England squad, despite the pleas of Zidane
and Fernando Hierro for McManaman's case; an
omission McManaman claimed he never understood.
McManaman was capped 37 times for England.

==External links==
*http://www.stevemcmanaman.cjb.net The Steve
McManaman Story by Stephen C Thanabalan -
Completely Inimitable Definitive Website on Steve
McManaman - pictures, profile, biography