It is a fairly common characteristic of most football supporters to expect our heroes to run through proverbial brick walls for the shirt they are privileged to wear.
It comes more naturally to some than others but as a general rule we demand those who get to live out our dreams, while getting paid handsomely to do so, put their bodies on the line, strain every sinew and push themselves through and beyond the pain barrier again and again without ever really appreciating the toll it can take.
There is more of an awareness now of the damage caused by the cortisone injections many players of the 1960s and 70s used to regularly take to get them through games, with many suffering severe mobility problems in retirement as a result, but there is perhaps a misguided perception that in the modern game with all the sports science and top-level medical expertise involved that players can now continually smash through their physical limits without consequence.
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The experience of one of Liverpool’s most cultured defenders of the Premier League era demonstrates that is not the case and, with football's bureaucrats seemingly still intent on showing their priority is milking their cashcow for all its worth and - to the chagrin of Jurgen Klopp amongst others - shoe-horning in yet more matches to an already saturated schedule, should act as a salutary warning.
Daniel Agger arrived at Anfield as a fresh-faced 21-year-old in January 2006 with a blossoming reputation as one of European football’s finest young defenders. Having been on the books of Brøndby in his native Denmark since the age of 12, he made his first team debut at 19 and soon established himself as a regular fixture in the side, helping them to a league and cup double in 2005 under the guidance of legendary former Juventus, Barcelona and Real Madrid midfielder Michael Laudrup, a boyhood Reds fan who himself almost ended up at Anfield in 1983, the young defender being awarded his first full international cap against Finland, and later that year being voted the Danish ‘talent of the year’ across all sports. After winning the Champions League against all odds in his first season as Liverpool manager, Rafa Benitez was attempting to build a side to end the Reds’ decade-and-a-half search for a 19th league title and, with a host of Europe’s top clubs rumoured to be jostling for the Dane’s signature, snapped Agger up on a four-and-a-half year deal said to be worth £5.8m, making him the most expensive footballer ever sold by a Danish club.
"Daniel will be one of the best centre-backs in England in the future, I am sure of that”, a delighted Benitez claimed after completing the signing. “A youngster like Danny can be worked with and he can become Liverpool's centre-back for the next 10 years. We have been looking a long while for a centre-back, we have looked all around the world. But Agger has the great qualities we wanted. He is good with the ball but also with his positioning. He already has international experience and a great future, the kind of player that I like. If you are 21 and you can train and work with Sami Hyypia and Jamie Carragher you can learn a lot. It will be fantastic to have these great players to help him progress. We talked to lots of players and agents but the first time we spoke to Danny he said it was a dream to play for us. For the most part, players think only of money. If you are going to play for Liverpool you must think of other things first."
Agger himself knew he would have his work cut out to displace the central defensive duo who had marshalled Benitez’s side to European glory only months before but was keen to follow in the footsteps of fellow Dane Jan Molby who had established himself as one of Liverpool’s most popular overseas imports two decades earlier. "My aim is just to become a better player and win trophies and I hope Rafa can help me do that”, he said. “It is a big job to displace Jamie and Sami from this team but that is my job and I will fight for my place. I know it will be difficult to break into this team, they are the champions of Europe. I am aware of my countryman Jan Molby being at Liverpool. I know how good a player he was and what a great hero he was here, but if I can do anywhere near as good as him here I will be happy."
Agger’s Liverpool debut somewhat slipped under the radar, coming on the same night Robbie Fowler made his second Reds bow after re-signing from Manchester City, but he acquitted himself well enough against Steve Bruce’s Birmingham City, receiving an early welcome to the physical nature of English game when being on the receiving end of a crunching tackle from Damien Johnson which saw the Blues midfielder dismissed by referee Uriah Rennie before the first-half had elapsed and only being deprived of a first clean-sheet for his new club by Xabi Alonso’s 88th minute own goal which earned the visitors a point. The Dane made only three more starts, all of which resulted in victories against Manchester City, Fulham and Newcastle, before the end of the season but by August he was in the starting line-up for the Reds’ Charity Shield victory over Chelsea in Cardiff and, a fortnight later, scored a memorable first goal in red (later voted the club’s strike of the season) on the day The Kop celebrated its 100th birthday, advancing forward from the halfway line and arrowing a spectacular 30-yard left-foot drive into the top corner right in front of the iconic terrace.
Having won the FA Cup the previous May, the hope was Benitez’s side - in his third season at the helm and with the Spaniard’s squad having been bolstered that summer by the acquisitions of Dirk Kuyt, Craig Bellamy, Jermaine Pennant and Fabio Aurelio - would be in a position to compete for the Premier League title but a series of testing early-season fixtures away from Anfield saw defeats at Everton, Chelsea, Bolton, Manchester United and Arsenal before mid-November, forcing a realignment of expectations. Agger’s early showings however, despite the inconsistencies in the team's results, were cause for optimism and he regularly got the nod over the now 33-year-old Sami Hyypia despite his rawness and lack of physicality, the Dane’s ball-playing ability in particular impressing Jamie Carragher, who commented in November 2006, “Ever since he has come in he has looked like a typical Liverpool centre-back, going back to the days of Mark Lawrenson and Alan Hansen, and he is very good on the ball”.
Agger’s silky smooth style seemed to perfectly complement his Scouse centre-back partner’s more robust approach and hinted at a productive partnership for years to come, even if the Dane was clearly very different in others ways as well to the notoriously football-obsessed Carragher. “I know it probably sounds strange”, Agger admitted in an interview in that same autumn of 2006, “but I have no real interest in football, aside from playing. When my career is over, I will walk away from the game for good. I already have plans, but all I will say is they have nothing to do with football. That is my character. But there is a big difference between being laid-back off the pitch and how I am on it. Something happens when I put my boots on and go out there. I become a different person. I just switch on and come alive."
By the turn of the year, more consistent league form had settled the Reds into the top four but they went out of both domestic cups within three days at the start of January after suffering twin defeats at home to Arsenal making the only realistic prospect of silverware the Champions League where Liverpool had been paired in the last sixteen with reigning champions Barcelona. Benitez’s men showed great character in the wake of the infamous Bellamy/Riise golf club incident and breathed new life into their season by first fighting back from a goal down in the Camp Nou to win the first leg 2-1 and then seeing the tie out at Anfield after conceding to win on away goals, giving Agger - who started both legs - a first real taste of the power of Anfield on European nights.
“People talk about the Chelsea semi-finals but the last-16 tie against Barcelona was the best atmosphere I ever experienced at Anfield”, he told the Athletic. “That was one of the best Barca teams ever with Ronaldinho. They had won the Champions League the season before but somehow we managed to win 2-1 over there. I remember Carra and me looking at each other in the Camp Nou after we went 1-0 down and thinking, ‘This could be bad’. Carra and me complemented each other well. We were different types but we had a similar attitude and winning mentality. You could always rely on Carra. As a young player settling into a new team it was good to have someone like him alongside me. Football isn’t about what’s your top level, it’s about what’s your bottom level and his was very high. The noise at Anfield when we walked out for the second leg against Barca, I’d never felt anything like that. I saw in the faces of their players that they were thinking the same.”
PSV Eindhoven were swept aside with ease in the last eight and, for the third year running, Benitez’s men were pitched against Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea in a major cup semi-final. A Joe Cole effort decided the first leg at Stamford Bridge in favour of the Londoners and Agger endured a difficult night after being targeted by Didier Drogba, coming in for criticism afterwards particularly from the Danish media who questioned the 22-year-old’s ability to play at the highest level. “You don’t need to worry about Daniel Agger, he’s going to be a top player for years to come”, Jamie Carragher told the assembled media before the Anfield second leg with manager Benitez also offering a ringing endorsement and big show of faith in his young defender’s capabilities. “Agger will learn from his experience against Drogba”, the Liverpool manager asserted. “Drogba can cause problems for some of the best defenders in the world. Daniel will be an even better player every time he plays in games such as this. He’ll have an outstanding game in the second leg. I’m sure of this. He’s that type of character.”
Benitez’s prediction was proved correct in a manner even he might not have expected with Agger not just producing a superlative defensive performance alongside Carragher in keeping Drogba, Lampard, Essien, Robben and the other world-class talent Mourinho’s side boasted at bay, but also scoring the vital goal which levelled the tie midway through the first half, meeting Steven Gerrard’s short free-kick from near the touchline with a sublime first-time left-footed effort from the edge of the penalty area which skimmed past Petr Cech and into the bottom corner before the Chelsea goalkeeper could react to equalise on aggregate and send the already-febrile Anfield atmosphere up another level.
Unlike the herculean backs-to-the-wall rearguard effort of two years earlier, Liverpool outplayed the soon-to-be-deposed back-to-back English champions and were unfortunate not to win the game on aggregate with Dirk Kuyt hitting the bar in the second half and having a goal incorrectly chalked off for offside in extra time before two Pepe Reina saves from Robben and Geremi decided the penalty shoot-out and sent the Reds to a second Champions league final in three seasons.
“It was a great feeling when I scored”, Agger admitted afterwards. “I felt amazing, Stevie and I never tried that in training, we only talked about it. I’m proud of how all the players performed. All of us worked very hard, and best of all we kept our concentration for 120 minutes and made no mistakes, which is very tough at this level against great players. When I think back to what happened in the first leg, I really don’t know what to feel about it. I really didn’t feel I played that badly. For some reason, some people decided to say I had a bad game. Didier Drogba is one of the best strikers in the world and one of the best I’ve ever played against. I saw playing against him as a big challenge for me and that’s something I look forward to. He brings the best out of me and I thought he was outstanding in both games, but it’s just that everything in football is decided by the result and people never look at what really happened in the game afterwards. There are some journalists in Denmark who like to get together and write the same things, so if one person says something they all agree. That’s just the way it is, and to be quite honest I don’t give a damn about what they have to say although, in a strange way, the Danish media going against me this time made me more motivated because I’m the kind of person who can show it doesn’t matter what’s written. I’ll never be affected by that. It’s strange for me because the reaction in Liverpool has been so different and positive. I’ve never even been to a Champions League final as a spectator, but I know it’s a massive game and one I’m really looking forward to now.”
The final in Athens would be a repeat of two years before with AC Milan desperate to exact revenge for the Reds’ extraordinary fightback in Istanbul from three goals down but, despite an indisputably stronger Liverpool side putting in an arguably better performance than they did in the Turkish capital, the Italians won 2-1 courtesy of two Pippo Inzaghi goals with Dirk Kuyt’s stoppage time close-ranger header, after Agger had flicked on a Pennant corner, only a consolation effort in the final reckoning. “Losing in Athens was my biggest disappointment in football”, the Dane would later reflect. “They weren’t better than us that night. The feeling you have before a Champions League final for the first time is simply impossible to explain. It can’t be explained but it should be experienced. To have so many people who spend so much money and travel so far to see a game in which you are going to play in. That is dedication and I thought a lot about that.”
Despite the sting in its tail, Agger had enjoyed an impressive first full season on Merseyside and, with the club now under the new ownership of Americans Tom Hicks and George Gillett and seemingly able to fund the acquisition of more young talent like Fernando Torres and Ryan Babel, hoped to build on the progress made but a troublesome metatarsal injury picked up in September 2007 wrecked much of the Dane’s campaign with him only able to make six appearances in total and by the time he was fit again at the start of the 2008/09 campaign, there was further competition to be Carragher’s centre-back partner with Slovakian Martin Skrtel having joined the club from Zenit St Petersburg the previous February. Agger admitted he felt like he was almost having to restart his Liverpool career and he would have to wait until mid-October for a first league start when Wigan Athletic came to Anfield, showing his rustiness early on when dispossessed by Egyptian forward Amir Zaki who put the Latics ahead in front of a stunned Kop before the Dane rectified matters minutes later by striding forward into the penalty area and setting up the equaliser for Dirk Kuyt in an eventual 3-2 Reds win.
The following weekend he was in the side which kept a clean sheet at Stamford Bridge and condemned Chelsea to a first home Premier League defeat in 86 matches spanning five and a half years, putting Benitez’s men top of the table for the first time that season and underlining their credentials as genuine title contenders. But despite racking up a club record points tally for the modern era of 86 and only losing two league games all campaign, it was not enough to wrestle the trophy from the grasp of Manchester United who Liverpool beat home and away, the Old Trafford club agonisingly drawing level with Anfield’s tally of 18 top-flight titles. With Benitez rotating his centre-backs at times, Agger only managed 26 appearances in all competitions and there was speculation over his future but he signed a new five-year contract in May 2009 and, with Sami Hyypia leaving the club that summer for Bayer Leverkusen, was hopeful of increased game time as the Reds aimed to build on the strides of previous seasons and take that final step to the much-yearned for yet elusive league title only for the Dane’s injury problems to return with a vengeance.
He had been experiencing back problems as far back as 2007 which were exacerbated by an awkward fall during a pre-season trip to Thailand the following summer and during a game on the 2009 tour to Singapore landed straight on his back after having his legs taken when going up for a header. “That evening we had to fly back to Liverpool and I couldn’t sit down”, he recalled. “From that day, it all went wrong with my back. By compensating, I got all different kinds of muscle injuries. It was always either my back or something linked to my back. I had pain all the time. I took so many painkillers and anti-inflammatories. At one point I had a prolapsed disc. I kept playing with injections. After my son was born, I couldn’t even lift him up from the bed. I said, ‘Enough is enough, we need a surgery’.”
The operation enabled him to manage the back problem to the extent he was able to make 36 appearances during the 2009/10 campaign but, despite reprising his short free-kick routine with Gerrard to put Liverpool ahead in the first leg of their Europa League quarter-final at Benfica with a deft backheel, it was a season of misery at Anfield where not only did Benitez’s side fail to muster any kind of title challenge, they were eliminated in the group stages of the Champions League and even missed out on qualification for the following season’s competition. The manager was sacked and, with the club descending into a damaging civil war which it brought it to the brink of bankruptcy as the toxic ownership of Hicks and Gillett unravelled, journeyman coach Roy Hodgson was appointed as Benitez’s replacement after leading Fulham into the Europa League final.
Agger suffered a concussion in the opening league game against Arsenal and, hampered by a number of niggling injuries as well as Hodgson’s training methods, had made only four league starts by the turn of the year. “I completely lost my desire to come to work because his training sessions were really hard to get through”, the Dane admitted. “Not physically but mentally. It was the same and the same and the same. Day in and day out. Often we had eight forwards playing against me and Martin Skrtel [apparently to let Fernando Torres score to regain his confidence]. Skrtel and I had a really hard training session as we were defending against eight with two but the eight players attacking were just faffing around. They had hardly run a kilometre and it was so uninspiring.”
The dark clouds encircling Anfield began to shift with Fenway Sports Group (then known as New England Sports Ventures) completing their protracted £250m takeover in October 2010 and Hodgson being replaced the following January by Anfield icon Kenny Dalglish who returned as manager, initially on a caretaker basis. The wreckage of Hicks and Gillett’s reign cost Liverpool amongst other things the services of Torres who, disheartened by the broken promises and decline in the club’s fortunes since his arrival, demanded a transfer during the January window and joined Chelsea for a British record £50m despite the recent improvements in the boardroom and dugout and with the signing of world-class Uruguay forward Luis Suarez imminent. The fates of the fixtures lists meant Torres’s Chelsea debut would be a home fixture against Liverpool the weekend after his move was completed and, early on the Reds’ 1-0 triumph, Agger - rarely the most physical or demonstrative of defenders - suggested the frustration and anger many supporters felt at the Spaniard’s decision to leave after seemingly ‘downing tools’ as well as his choice of destination also extended to the dressing room by leaving his former team-mate in a heap on the ground and clutching his jaw following a robust challenge near the touchline.
"It is unacceptable to play for one of Liverpool's arch rivals”, Agger said afterwards. "For a Dane, it's about having respect for the club you play at. I am proud to be able to pull on my Liverpool jersey and will never go to another club in England. I would never go to Manchester United or Everton, for example. It's about a form of respect for the club. I suppose Liverpool got a lot of money for him and, if the player doesn't want to be there any more, there is no reason to keep him. I should say I think everyone at Melwood liked him and still do, because he is a good guy and we wish him all the best in a blue shirt - except against us. Why has Torres been so poor? That is a big question isn't it? How to explain that. But look at the team. We played awful, we were s***. He is a part of the team so, when everything is playing well, normally he plays a lot better. It is the same for everybody, for me, for Stevie, it is the same.”
Restored to the starting line-up by Dalglish and liberated like many of his team-mates by Hodgson’s departure, Agger began starting to show his best form again before a knee injury in an infuriating defeat at West Brom, who had appointed Hodgson as manager a month after his Anfield departure, brought the Dane’s season to a premature end but he was back in the starting 11 when the following campaign began and, despite continuing to pick up injuries which caused him to miss chunks of matches, was frequently preferred to the now 33-year-old Carragher as Martin Skrtel’s defensive partner which was the case at Wembley in February 2012 when the Dane finally won the first - and what proved to be the only - winner’s medal of his Liverpool career as the Reds beat second-tier Cardiff City on penalties to lift the League Cup, even if he was unable to complete the ninety minutes and didn't play again for another six weeks.
Dalglish’s men were chasing a domestic cup double and Agger - who opened the scoring in the FA Cup fourth round triumph over Manchester United at Anfield - was back in the side for the semi-final against Everton at Wembley where, despite being involved in a shocking defensive mix-up with Carragher which enabled Nikica Jelavic to give the Toffees a first-half lead, Andy Carroll’s 87th minute winner took Liverpool to a second cup final of the campaign. Soon-to-be-crowned European champions Chelsea triumphed narrowly at Wembley however and, despite ending the club’s six-year trophy drought, Dalglish was dismissed soon afterwards following a poor run of league form in the second half of the campaign which resulted in an eighth place finish, the club’s lowest since 1994.
The 39-year-old Brendan Rodgers was FSG’s choice to replace the Scot on the back of having led Swansea City into the Premier League through the play-offs for the first time in the Welsh club’s history and there were portents to the difficult relationship Agger would have with the Northern Irishman when he conceded a penalty and was sent off as the Reds crashed to their heaviest opening day defeat since 1937 when losing 3-0 at West Brom. The Dane would sign a new long-term deal in October 2012 and, with Jamie Carragher’s career winding down - the Bootle-born defender would retire at the end of the campaign - Agger featured regularly, making 39 appearances overall, his second highest total during his time on Merseyside.
Agger was even awarded the vice-captaincy the following August following Carragher’s departure and the £18m signing of Paris Saint Germain’s 23-year-old French international defender Mamadou Sakho but, despite being part of three successive clean sheets as the Reds began what turned into an unlikely and extraordinary title-chasing season with a trio of single goal victories over Stoke, Aston Villa and Manchester United, the faultlines in the Dane’s relationship with the Liverpool manager began to open up after the first defeat of the campaign at home to Southampton in mid-September. Agger had played despite carrying an injury and was deemed at fault for the Saints winner headed home from a corner by Croatian centre-half Dejan Lovren, who Rodgers would ultimately sign the following summer to replace Agger.
“After the game he did not speak to me”, Agger recalled. “Something went wrong. I was the first to admit that it was my fault. I apologised but as one of the physios said there was no need to apologise as the other 50 times that I had said that I was ready and played, even if I wasn’t fit, it had been fine. In those games one couldn’t see it but then there was this game, where I could not keep track [of my player]. Maybe he felt that I wasn’t good enough and that Mamadou Sakho, Kolo Touré and Martin Skrtel were better then me. Then fair enough because the most important thing is for Liverpool to win football games. That’s the most important thing for me too. But in 42 days I went from being first choice and the club’s new vice-captain to be fourth choice centre-back.”
The Dane was benched for the next match away at Sunderland and would have to settle for infrequent appearances thereafter, the mistrust between player and manager again coming to the fore during a fractious exchange during half-time of Liverpool’s eventual 4-3 victory over Swansea in late February. With the Reds 3-2 up after a topsy turvy first period which saw the Swans draw level after going two behind early on, Agger along with defensive partner Skrtel were criticised for letting Ivory Coast striker Wilfried Bony have too much of the ball. “Everyone was quiet”, Agger remembered, “but I stood up and said, ‘How can you stand there and say that when we are only doing what you have been going on about all week.’ Rodgers just looked at me and muttered, ‘Whatever.’ I was substituted 12 minutes later.”
Chief among the Dane’s frustrations at his treatment was the fact he had twice turned down moves to Barcelona after seeking assurances from the Northern Irishman he was part of his plans. The Catalans had been keen to sign him during the two previous summers, with Manchester City also wanting to take him to the Etihad. “Whenever I had a good offer to go, I told Brendan that if he didn’t see me as part of his plans I’d leave but if he wanted me to stay then I’d fulfil my contract”, Agger said. “I loved being at Liverpool. My family loved it there. But if Brendan had said to me he wasn’t 100 per cent sure I would have gone. Brendan said he wanted me there but I don’t think he really did. How close was I to Barcelona? I had the contract in front of me. I just needed to put the signature on it. I could have done it as Liverpool actually agreed a price with Barcelona and I accepted my terms. I remember I had to go down in salary but I was fine with that.
The day I was meant to sign it, City came in with an offer that was bigger. Liverpool then went to Barcelona and said, ‘Now this is the price’. Barcelona said, ‘F*** off, we have an agreement, you can’t change this now’. My agent told me that Barcelona didn’t want to be part of an auction, especially not with City. I went to the club and told them ‘I don’t care how much City have offered, I am never going to play for them, so forget it’. Liverpool tried three times with me because City kept raising what they were willing to pay for me. I said there was no chance. I was never going to play for a rival of Liverpool. The only club I would have gone to was Barcelona. Liverpool p***** off Barcelona so much that in the end nothing happened. I didn’t mind staying. Maybe I should have been more aggressive but that’s not my style. I loved it at Liverpool and that’s where I wanted to finish my career. However, I could only do that if the manager wanted me. Looking back, if I knew how 2013-14 was going to pan out, I would have said the previous summer, ‘OK, I want to go to Barca’.”
Despite their cross words at half time against Swansea, Agger kept his place for the next five matches which resulted in victories, the last of them - a 4-0 rout of Tottenham - putting the Reds top of the table with six matches left to play and suddenly in with a real chance of a sensational league title triumph with rivals Manchester City and Chelsea still to visit Anfield. The Dane was managing a minor knee problem but, even with all eyes on the City showdown a fortnight away, he did not want to miss the trip to West Ham the weekend before. “We had a meeting”, he recalled, “and Brendan said, ‘Don’t worry about this game, I really need you for the City game. We’ll handle this one’. I told him I really wanted to play and I was ready but he was adamant it was best to hold me back for City. So I sat out the West Ham game and then trained all week to get ready. Then the City game arrived and I was left out. Brendan told me ‘Yeah, I can’t change a winning team’. That annoyed me so much. I said to myself, ‘Right, no more bull****, I’ll do it my way’. It just seemed like a soap opera. Like he said stuff but he didn’t really mean it. It just seemed that every chance he had I was out of the side.”
Liverpool beat City without Agger at an emotional Anfield on the weekend of the 25th Hillsborough anniversary before winning at Norwich the following Sunday to move within seven points of guaranteeing the title but Steven Gerrard’s cruel slip against Chelsea handed the initiative back to City. The Dane was only restored to the starting line-up for the final match of the season against Newcastle at Anfield when the Reds’ slender title hopes rested on West Ham pulling off an unlikely victory at the Etihad. He would find the net with Liverpool’s 100th league goal of the campaign just after the hour mark to cancel out Martin Skrtel’s first-half own goal but Daniel Sturridge’s winner counted only for pride with the Etihad club comfortably seeing off the Hammers to finish heartbreakingly two points ahead of Rodgers’ men.
With it now clear Agger had little future at Anfield under Rodgers, a number of top clubs made offers to sign the Dane, who at 29 still potentially had plenty to offer at the highest level, but he returned home to Brondby (then managed by current Brentford boss Thomas Frank) in a £3m deal to bring his eight-and-a-half year spell on Merseyside to an end. “I told Liverpool I wouldn’t even look at other clubs”, he recalled. “I said I’d go to Brondby or just sit tight. After I said it was time to leave, Brendan told me, ‘But we need you here’. Liverpool wanted to sell me to another club but I was so annoyed with them that I said, ‘I make the rules now’. That was typical me because when I get something in my head, especially when I feel like I’ve been p***** on, I think ‘I’ll show them I’m in charge’. The way it ended with Liverpool was one of the things that ended my career. Footballing-wise, it wasn’t a clever move. I made a big mistake not knowing what I was going back to. I loved every day at Brondby. The fans were unbelievable. When I returned home I’d never experienced anything like it. But looking back that was another bad decision. I didn’t fully check what kind of state Brondby were in. They were close to going bankrupt, they had saved themselves on the final day from relegation. The club was in chaos.”
He would play on for another two seasons before calling time on his playing career at only 31 with the injuries - and in particular, the painkillers and anti-inflammatories he was regularly taking to play through them - having taken their toll. In a series of interviews with Danish paper Jyllands-Posten after his retirement in 2016, Agger revealed how after taking far more than the recommended dosage to be available for Brondby’s clash with rivals FC Copenhagen the previous March he had to be substituted after less than half an hour of the game and collapsed shortly afterwards, being left shaking and unable to control his body. “I have taken too much anti-inflammatories in my career”, he admitted. “I know that full well, and it sucks, but I did stop it in the end. I am not gaining anything personally from saying this but I can only hope that other athletes do. It could be that others take a pill or two less. The body could not cope with it. It reacts to what is put into it and this was my body’s way of telling me that it had had enough. When the head can’t work it out, then the body had to do it.”
Agger went on to set up a sewerage company with his brother which expanded into a multi-million pound business, before in March 2021 - despite his insistence years earlier he had zero intention of staying in football after he finished playing - becoming manager of Danish first division side HB Koge, with former Denmark team-mate and Everton full-back Lars Jacobsen as his assistant.
“When I used to say I’d never come back to football I was 100 per cent sure about that but over time I realised that I’d stopped playing way too early. I was unfulfilled, 100 per cent, and felt like I still had a lot more to give. It just ended so quickly. Although I’ve got a lot of companies and things have gone well with them, none of them give me what football gives me. I had a feeling of emptiness. A lot of former players talk about missing the dressing room, but I don’t miss that. What I miss is the feeling of winning, of being on the pitch and making a difference. The buzz comes from winning. You can’t replicate that. I’m not talking about trophies, I’m talking about trying to win every single game. As a player that’s what gave me the motivation. It took me from being a kid in Denmark to walking out at Anfield. It’s the same now as a coach. If I do well then I just want to be better.”
Among Agger’s business ventures is what's said to be the world’s biggest tattoo community with 20 million users a month and the Dane, a qualified tattoo artist himself, has among his extensive body art the letters YNWA inked on to the fingers of his right hand in honour of Liverpool’s timeless anthem. “It means a lot. That’s the feeling me and my family had when we were in Liverpool. We were never alone there. My family always felt good there. Whenever we talk about Liverpool at home, the kids smile. We lived near Calderstones Park. I remember my wife was in shock after she got the bus into the city when she was working at the Radisson hotel. One lady next to her on the bus started talking to her and then it happened every day. In Denmark that would never happen. What I found was that in Liverpool they are happy for other people’s success. I like that. There’s nothing worse than people who can’t accept other people’s success. Even my kids and my wife, who have no connection with football, felt it in everyday life in Liverpool so it must be real. It’s a city we will keep returning to for the rest of our lives.”
