The path to legend status is very rarely linear in football.
Sure, there are a few examples in Liverpool history of individuals who started well, got even better and seemingly effortlessly developed their greatness step-by-step to write their names into the fabric of England’s most successful club - Kenny Dalglish, anyone - although the iconic and modest Scot would no doubt be the first to say there were bumps in the road even if they weren’t always evident from the outside.
For the majority of those whose achievements have written their names into the Anfield pantheon though, there have often been hurdles and obstacles for them to overcome before glory happened. Often that has been part of the charm, the idea of triumphing over adversity striking a chord with many within a club and city that over the years has almost made beating the odds something of a mission statement.
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And that is very much true for the goalkeeper whose heroics in Istanbul back in 2005 ensured the European Cup took up permanent residency in L4 after what will be forever regarded as one of the most unlikely fightbacks sport, let alone football, has ever seen.
It feels somewhat fitting that Jerzy Dudek will always be associated with that balmy night in the Turkish capital given the rollercoaster nature of his Liverpool career was in keeping with the haphazard way events panned out in the Ataturk Olympic Stadium. And while it would prove to be by a distance the high point of the Pole’s spell at Anfield even if in truth it would mark the beginning of the end of his time at the club, the enduring mutual affection which still exists between the Pole and Liverpudlians fifteen years after his departure is testament to the respect he earned through his determination to prove his critics wrong as well as the working-class values he exemplified which found a natural home on Merseyside.
Overcoming setbacks was something Dudek was forced to become familiar with from an early age having suffered life-threatening third-degree burns after an accident as a baby which left him scarred but lucky to be alive. His character was very much shaped by the mining community he grew up in in Szczygłowic, in the Silesia region of southern Poland, where his father and grandfather both worked down the pits.
After recovering from his early brush with death the young Dudek soon found an aptitude for sport, not just football but also boxing, gymnastics and table tennis, the latter of which he was so proficient at an offer to play for the junior teams of local club AZS Gliwice followed but clashes with football training indicated where his priorities - and his future - lay. He initially played outfield but when no-one wanted to go in goal during training the youngster tried his luck between the sticks and soon got the taste for it, even honing his skills at home where he would throw a ball at the wall and dive onto the sofa to try and catch it.
His natural enthusiasm and drive to better himself did not immediately convince those at Gornik Knurow, the junior club he joined the age of 12, that he had what it takes or even that goalkeeping was his position, as coach Witold Slabkowski amusingly revealed in Dudek’s autobiography ‘A Big Pole In Our Goal'.
“At the beginning Jurek (a nickname sometimes used by Poles instead of Jerzy) hadn’t got a clue what goalkeeping was”, he recalled. “Once I said to him, ‘You dive like a bag of potatoes’. He was physically underdeveloped. I started to work with him on the basics. He strived to be the best. We worked hard on jumping, manoeuvrability and agility. He had a great appetite and it helped”.
The youngster worked his way gradually through the youth ranks at Knurow, beginning a mining vocational course at 17 which was based at the Knurow stadium rather than the local pit giving him plenty of opportunity to learn and absorb from a football environment while still offering a future if his dreams of turning professional did not happen, even if that was initially difficult for the humble teenager to rationalise as he himself admitted in his book.
“Every month when I went to get my salary, I felt a little bit embarrassed that I was queueing in line with the real miners as I knew they had to go down the pit and work really hard for the same money I got for working at the stadium. For two years I checked in at 7am on the pitch, cleaned the stands, cut the grass and did any job that needed doing.”
Diligence and dedication paid off in the form of a move to third division club Concordia Knurow where after making his debut soon after his 19th birthday he established himself as first choice and soon drew attention by breaking a league record after going 416 minutes without conceding a goal. It would take four years of patience before his abilities were rewarded with a move to a bigger club in the top flight of Polish football, Sokol Tychy, but it paid off when, after less than a season and a string of impressive performances, he was offered a trial with Feyenoord.
The Dutch giants had been alerted to his talents when Sokol had travelled to Holland and played against them in a winter training camp and, although Dudek admitted feeling out of his depth training against the likes of Henrik Larsson, Ronald Koeman and Ed de Goey, the security of a five-year deal was sufficient reassurance for the newly-married Pole to take his chances and try his luck in a bigger European league. He would have to wait a year to make his league debut but, following number one goalkeeper De Goey’s move to Chelsea in the summer of 1997, Dudek established himself as first choice and rapidly one of most admired stoppers in the country.
Naturally at home in the working-class port town of Rotterdam - which he described as “a city of people who don’t like clever dicks”, a moniker which could easily also be applied to his next port of call - the Pole didn’t miss a league game for the next four seasons, helping the De Kuip club to the Eredivisie title in 1999 and winning the Dutch FA award for the league’s best goalkeeper ahead of Ajax’s Edwin van der Sar and Twente Enschede’s Sander Westerveld, who would move to Liverpool later that summer. His consistency and reliability saw him retain that award the following campaign along with winning De Telegraaf newspaper’s ‘De Gouden Schoen’ (the Golden Boot) for the Eredivisie’s best player, the first non-Dutch player to do, bringing with it a prize which meant more to the devout Catholic than any football prize ever could, a personal letter of congratulations from Pope John Paul II. Fellow Pole Karol Jozef Wojtyla was reputed to be a talented amateur goalkeeper himself before going into the ministry and Dudek was stunned to receive such a missive from a man he held in great esteem and who would go on to subconsciously feature later on in his story.
“Initially I thought it was a prank set up by people not knowing the importance of the prank but when I saw the stamp and the official headed paper I had no doubts it really was a letter from the Vatican”, he recalled. “The Bishop of Rotterdam set it up and I still can’t believe such a thing could happen. After the emotions of reading the letter it was comparatively relaxing to receive the award but also a hugely proud moment.”
Although no other major honours followed at Feyenoord, Dudek’s performances in the Champions League began to draw the attention of some of Europe’s top clubs and he was linked with moves to Real Madrid and Barcelona before in the summer of 2001 Arsenal took steps to try and bring him to the Premier League. Arsene Wenger was looking for a long-term replacement for David Seaman and, having travelled to London to meet with the Frenchman, Dudek was hugely impressed with the Gunners’ ambition and training facilities but much to his frustration the clubs were unable to agree a fee.
The Pole returned to Rotterdam in a slightly awkward situation having already said his goodbyes ahead of the anticipated move to Highbury but knuckled down and refused to create an issue such was his respect for the club and its fans after four happy years in Rotterdam. Only three games into the new season, his wish to take the next step in his career was fulfilled when rumours Liverpool were interested in bringing him to Anfield emerged and soon proved to have substance after Gerard Houllier’s patience with Sander Westerveld - who only months earlier had helped the Reds to an unprecedented treble of cup triumphs - snapped after a costly late error at Bolton Wanderers. After the heartbreak of his move to Arsenal breaking down, Dudek was initially wary of getting his hopes up again but Houllier and assistant Phil Thompson flew to Holland to ease his concerns and, despite late interest from Inter Milan, a £4.85m fee was agreed although late glitches over a blood test and contractual issues briefly threatened to have history repeat itself.
They were eventually ironed out and Dudek duly pen to paper on a long-term deal - only to find much to his surprise that Liverpool had also signed another goalkeeper on the very same day! 20-year-old Coventry City custodian Chris Kirkland had been on the Anfield radar for some time and, having already been capped by England under-21s and been voted the Sky Blues’ player of the season despite their relegation from the Premier League months earlier, the Reds swooped for a fee of £6m - a British record for a goalkeeper at the time - once the Dudek deal looked in danger of falling through before deciding to go ahead with both transfers.
It was a remarkable and unprecedented turn of events and a shattering message to Dudek’s former Eredivisie colleague Westerveld over his Anfield future but for the Pole - back home ahead of a make-or-break World Cup qualifier against Norway in which victory would send them to their first finals since 1986 - the relief at securing his move from Feyenoord was matched with pride at the exalted level he would now be operating at especially when his parents visited him at the team hotel to share in the moment.
“We were chatting and drinking coffee”, he recalled, “when my mum took something from her bag: ‘Look what I’ve brought for you. Do you remember it?’ She handed me the Liverpool scarf which had been hung over my bed for a couple of years. I had completely forgotten about it. It was a souvenir from a junior tournament in Germany where we had lived with German families. I was 17 at the time and it was priceless to me. Nobody in Poland had such a thing as a Liverpool scarf at the time. I took the scarf to two Gornik Zabrze games but was scared someone would take it from me so hung it over my bed instead. I didn’t even dream I would play for Liverpool when I was a teenager so this felt like a fairytale!”
It proved to be a momentous weekend with Poland duly beating Norway 3-0 to book their spot in Japan and South Korea the following summer and Dudek was soon on his way to Merseyside, incredibly bumping into Westerveld - the man he had been bought to replace - at Amsterdam Airport, with the Dutchman graciously stopping to chat and proving to be an important figure over the coming months in helping him settle in despite the consequences for his own future. It was only when arriving at Melwood for his unveiling however that Dudek realised Liverpool had bought another goalkeeper at the same time as him but his concerns were swiftly eased when Houllier assured him he would be first choice with Kirkland having been brought in to learn from him.
"It has always been our aim to strengthen every area of the team", Houllier said having posed for photographs with arms around both of his new goalkeepers. “That is why we have ensured the signing of these two major goalkeeping talents. The addition of a hugely promising young talent together with an experienced international will provide a major boost to the club."
Dudek was swiftly brought back down to earth with Liverpool slumping to a 3-1 Anfield defeat to Aston Villa in his first game and then just three days later making his European debut for the Reds in a surreal 1-1 draw at home to Portuguese minnows Boavista in a match played the same evening as the 9/11 attacks in the United States. A first victory for his new club came the following weekend when the Reds fought back from a goal down to win the Merseyside derby against Everton at Goodison Park but for the Pole those first few weeks were among the most difficult of his life until his wife and young son were able to fly out and join him.
“I felt really lonely. I was in a new place with a new language I couldn’t speak and had to learn everything from the beginning. I lay on the hotel bed and began to wonder if I could make it at Liverpool. Would I be able to play at this high level? Why did I move from Rotterdam? There I had everything, here I had nothing. I had joined a world-renowned club, the most successful in England, but the training facilities were better at Feyenoord. With respect to Liverpool you could feel the history of the place. It felt like nothing had changed at Melwood since it was built in the 1950s although Houllier would soon change that. It was similar to Concordia in Poland and there were buildings that looked like they were from a shanty town! ”
He even joked with his agent over whether Feyenoord would be able to pay back the money they had received from Liverpool if they had kept the receipt but was reminded of his tough start in Holland and allowed himself to be convinced things would settle down soon for him. Houllier’s warmth and humanity also helped sooth those early fears with the Frenchman outlining how he was building a team with no superstars but hard-working and down-to-earth players which is how he believed he could get the best from them and achieve a lot. “I realised how nice Houllier was, how he cared about his players. He spoke about them like a father about his kids which uplifted me.”
Further invaluable support came from the club’s player liaison officer Norman Gard who Dudek would say he and many of his team-mates couldn’t have imagined life in Liverpool without. “If any player needed anything we went straight to Norman. There was no problem he couldn’t solve. He helped with a million things for which I will always be grateful. When Houllier brought Norman in he knew the players should be focused only on playing football and resting so that’s why the club needed a man who could sort out the other problems. He was brilliant in that role.”
The additional support became even more important when, barely a month after Dudek’s arrival, Houllier suffered a life-threatening heart problem which saw him rushed to hospital during a clash with rivals Leeds United at Anfield. An 11-hour operation was required to save his life and months worth of recuperation and rehabilitation would follow before he was able to resume dug-out duties meaning assistant Phil Thompson took over as caretaker boss. The Kirkby-born former European Cup winning Reds skipper galvanised the squad to perform for their stricken leader and, despite a sticky mid-winter spell, had kept Liverpool in contention for both the Premier League and Champions League by the time the Frenchman returned to the sidelines in mid-March.
Dudek had proved to be a revelation since his arrival, barely putting a foot wrong and producing a string of impressive performances, notably away at Derby County when a late penalty save from Fabrizio Ravanelli secured three more points that kept the Reds top of the Premier League. The famously-workaholic Houllier was in regular touch with many of his players by telephone during his long lay-off and Dudek felt those calls connected him emotionally with the man who had placed so much faith in him, helping him settle despite the knowledge fellow new keeper Kirkland was waiting in the wings for his opportunity at the first sign of any slip up. The Pole and his team-mates had heard suggestions Houllier would return in a director of football role when he was well again with Thompson staying in charge of the team so they were as surprised as anyone when he appeared on the touchline ahead of the crunch Champions League clash against AS Roma in which victory would seal a quarter-final spot. A spot in the last eight was duly earned after a famous 2-0 victory but the Reds would go no further after a shock second leg defeat at Bayer Leverkusen, with Houllier’s surprise decision to substitute midfield lynchpin Dietmar Hamann in favour of Vladimir Smicer when in command of the tie seen as a pivotal error. The Frenchman had declared on his return Liverpool were ‘10 games from greatness’ but despite winning nine of their last ten Premier League matches it wasn’t enough to overhaul Arsenal although runners-up spot and a then-record points tally in the modern era of 80 gave rise to hopes that the top prizes Anfield craved were not far away.
For Dudek it had been a very successful first season after his protracted move from Holland. 27 clean sheets in all competitions saw him win the respect of his team-mates and the Kop with his efforts seeing him nominated for the UEFA Goalkeeper of the Year award alongside Oliver Kahn and Gianluigi Buffon. Despite briefly losing his place in the Liverpool side to Kirkland after picking up an injury in February, he soon won it back and headed off to the World Cup in good heart even if nagging doubts at what he and his team-mates had witnessed after Houllier’s return would bear out before long.
“We soon realised he had become a different man”, Dudek said. “I had only known him for a short time before he was taken ill so it was handed for me to measure it but the lads who had worked with him for longer were surprised at how he had changed when he returned full-time. He became aggressive and suspicious and lacked the calmness and patience he was famous for. “
Dudek’s World Cup dream had not turned out how he had hoped with defeats in the opening two games to hosts South Korea and Portugal seeing them eliminated with the Liverpool man left out of the final fixture against the USA. He returned to pre-season mentally and physically exhausted but was thrust straight into the punishing programme all the squad were put through with no allowances made for those recovering from their summer commitments, the pressure of his rivalry with Kirkland for the number one spot not being eased by what he felt was goalkeeper coach Joe Corrigan’s championing of the young Englishman’s cause.
Eyebrows had been raised when Houllier had passed up the opportunity to permanently sign Nicolas Anelka who had performed well on loan during the second half of the 2001/02 campaign, choosing instead to spend a club record £11m on Senegal forward El-Hadji Diouf but Liverpool started the new campaign well and led the Premier League in early November until a late Dudek error at Middlesbrough brought the first domestic defeat of the campaign. It proved to be a major turning point for the worse, certainly in the short-term for the Pole, and ultimately for Houllier’s reign. Three days after the defeat on Teeside, failure to win away at Swiss minnows FC Basel saw the Reds crash out of the Champions League which had a devastating effect on the morale of the squad who would not win again in the league until mid-January by which Dudek had lost his place in the side after a nightmare showing against Liverpool’s rivals Manchester United.
On a bright December Sunday lunchtime at Anfield with a tight encounter against Alex Ferguson’s side goalless, Dudek - who admitted to dithering over whether to wear a cap to guard him from the glare and choosing not to - let a back header from Jamie Carragher slip through his grasp to gift Diego Forlan an easy tap-in, the Uruguayan adding a second minutes later with a shot that went through the Pole. Sami Hyypia’s consolation was not enough to salvage anything and Liverpool’s season - which only weeks earlier had looked in rude health - lurched to a new low.
“Part of the problem was I had taken the criticism for Poland’s poor displays at the World Cup personally and was exhausted mentally”, he admitted. “Now I had made a massive error in the biggest game in English football and I massively took it to heart. I sat in the Anfield dressing room afterwards and cried. I asked myself why it had happened to me. I was gutted. The lads were trying to cheer me up but it had no effect. I was the last player who left the stadium that day. I wanted to go home, lock myself in, close the curtains and open a bottle of vodka to forget what had happened. Never before had I drowned my sorrows in alcohol after a match but this was different. I’d never felt worse.”
Houllier backed his goalkeeper publicly after the match, as he had after the mistake at Middlesbrough the previous month, but privately had decided to take him out of the firing line and give Kirkland a run in the side but not before giving the Pole the chance to get his Manchester United horror show out of his system with Liverpool facing a League Cup quarter-final against Ipswich Town at Anfield three days later. Named in the starting line up despite speculation he would dropped, Dudek performed well against the Suffolk side, saving two one-on-ones as the Reds reached the last four on penalties.
“I realised why You’ll Never Walk Alone is the club’s motto that night”, he later said. “I didn’t want to play but Houllier said I should face up to what happened immediately and show strength. The supporters sung my name over and over again and it was the first time that happened at Anfield. There is no other club in the world with supporters like that. They had my back and I was desperate to repay that faith, even if i thought it was ironic I had to make a terrible mistake before my name was sung in the stands!”
It would take some time to repay that faith as Kirkland was given the nod in the next match away to Charlton and kept his place but the injury woes which scarred the Englishman’s career saw him pick up a serious knee injury at Crystal Palace in late January which saw the Pole back in the side and within weeks a shot a redemption - against of all sides, Manchester United - presented itself. After the Ipswich victory, semi-final success against Sheffield United saw Houllier’s men reach the League Cup final in Cardiff and, despite the Red Devils dominating much of the game in the Welsh capital, goals from Steven Gerrard and Michael Owen along with a string of superb Dudek saves which saw him named Man of the Match saw Liverpool triumph 2-0 with Houllier’s pre-match prediction to his goalkeeper that he would be the hero coming true.
“In a game like a cup final you don’t care how you keep the ball out of the net, only that you do. Finals are all about the end result, not individual performances. I knew I had played well and helped the team to win but to be presented with the Alan Hardaker Trophy for being the best player on the pitch in a cup final between Liverpool and Manchester United was very special for me especially after what had happened three months earlier at Anfield. Houllier came over to me and said ‘I told you that you would be Man of the Match!’ At the time it was the proudest moment of my career.”
It was not enough to arrest the spiral of Houllier’s reign though. Final day defeat at Chelsea meant a season which had begun with genuine aspirations of ending the club’s league title drought ended with failure to even qualify for the Champions League and the following campaign was another grim struggle with Liverpool never at any point threatening to hit the same kind of levels that marked the early years of the Frenchman’s tenure which was brought to an end by mutual consent at its conclusion after scrambling to a top-four finish.
“The media attacked Houllier and I felt sorry for him but he couldn’t handle the criticism and deflected it onto the players which did not go down well in the dressing room”, Dudek admitted. “He became angrier and would vent his fury on us. It created unnecessary anxiety and with the press and fans becoming more and more critical, the pressure got to him more and more. Increasingly he had been trying to ‘motivate’ players by making examples of them in front of the other lads and had a go at me by listing every mistake I’d made, month by month. Later he came up to me in the gym and said he hoped I wasn’t upset but he destroyed my self-belief with that rant and showed his paranoia by addressing the whole squad and accusing us of playing badly to get him sacked. By the end, discipline had gone out of the window and respect had been lost. It was obvious he was not able to turn it round.”
Houllier’s replacement would be Spanish coach Rafa Benitez whose Valencia side had briefly broken Real Madrid and Barcelona’s dominance of La Liga and whose streetwise side’s schooling of Liverpool in the 2002/03 Champions League had to some degree ushered in the Frenchman’s decline. Dudek began as first choice goalkeeper under the Spaniard but at the start of October was told he’d been given a chance and the new manager now wanted to see what the highly-rated Kirkland could do. Despite concerns over his future and the new ways of working Benitez and new goalkeeping coach Jose Ochotorena were implementing, Dudek felt it may have done him a favour admitting it took him most of the campaign to get to grips with the higher starting position the Spaniard demanded from his goalkeeper as well as the much-debated zonal marking system.
He was back in the side for good after consecutive Kirkland errors against Olympiacos and Everton prompted Benitez to conclude the Pole should be his number one and, with the Englishman picking up another injury soon afterwards, he never played for Liverpool again. Those two matches had summed the paradox of the Reds’ wildly inconsistent season with impressive progress in the Champions League being hampered by fluctuating fortunes in the Premier League which saw them spend much of the campaign chasing Merseyside neighbours for a top-four finish and, after embarrassing FA Cup third round defeat at Burnley and an unfortunate loss to Chelsea in the League Cup final, hopes of silverware rested with the European Cup where the last 16 had been reached after Steven Gerrard’s heroics against Olympiacos.
Paired again with Bayer Leverkusen less than three years after the late collapse under Houllier in Germany, the quarter-finals beckoned after goals from Garcia, Riise and Hamann racked up a handsome three-goal lead ahead of the second leg only for a late Dudek spill to allow Franca to grab an away goal and offer the Germans a glimmer of hope.
“Our away form wasn’t especially good at the time so even though we had won the game 3-1 the media attention was on me and the error I had made”, Dudek remembered. “I had played well until the 92nd minute but that was generally ignored. ‘Thanks to me’ - as the media put it - Bayer could progress to the next round on away goals by winning 2-0. It meant that I was exceptionally focused before that return leg. So too were the rest of the team but it meant a lot to me to get a result. By half time Garcia had scored twice and the tie was over. My mistake had not proved as costly as people had predicted. That put us into the last eight and normally you would hear talk that nobody is thinking about reaching the final at such a time. Benitez did things differently though! He told journalists after the game Liverpool’s players had to believe quickly that they can reach the final because if we did then we could do it. We heard this and started to talk about it in the dressing room.”
There were few outside Anfield’s inner sanctum who shared that belief, especially when the Reds were paired with Italian giants Juventus in the quarter-final. Dudek missed the first leg which Liverpool won 2-1 with young understudy Scott Carson who had arrived in January from Leeds deputising and, although fit and back in the side ahead of the Turin return, rumours had started to emerge that Benitez would be bringing in a new goalkeeper in the summer. Remembering he had made his Champions League debut for Feyenoord at Juventus in 1997, the Pole wondered whether things were coming an unhappy full circle for him but a defensive masterclass from a Reds side missing Steven Gerrard and Dietmar Hamann secured the goalless draw needed to reach the last four with Dudek largely untested but alert enough to make a fine save to stop a Djimi Traore rebound sneaking in after a Cannavaro header had hit the post.
The Reds’ remarkable rearguard in Italy set up a semi-final showdown with Chelsea who were on the brink of being crowned champions after dominating the Premier League from the off during Jose Mourinho’s first season in charge at Stamford Bridge. The Portuguese coach had been linked with Liverpool before pitching up in London and, having made no secret of his admiration of Steven Gerrard whose future had been subject to much speculation in recent times, ramped up the pressure ahead of the last-four clash but it acted only as motivation to a squad now starting to seriously develop the belief Benitez had talked about after the win in Leverkusen that they could go all the way, as did Xabi Alonso’s harsh yellow card in the closing stages of the goalless Stamford Bridge first leg which ruled him out of the return. Luis Garcia’s early ‘ghost goal’ at Anfield six days later gave Benitez’s men the perfect platform to again showcase the defensive template which had stunned many by getting them this far and Dudek was again largely uncalled upon, only having to make one smart stop from a second half Frank Lampard free kick, until with seconds left of the six minutes of stoppage time added on by Slovenian referee Lubos Michel, the fates - which had not always been kind - smiled on the Pole just when he needed it most.
“The atmosphere at Anfield was absolutely unbelievable that night”, he said. “It was the loudest I ever heard, a wall of noise that felt like an extra man, but in stoppage time it almost played a part in Chelsea getting the goal they needed. We knew how close we were to realising our dream and so did Chelsea who were now just hoofing long balls into the box. When that final one came into the box and John Terry headed it across I had a good view of the ball and was confident of getting to it first. I screamed to Sami Hyypia I was coming off my line to grab it but because of the noise and incessant whistles from the stand he didn’t hear me! He jumped to head the ball clear at the same time and as he did so Kezman used his shoulder to give him a nudge which meant we collided in mid air and all I could do was punch the ball. I didn’t make good contact and it fell to Eidur Gudjohnsen at the far post with me and Sami on the floor. Less than six yards out with only Djimi and Carra on the line and Drogba steaming in at the far post, he had to score. He couldn’t miss even if I still thought one of our lads would block it somehow. We were in that frame of mind we felt like no-one could score against us but it was a hairy moment! He chested it down and flashed a volley which went past Djimi at the near post, Carra at the far and Drogba as he desperately tried to get a touch, the ball going inches wide. You could feel the relief in the stands and on the pitch. Moments later the final whistle went and the celebrations were fantastic. The noise levels got even louder and I’ll never forget You’ll Never Walk Alone ringing around the ground as we celebrated on the pitch.”
It meant, against all expectation given the travails they had been through, Liverpool were headed for Istanbul for the club’s first European Cup final in 20 years where they would face AC Milan. The Italians had made heavy weather of their own semi-final against PSV Eindhoven, only progressing on away goals after almost blowing a two-goal first leg lead, and with Benitez’s tactical analysis having identified a number of flaws where he felt Carlo Ancelotti’s side could be exploited Dudek admitted there may have been some over-confidence in the ranks. But before the match he felt only pride at becoming only the third Pole to play in European football’s showpiece occasion as well as inspiration at how the stars seemed to be aligning to set him and Liverpool up for glory.
Superstitious Reds fans had already noticed similarities between 2005 and previous seasons when their side conquered Europe such as Wales winning rugby’s Grand Slam, Prince Charles getting married and the Pope dying, the latter event being of emotional significance to Dudek given his personal connection to his compatriot. As well as the letter received after receiving the ‘De Gouden Schoen’ during his time in Holland, the Liverpool goalkeeper had met the Holy Father during a trip to Rome with the Polish national team in 2003 when he was told, “Do you know how many Liverpool supporters there are in Vatican City? When you play a game for the Reds everyone prays for you and the team? The Pope is your biggest fan!”
The Pope’s passing just three days before Liverpool’s quarter-final against Juventus in early April affected Dudek so much emotionally it was one of the reasons along with recovering from illness and a minor injury he told Benitez he wasn’t in a fit state to play in the first leg against the Italians and he absorbed himself in reading one of his idol’s books in the days leading up to final to give him perspective and ease the tension. The Papal influence even extended back home in Poland where his mum Renata admitted, “We watched the game with Jurek’s brothers-in-law. I excused myself and went to the other room. I lit a candle and grabbed the rosary beads which I received from Jurek which he had brought to me when he returned from the Pope’s visit. I started to pray.”
Those prayers no doubt had become even more fervent by half time in the final with Liverpool three goals down to the rampant Italians and facing humiliation on the global stage and were answered as the Reds astonishingly scored three times in six minutes before the hour mark to draw level but only after a vital Dudek save within moments of the restart when he plunged low down to his right to push aside a fierce Andriy Shevchenko free kick, and Lady Luck smiled again midway through the second half when the Pole spilled a simple gather and was relieved to see Djimi Traore turn the resultant goalbound effort off the line.
Penalties looked inevitable as the game stretched into extra time but, before Dudek had the chance to be a hero in the shoot-out, with just three minutes of the added period remaining he produced the greatest save of his career and arguably in Liverpool history. Having contained the Italians - albeit at full stretch - for much of the second hour of the game, a left wing cross from Brazilian winger Serginho suddenly found Shevchenko unmarked six yards out with the Pole able to push out the downwards header but only straight back to Ukrainian forward with the goal gaping.
“I was hoping my team-mates would help me as I wasn’t able to get up quickly to dive on the ball or clear it away”, he described. “All I could do was at least try to get up and be in front of the goal. I was on my knees and I think one of my legs was even a little behind the line. The odds were stacked against me. In that split second, with the AC Milan player almost on top of me, I instinctively raised my hands up. It was a pure impulse. I almost screamed, ‘Here I am! Aim at me!’ His shot struck my hand - the ‘hand of God’ I jokingly called it after the game. The ball could easily have broken through my fingers and flown into the net. But it didn’t. It flew upwards instead. It was almost like I’d swatted away a giant insect to protect myself. I quickly sprang to my feet to be ready for the ball coming back down from the Istanbul sky but it landed behind the net. John Arne Riise raised his hands like I’d just scored a goal. It felt like I had. Had the ball hit the net then our dream would have been over. ‘This is what you wanted’, I thought to myself, ‘to make such a great contribution in the final few minutes’. I couldn’t believe what had just happened. I’ve seen the replays many times since and the expression on my face as the reality of what had just occurred hit home says a thousand words: ‘That was impossible’. For the first time in my life I was proud of myself. It was a moment I will never forget.”
With Jamie Carragher furiously urging him before the spot-kicks began to do everything in his power to put the opposition off like Bruce Grobbelaar had in Rome during the Reds’ last European Cup triumph back in 1984 and his confidence bolstered by his late miracle save, Dudek went on to stamp his personality all over the shoot-out, handing the ball to each Milan taker as they stepped up, saying a few words to try and get inside their heads and gyrating on his line to distract them, “like a starfish with jelly legs, he did a much a better job than I did!” Grobbelaar later claimed.
It worked a charm with Serginho blazing the Italians’ first kick high and wide and the Pole saving the second from Andrea Pirlo despite being so far off his line he was almost on the edge of the six yard box. Successful strikes from Hamann and Cisse had put the Reds two up and, while the Pole was unable to keep out kicks from Tomasson and Kaka, Vladimir Smicer’s successful conversion meant Andriy Shevchenko had to convert Milan’s fifth and final kick to keep the contest going.
“He looked like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders”, said Dudek. “I had hold of the ball and as I passed it to him I gave him something else to think about. ‘Andriy? Andriy? Will you shoot the same way as usual?’ As he ran up to strike the ball I danced around on the goalline again. I waved my arms, jumped and did the wobbly legs. I think it created uncertainty in his mind as when he reached the ball he almost stopped. He wanted to shoot to my right side but at the last second he spotted I was diving that way so tried to change his mind and put the ball in the opposite corner. But it was too late. He couldn’t adjust his body and sent the ball straight down the middle. I was hanging in the air like someone had miraculously held me there. It was like slow motion as the ball came towards me. I raced my left hand and left leg as I dived to my right in the hope I would get something on it. The ball hit my left hand. It landed one metre in front of the goal. I saved it! I saved it! I SAVED IT!! I leapt to my feet, ran right past the referee and when I saw the rest of my team-mates running towards me the realisation that it was all over hit me. So did the lads! It was total madness, a sense of euphoria I had never experienced before and will never be able to accurately describe.
“It felt to me like God himself had helped us. Like he had looked at how badly we played in the first half and showed mercy by guiding us on this last-minute trip to the presentation to receive the cup. Personally I had my own ‘last-minute’ moment with God at the very end of the match: ‘There you go Dudek. For all those years of your hard work, patience and persistence. This is also for those who believed in you, even after the first half in Istanbul. Thousands at the stadium, millions in Poland and in England.’ We had to receive an injection of impetus from somewhere and for us to turn that result around was divine intervention. It cannot be explained in another way. There is no rational explanation.”
After celebrating with his team-mates and hundreds of thousands of people on the streets of Liverpool during the victory parade, Dudek dashed home to Poland where his son was due to receive his first Holy Communion and was brought to tears on the flight back when the pilot made a special announcement over the tannoy to congratulate his Champions League-winning passenger to widespread applause. His euphoria was soon tempered however when it became clear the rumours which had emerged months before that Benitez was seeking a new goalkeeper were true, with Spaniard Pepe Reina signing from Villarreal for £6m in early July.
Concerned over his future with another World Cup only a year away, Dudek confronted Benitez who said he understood his predicament but praised his professionalism and expressed a wish for him to stay and fight for his place but gave assurances a solution would be found if Liverpool received a suitable offer. Reported interest from Sporting Lisbon, Werder Bremen and Roma came to nothing and then a dislocated elbow in training kept the Pole out of action until November before further transfer interest from Benfica and Cologne followed in the new year. A move Portugal and potential hook-up with their coach, Dutch legend Ronald Koeman who Dudek had played with at Feyenoord, appealed but was a non-starter after the sides were paired together in the Champions League last 16 before the German club stepped up their interest. Talks were held with the Pole keen to go but the relegation-threatened German side wanted him on loan before committing to a permanent deal which Liverpool didn’t favour, and with Cologne boss Michael Meier telling Dudek Benitez was refusing to take calls, Dudek's anger spilled over on transfer deadline day.
“As soon as training had finished I stormed over to him and ripped my gloves off in an aggressive manner. The lads could see I was fuming so all hung around to see what would happen. Footballers love seeing a bit of confrontation on the training ground!” On being told there was no chance of a loan deal and the German side would have to double their offer for a permanent deal, the red mist took over.
“To be completely honest I genuinely considered punching Rafa in the face”, he admitted. “Then the consequences of doing so flashed through my mind. Would he let me go? Or would it just lead to a massive media scandal? Surely I couldn’t stay if I gave him a smack? I don’t know but I managed to stop myself. Punching a Liverpool manager who had won the European Cup only a few months earlier wouldn’t have looked too good on the CV I guess but I was still angry. As I walked off Stevie walked alongside me. ‘You wanted to punch him, didn’t you lad? You really wanted to f****** punch him..’ I explained to the lads in the dressing room how he’d promised to help me move but was now going back on what he said. I felt he was treating me unfairly but that’s how Rafa operated. He did everything so coldly, almost inhumanely, because he saw things as business. He had to protect his interests but it was hard to be on the receiving end of.”
Benitez’s insistence that letting Dudek go would leave him too short with only Scott Carson and Academy kids as cover if anything happened to Reina bore out the very next week when the Spaniard was sent off at Chelsea after a bust up with Arjen Robben and Dudek made his first Liverpool starts since Istanbul in a defeat at Charlton and wins over Wigan and Arsenal but Reina was back in as soon as his suspension was over. There were only two more starts towards the end of the season for the Pole as Benitez rested players ahead of the FA Cup final against West Ham where Reina would become the penalty shoot-out hero to cement his own successful first season at Anfield.
Despite being left out of the Poland World Cup squad, Dudek decided he was not desperate to leave Anfield as he was now in the final year of his contract and felt he would get a better move if he held on for a free transfer. He again only played rarely with Reina now firmly established and finally departed for Real Madrid in the summer of 2007 - despite Benitez offering him a new deal, albeit with a 50% pay cut which he said he found disrespectful - having only featured 12 times for Liverpool since his night of glory of Istanbul.
Brought to the Bernabeu as back-up for Spanish number one Iker Casillas, he played only five times in his first season but ended up with a La Liga title medal and was credited for helping Casillas improve his form, insisting he contributed more than his appearance tally suggested, a claim borne out by the fact he signed two one-year extensions after initial deal expired the following year and got to work with Jose Mourinho which he described as the best experience of his time in Spain. He retired at the age of 38 in 2011 having only played 12 matches in total for Los Blancos but the high regard his professionalism and demeanour around the club was held in was shown by Mourinho insisting on giving him a last start against Almeria when he was substituted near the end the match and received a guard of honour as he left the pitch from superstar team-mates like Cristiano Ronaldo, Xabi Alonso, Sergio Ramos, Pepe, Mehmet Ozil and Karim Bemzema that made such an impact he got a text afterwards from former Madrid star Guti which read: “You bastard, they didn’t give me a goodbye like that!”
Since retirement, Dudek followed his passion for motorsport by becoming a racing driver, clocking speeds of up to 200mph in high-octane events including the Dubai 24 Hour Race, and has become a regular participant in Liverpool Legends occasions where his love of the club and pride at what he achieved at Anfield always comes shining through.
“At Liverpool I was lucky to feel the support of such brilliant fans. I remember after we beat Bayer Leverkusen at Anfield in 2005 my Polish team-mate Jacek Krzynowek who played for the Germans asked me what the doctor had given us as he couldn’t believe we had the energy to have done so much running that night. I told him the only performance enhancing drug we had was the Anfield atmosphere. Liverpool supporters have huge expectations but they lift the team and I regard them as the best in the world. Looking back now, I appreciate even more that I played for a club with such history. As a player, I never understood why supporters cried after big wins but I went to Madrid with my son to watch Liverpool win the Champions League again in 2019 and when I saw the players running around with the cup in their hands, I had tears in my eyes too.”
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