There is no competition in club football more special than the UEFA Champions League. Just ask Steve McManaman and Christian Karembeu. Both players have great memories of the competition and indeed won the coveted trophy whilst at Real Madrid. They now work as ambassadors for UEFA at the Heineken-sponsored UEFA Champions League Trophy Tour.
Speaking on the Bangkok leg of the tour, McManaman, who scored a magnificent volley in the 2000 Final against Valencia, said: “The Champions League means everything to me. One of the reasons I actually left Liverpool was to play in the Champions League.
“Whilst I was there, only the domestic champions got to play in the competition and I wanted to test myself against the very best in the world. You have to test yourself against the best teams in Europe, that is what it is all about. And because I joined such an illustrious club with such great players, I was fortunate enough to win the Champions League the first year I got to play in it and that was fantastic!”
Karembeu was an unused substitute in the 2000 Final, but started in 1998 when a solitary Pedrag Mijatovic strike was enough to sink Juventus at the Amsterdam Arena. In that same summer, the 53-times-capped French international lifted the World Cup in Paris and although he remembers both occasions very fondly, he is unable to compare one to the other.
Karembeu said: “The Champions League is the first title that I won as a player so it means a lot me. It was also the first time in 32 years that Real Madrid had won the trophy and that made it extra special because the club were missing it. Both for me personally, and for the club it was genuinely a dream come true. It was one of the best moments of my life without question.
“But to then go on and win the World Cup in your home country is something else. You can multiply any feeling or emotion that you have by ten because you know that the whole country is with you every step of the way. I suppose looking back it is almost idealistic the way that I won those titles but I could not have done it without my teammates. I could not compare winning one trophy to the other because it was two different experiences with two different sets of people and I will cherish both memories for the rest of my life.”
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The Trophy Tour
The schedule of the 2011 UEFA Champions League Trophy Tour presented by Heineken is:
February 22 – 27: Kuala Lumpur
March 5 – 6: Penang
March 11 – 12: Kuala Lumpur
March 16 – 17: Bangkok
March 19 – 20: Chiang Mai
March 25 – 27: Kon Kaen
April 6 – 9: Seoul
April 15 – 17: Hong Kong
There will me more to follow about the UEFA Champions League Trophy Tour presented by Heineken…
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