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==The Reds in Japan==
==The Reds in Japan==
As the reigning [[UEFA Champions League 2004-05|UEFA Champions League Champions]], Liverpool have earned the right to represent [[UEFA]] in the [[FIFA Club World Championship]] being held in [[Japan]].
As the reigning [[UEFA Champions League 2004-05|UEFA Champions League Champions]], Liverpool have earned the right to represent [[UEFA]] in the [[FIFA Club World Championship]] being held in [[Japan]].
The Reds beat [[Costa Rica|Costa Rican]] side [[Deportivo Saprissa]] 3-0 on Thursday, (15/12/05) in the semi-final in [[Yokohama]] and was played[[Brazil|Brazil’s]] [[Sao Paulo FC]] in the final to decide the Champions of the Tournament, who was lost by 1x0.
The Reds beat [[Costa Rica|Costa Rican]] side [[Deportivo Saprissa]] 3-0 on Thursday, (15/12/05) in the semi-final in [[Yokohama]] and played [[Brazil|Brazil’s]] [[Sao Paulo FC]] in the final to decide the Champions of the Tournament, which they lost 1-0.


==New Stadium==
==New Stadium==

Revision as of 12:33, 18 December 2005

Liverpool
Liverpool emblem
Full nameLiverpool Football Club
Nickname(s)The Reds
Founded1892
GroundAnfield, Liverpool
Capacity45,362
ChairmanEnglish David Moores
ManagerSpanish Rafael Benítez
LeagueFA Premier League
2004-05FA Premier League 5th

Liverpool Football Club (often known simply as Liverpool), an English football club based in the North-West of England, are the current champions of Europe and the most successful English football team. Since being founded in 1892, Liverpool have won five European Cups, and 18 Football League titles on top of being the English club to have won the most number of UEFA Cups, European Supercups and English League Cups. The club's home ground is the 45,362 capacity Anfield stadium, which is about three miles from the centre of Liverpool.

The club was founded on March 15 1892 by John Houlding, the owner of Anfield. Houlding decided to form his own team after Everton left Anfield in an argument over rent. The original name was to be Everton F.C. but was changed to Liverpool F.C. (after the F.A. refused to recognise the team as Everton).

The club was present at two of the biggest tragedies in European football — at Heysel in 1985 and Hillsborough in 1989. After Heysel, English clubs were withdrawn from European competition for a period of five years, six in the case of Liverpool.

Liverpool Football Club is not to be confused with Liverpool (Rugby) Football Club which was formed in 1858 and is now known as Liverpool St. Helens.

History

Main article: History of Liverpool F.C.

Liverpool F.C. were formed by John Houlding in 1892, being elected to the Football League alongside Woolwich Arsenal two years later. In 1901 Scottish international Alex Raisbeck was the first Liverpool captain to collect the Football League Championship, and Liverpool were league champions again in 1906.

In 1914,Liverpool made their first appearance in the FA Cup final but lost to Burnley. In 1922, and again in 1923, captained by England full back Ephraim Longworth, Liverpool won the league. In 1946-7, the first season after World War 2, Liverpool were surprise league champions. Over a decade of mediocrity was to follow.

Bill Shankly is largely credited with bringing Liverpool from relative obscurity to the forefront of English football. He was appointed manager of Liverpool before the start of the 1959-60 season when they were in the Football League Second Division. Promotion to the First Division was achieved in 1962 when Liverpool won the Second Division championship. Liverpool won the First Division Championship in 1964 and regained it two years later (1966), winning their first FA Cup in the season between their two title triumphs (1965). Liverpool won their first European trophy, the UEFA Cup, in 1973.

Club Logo in 70s
Club Logo in 70s

Bob Paisley, Liverpool's most successful manager, succeeded Shankly from the 1974-75 season. In the nine seasons until his retirement in May 1983, Liverpool won six Football League Championships, three European Cups, one UEFA Cup, three successive League Cups, one European Super Cup and three Charity Shields - a total of 21 trophies. Paisley's number of trophies won remained unsurpassed in English football until Sir Alex Ferguson won his seventh Premiership title with Manchester United in 2001.

Success continued under Joe Fagan whose first season (1983-84) saw Liverpool set some of the most impressive records in English football. They won their fourth successive League Cup and their third successive League Championship as well as winning the European Cup for the fourth time in eight seasons.

Joe Fagan's second and final season as Liverpool manager had a traumatic ending when 39 supporters attending the European Cup final between Liverpool and Juventus were killed in the Heysel Stadium disaster. Kenny Dalglish succeeded him, clinching a Football League Championship/FA Cup double success in his first season, only the fifth team in English football to achieve such a feat. Two seasons later, Liverpool regained the League Championship, before a shocking 1-0 FA Cup final defeat against minnows Wimbledon.

Despite his successes, Dalglish's stint as manager was overshadowed by the tragic death in 1989 of 96 Liverpool supporters at the FA Cup semi final against Nottingham Forest, commonly referred to as the Hillsborough disaster. That season Liverpool dramatically lost the League Championship to Arsenal in the final match of the season. Liverpool's most recent league title was won in 1989-90, Dalglish's last full season in charge.

Dalglish was succeeded by Graeme Souness at the helm, but ensuing changes in both the English game (the advent of the marketing boom era of the FA Premier League), and under Souness' management saw the club move into a period of transition. Nonetheless, Liverpool still managed to win the FA Cup in 1992, beating Sunderland 2-0 in the final. In 1995, Liverpool won the Football League Cup, beating Bolton Wanderers 2-1 in the final with a young side assembled under Anfield stalwart Roy Evans, who took over from Souness in 1994.

Evans brought the club renewed hopes of glory by the mid-1990s but the Liverpool team had become labelled as underachievers who played well but never enough to consistently see themselves through to title glory, proving to be 'nearly men' in the challenge for honours by the late 1990s. That failure meant inevitable changes at the club, and in November 1998, Liverpool appointed France's World Cup 1998 winning technical director, Gerard Houllier as the club's first foreign manager.

In 2001, Houllier led a new, more continental and cosmopolitan Liverpool side to the cup treble of League Cup, FA Cup and UEFA Cup and in 2003, they defeated Manchester United to win a record seventh League Cup, but a continued inability to win the League eventually led to Houllier parting company with the club in 2004.

The 2004-05 season was a season which was filled with joy for millions of Liverpool supporters worldwide, when they won the European Cup under new and current manager Rafael Benítez, who had begun a revolution at the club, adding to the club's record as one of the most successful clubs in Europe. The future looks bright for Liverpool as the blend of continental flair with English hardwork and shrewd management looks to take Liverpool to renewed success in the years ahead, and surely the coveted League Title is not far away from returning to the most successful English club.

The Reds in Japan

As the reigning UEFA Champions League Champions, Liverpool have earned the right to represent UEFA in the FIFA Club World Championship being held in Japan. The Reds beat Costa Rican side Deportivo Saprissa 3-0 on Thursday, (15/12/05) in the semi-final in Yokohama and played Brazil’s Sao Paulo FC in the final to decide the Champions of the Tournament, which they lost 1-0.

New Stadium

On July 30, 2004, Liverpool City Council granted the club planning permission to build a new 60,000 seat stadium, nearby at Stanley Park. Despite pressure from Governmental and funding bodies, Liverpool refused to share the new ground with their local rivals Everton and "final" talks on a groundshare failed in January 2005. At that time the club was hoping to start construction in summer 2005 and open the ground in 2007, but finance has not yet been obtained and the likely completion date is not currently known. The old stadium will become a public plaza surrounded by apartments, offices, bars, restaurants and a hotel, and possibly including a memorial garden. Treatment of the old stadium requires sensitivity as a number of deceased fans have had their ashes officially scattered on the pitch over the years.

Honours

* More than any other English club
+ Title shared

Miscellaneous Facts and Figures

Match statistics

  • Most career hat tricks: Gordon Hodgson 17 (1926-36)
  • 3 consecutive hat tricks: Jack Balmer 1946-7 (his only hat tricks)

Club culture

  • The song "You'll Never Walk Alone", originally from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel and famously recorded by Liverpool musicians Gerry & The Pacemakers, is the anthem of Liverpool FC (and is included in their crest), and, despite being originally adopted by Glasgow Celtic, has become equally synonymous with the Anfield club.
  • Other popular chants include "Fields of Anfield Road" (to the tune of "Fields of Athenry"), "Poor Scouser Tommy", "Self Pity City", "Liverbird Upon My Chest", "We've Won It Five Times" and "Ring of Fire".
  • Celebrity fans of the club include the late DJ John Peel, Ian McCulloch, Elvis Costello, Cherie Blair. The late Pope John Paul II, who played as goalkeeper in Poland like keeper Jerzy Dudek, also professed a fondness for Liverpool, amongst other clubs.
  • Under Benitez, today's Liverpool F.C. has a strong Spanish influence. As well as having a Spanish manager, there are 7 Spaniards in the current squad and 10 players in total brought to Liverpool directly from La Liga. The three English players he has brought in are Peter Crouch, Scott Carson and youth player Hobbs

Reserve squad

Reserve Squad Players:

Other

Current First Team squad

Liverpool squad as of 31 August, 2005:

No. Player Position Year Signed Previous Club
Goalkeepers
1 Poland Jerzy Dudek GK 2001 Feyenoord
20 England Scott Carson GK 2005 Leeds United
25 Spain Pepe Reina GK 2005 Villarreal
Defenders
3 Republic of Ireland Steve Finnan RB 2003 Fulham
4 Finland Sami Hyypiä CB 1999 Willem II
6 Norway John Arne Riise LB/LM 2001 AS Monaco
17 Spain Josemi RB 2004 Málaga CF
21 Mali Djimi Traore CB/LB 1999 Laval
23 England Jamie Carragher CB/RB 1995 Academy
28 England Stephen Warnock LB/LM 2003 Academy
31 England David Raven CB 2004 Tranmere Rovers
36 Spain Antonio Barragan RB 2005 Sevilla FC
-- England Jack Hobbs CB 2005 Lincoln City
-- Spain Miki Roque CB/CM 2005 Sevilla FC
-- Ghana Godwin Antwi CB/CM 2005 Real Zaragoza
-- England Danny O'Donnell CB 2002 Academy
Midfielders / Wingers
7 Australia Harry Kewell LM 2003 Leeds United
8 England Steven Gerrard CM 1994 Academy
10 Spain Luis Garcia RM/CM/CF 2004 FC Barcelona
12 Chile Mark González LM 2005 (subject to work permit) Albacete Balompie
14 Spain Xabi Alonso CM 2004 Real Sociedad
16 Germany Dietmar Hamann CM 2000 Newcastle United
22 Mali Momo Sissoko CM 2005 Valencia CF
30 Netherlands Bolo Zenden LM/CM 2005 Middlesbrough
32 Austria Besian Idrizaj LM 2005 Linzer ASK
34 Republic of Ireland Darren Potter CM 2004 Academy
38 England David Mannix CM 2003 Academy
Forwards
9 France Djibril Cisse CF 2004 Auxerre
15 England Peter Crouch CF 2005 Southampton
19 Spain Fernando Morientes CF 2004 Real Madrid
24 France Florent Sinama-Pongolle CF 2001 Le Havre
33 England Neil Mellor CF 2002 Academy
-- Wales Ramon Calliste CF 2005 Manchester United
Manager
- Spain Rafael Benítez - 2004 Valencia CF

Players out on loan

Some Reserve players

See Also: List of Liverpool FC players

Staff

Manager Rafael Benítez
Assistant manager Pako Ayesteran
First team coach Alex Miller
Reserve team manager and coach Paco Herrera, Hughie McAuley
Goalkeeping coach Jose Ochotorena
Chief scout Paco Herrera
Scout Ron Yeats
Academy director Steve Heighway
Assistant Physiotherapist Mark Browes
Club Masseur John Wright
Masseur Paul Small, Stuart Welsh
Club Doctor Mark Waller
Kit Manager Graham Carter

Stars

1892 to 1959:

1960 to 1990

1990 to present

See also: List of Liverpool FC players

Managers

W. E. Barclay 1892 - 1896
Tom Watson 1896 - 1915
David Ashworth 1920 - 1923
Matt McQueen 1923 - 1928
George Patterson 1928 - 1936
George Kay 1936 - 1951
Don Welsh 1951 - 1956
Phil Taylor 1956 - 1959
Bill Shankly 1959 - 1974
Bob Paisley 1974 - 1983
Joe Fagan 1983 - 1985
Kenny Dalglish 1985 - 1991
Graeme Souness 1991 - 1994
Roy Evans 1994 - 1998
Gerard Houllier 1998 - 2004
Rafael Benítez 2004 - Present

Statistics

Main article: Liverpool F.C. - Statistics

Famous Liverpool fans

 

Unofficial

Template:Champions League 2005/06

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