My Favourite Player #16: Didi Hamann

Posted by Corkboy on November 20, 2012, 12:20:54 am

"The football god was with Liverpool that night. We were sitting with the Liverpool fans and, at half-time when it was 3-0, the people were crying.

"Then Dietmar Hamann comes on and the game changes.”
Nuri Sahin

“Tactically, we changed to play with three defenders and used Dietmar Hamann in the middle to control the space that Kaka had been using.”
Rafael Benitez


“Then the tactical changes: Steve Finnan had some problems so Didi Hamann came into midfield and we went three at the back. It worked perfectly.”
Sami Hyypia


"About five minutes from the end of extra-time this sudden pain told me there was something wrong. When I took my penalty, all that mattered was that I scored. I remember the Liverpool team doctor putting some ice on it afterwards but we were walking on air by then. It was only in the following few days that the swelling got worse and by time I showed it to the German team doctor it had turned blue."
Didi on playing the last few minutes in Istanbul with a broken foot.


“He was my safety net. The reason people speak about me and how I played with Didi was because he was there,.
“He allowed me to go forward, score and set up goals, and he did all my defensive work and tackling for me.
“At the time we had him, he was in his prime and he was up there with the best holding midfielders in the world,” he added
“There's no Liverpool fan, player or coach at Anfield who wouldn't love him to be 26 or 27 now and still doing his stuff because that's how good he was.”
Steven Gerrard

"Irrespective of who plays next to him or behind him, Dietmar Hamann always performs to the best of his ability.

It's like a ritual before every game, and not only with Liverpool but with the national team too. When the players are almost on the pitch he says quietly "boys, keep order". That sums up his frame of mind and his greatest strength is organising the defence in that quiet way of his."
Rudi Voeller, Germany manager, WC 2002


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Stories I heard about Didi….

Famous for getting rounds in.

Snarled at Gattuso in Istanbul and kicked him.

Likes a smoke.

Partial to an occasional tipple. Or flutter. Or both.

Pool, arrows, poker.

You get the picture, and if you watched the interview above, you'll also have noticed a distinct Scouse twang in his accent. Didi is a guy who seems to have embraced English, and Liverpool culture in a way few foreign players do. I imagine him quite happily showing up for a Sunday league side if it meant a bit of banter and a few pints afterwards.

How I most remember Didi playing is when we were under pressure, and needing to buy some time and space, you could give the ball to him and he would stick out an elbow here or a knee there, and eventually the big German arse would swing around, connect with an unsuspecting opponent’s knee and Didi would collapse onto the ball and win the free. His own personal time out.

But for all that, the pubs and bets and obdurate defensive play, we shouldn't be under any misapprehension about Didi's football ability. The man could play. Voeller swore he broke every record going for pass completion in the 2002 World Cup. He was a canny defensive mid, but a very good technical player, could pass the ball, read the game beautifully and despite what Stevie Gerrard said above, he was occasionally minded to whack one from 25 yards. He started out life at Bayern Munich as a winger, and moved into midfield (much like Schweinsteiger after him) when Lothar Matthaus, among others, succumbed to injury. Big boots to fill.

As he demonstrated in Istanbul, he could change a game, particularly one which was getting away from us. He wasn't a bawler, like Carragher or Keane, but you could see his team mates were calmer when he was on the pitch, and we were calmer, too. Contrast that with Houllier's bizarre decision to replace him with Smicer away to Bayer Leverkusen in the 2002 Champions League quarter final, a tactical move with swift and brutal consequences. Didi may well be most remembered for his role in the Istanbul drama three years later but it's worth recalling that he also dominated an earlier game in that year's competition, against the same Bayer Leverkusen, capping the display with an insouciant free. Not redemption, since he wasn't to blame in 2002, but perhaps closure of a sort. When you consider that Hamann and Smicer then combined in the 2005 final for the second goal, you might almost start thinking about karma. And he was as cool as ice in a penalty shoot out, for which we are eternally grateful.

Last Ever Goal At Old Wembley.

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