Great player. Some interesting info from wiki:
For his second Wembley final appearance in succession he was awarded man of the match and earned a tribute from guest of honour, Sir Stanley Matthews; one of the greatest wingers of previous generations, who exclaimed in the final: "I wish there are more dribblers like him."
By the end of 1995-96, McManaman was top of the goal assists charts in the FA Premier League with 25 assists over the season, including assists and a man of the match award in a 4–3 victory over Newcastle United, a match voted the best of the decade in a Premier League poll known as the Ten Seasons Awards.
McManaman was said to have been one of only a handful of players along with Eric Cantona and Gianfranco Zola in the league at the time known to have the panache to lift supporters from their seats each time he got the ball and managers would deploy a man-marker specifically to follow him for an entire game. Then Middlesbrough manager, Bryan Robson, was quoted at the time as saying that "everyone in the Premiership knows that if you stop McManaman, you stop Liverpool".
McManaman was also criticised for scoring too few goals, although he did make up for this with a formidable rate of assists for the likes of Robbie Fowler and later, Michael Owen, with Fowler regarding McManaman as the best player he ever played alongside. The few goals that McManaman did score tended to be spectacular or memorable - most notably an injury time solo goal against Celtic in the UEFA Cup, when McManaman scored against the 'Bhoys' after a 75 yard dribble. Other outstanding goals during his Liverpool career included goals against Aston Villa, Newscastle and scoring the winner in a match against Arsenal F.C. with a stunning volley, after which he won a PFA Player of the Month award in December 1997.
Prior to the start of the 1997-98 season, Liverpool received various bids for McManaman. Having initially rebuffed all approaches, Liverpool's board of directors, at the time including David Moores, decided that continually rejecting those bids was risky given the possibility of McManaman allowing his contract to expire and leaving on a "Bosman" transfer for nothing, and so eventually accepted a lucrative offer of £12.5 million in August 1997 from FC Barcelona. The board hoped that the club record transfer fee would help in justifying the move to the fans, many of whom viewed McManaman as the linchpin and playmaker of the side at the time. However the deal fell through, with the player's excessive wage demands being blamed for the collapse, although it was felt in some quarters that McManaman had simply been a pawn in Barcelona's negotiations to acquire Rivaldo.
Despite having been named Liverpool captain at the start of the 1998-99 season, McManaman seized the opportunity to announce his desire to play abroad. By this time, numerous European clubs were circling the soon-to-be free agent with Juventus or Real Madrid appearing the player's most likely destination. It was announced in January 1999 that McManaman was talking to Real Madrid, he told The Independent: "It was such a tough decision because I have been [at Liverpool] 12 years, but I have always stated that I wanted to play in Europe at some stage. At 27, now is the right time. Real Madrid are the European and world champions and this is a chance to test myself in a top European league."
In spite of the side only winning two trophies during his time with Liverpool, McManaman's achievements at the club were exceptional for a player in a side often labelled negatively. McManaman was named in the PFA Team of the Year for four consecutive seasons from from 1994-95 to 1997-98, and was in the five man shortlist for PFA Player of the Year for three seasons from 1995-96 to 1997-98, with the PFA website describing him as one of the most gifted players of his generation. For a time he held the record for most consecutive Premier League appearances as an ever present at Liverpool for four seasons, a club record for Most Appearances, and at the time of leaving the Premiership had the second highest ratio of Premier League assists per game, with 112 assists in 274 appearances. As of 2009, McManaman still holds 12th position on the Premiership's All Time Assists charts. McManaman also holds the record for greatest number of assists in Liverpool history, just ahead of Steven Gerrard. On 5 September 2006, Steve McManaman was named #22 in the official Liverpool website's "100 Players Who Shook The Kop" list.
His part in Madrid's eighth European Cup win saw him become the first English player ever to win Europe's premier club competition with a foreign club.
McManaman was also twice voted as the Real Madrid supporters' favourite player at the club during his tenure, and according to El País, in 2001, fans saluted him with their 'white handkerchiefs' (as a terrace favourite) after he acrobatically scored a 'wonder goal' against Real Oviedo that year.
Arguably his second greatest moment in the white of Madrid came in the 2002 UEFA Champions League semi-final against Barcelona at the Camp Nou on 23 April 2002. In this match of monumental proportions, due to "El Classico" being a massive game in its own right, but also the fact that it was a Champions League Semi-final, McManaman appeared as a second half substitute to score a critical goal in second half injury time to secure a 2-0 first-leg advantage, cooly chipping over goalkeeper Roberto Bonano after being played in by Zindedine Zidane, who had scored the first goal on 55 minutes. This victory helped secure their place in the final of the 2002 Champions League at Hampden Park, Glasgow, where he came on as a replacement for Figo - and thereby ensuring his second Champions League winners' medal, after Madrid secured a 2-1 victory over German team Bayer Leverkusen.
According to Forbes Magazine in 2001, McManaman was listed as 6th on the list of highest earning footballers in the world and is believed to have pocketed an estimated 15 million Euros (just under £10,250,000) in his four years with Madrid. On top of the financial rewards, McManaman also became the most successful English football export to ever play overseas.
