Читать книгу Super Frank - Portrait of a Hero - Douglas Thompson - Страница 9

‘Lampard is one of the foremost attacking midfielders in Three Lions history.’

DAILY MAIL, 10 OCTOBER 2009

It should have been party time, but it was more a case of firecrackers hurled on to the football pitch with malicious mischief, rather than celebratory fireworks which marked Frank Lampard’s decade as one of the most accomplished England footballers of his era.

Such events, however, didn’t hamper his enthusiasm, his instinct to attack the goal arena, or his desire to surge toward the penalty area during the 2010 World Cup engagement in Dnipropetrovskt when England fell 1–0 to Ukraine.

The result dented national pride back home, but little else. By then, England’s place in South Africa and the world championships was assured and Lampard’s important role in football’s summer cavalcade almost arbitrary. The flaming flares nearly saw the game abandoned rather than marking the end of Fabio Capello’s all-clear record in competitive games as manager in a disquieting evening of firsts.

It was a sustained attack which began in the first couple of minutes of play on 10 October 2009. The rockets mostly landed in England’s goalmouth and ignited a nervy night for Lampard and Company. Robert Green became the first national team goalkeeper to be red carded in an international, Frank’s friend Rio Ferdinand was worryingly off-form, and the game was the first shown live via pay-per-view on the internet.

For Frank Lampard, it was also an evening for reflection: on Sunday 10 October 1999, he made his England debut in a red shirt (the same colour kit as the 1966 World Cup winners) against Belgium at Sunderland’s Stadium of Light when his cousin Jamie Redknapp scored the winner in the 2–1 victory.

Ten years later, it was Lampard who was expected to score and make the goals, who with Wayne Rooney, Steve Gerrard, Rio Ferdinand, Ashley Cole and John Terry, comprised the crucial core of troops Italian manager Fabio Capello was mustering in order to take on the best in the world. Or, the best to qualify – we will always argue about who should or should not be there – for the first World Cup finals to take place in Africa.

During the preceding decade, Lampard’s proven he’s an astonishing asset for England and for Chelsea, for whom he has consistently performed during the majority of that time. For many, he is a key foundation of the new Chelsea which, with the benefit of often seemingly inexhaustible bank accounts, has become an ongoing and dominant presence in world football.

Lampard is a player who has worked hard to be where he is. He has developed the power and the skill through intelligence and finely tutored technique – his exceptional talent was no simple gift inherited from his distinguished footballing family. He was determined to prove this when the World Cup began on 11 June 2010, eleven days before his 32nd birthday.

Before the intimidating night of the flaming rain in Ukraine when he earned his 75th Cap, the statistics of Frank’s career made for a nerd’s delight, or a changing statistical nightmare on soccer quiz night. He was on the tip of three separate scoring records: edge ahead of Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen to become the first player in England history to score ten World Cup qualifying goals and become the leading qualification scorer from midfield, ahead of David Beckham and Bryan Robson; he needed two goals to overtake Bobby Charlton and equal Robson as the all-time highest competitive scoring midfielder on fifteen goals; and go level with Tommy Lawton to become only the 16th player to score 22 times for England, including friendlies.

It’s breathless arithmetic but it’s all going to happen sometime: on 21 October 2009, he ended a ten-game goal drought with a second-half belter against Atletico Madrid in a 4–0 Champions League win and so overtook by one goal Jimmy Greaves’ Chelsea tally of 132 goals. It all contributes to Frank Lampard’s importance to his club and his country. Several commentators make him the most important player at Chelsea and vital to England, and he consistently supports their views with his performances on the pitch. Outstanding is always the word associated with him.

No one player can make a team, but a vital one can hold it together during the difficult times, the bad moments, be they decisions or injury or downright rotten luck. Most importantly, Lampard is one player who can motivate his team-mates and embody the can-do ethos of winners.

Others may do it on occasion, but SuperFrank is the reliably adhesive superglue, calm and sensible both on the field and in the dressing room. But he’s no pushover, he’ll stand his ground on the pitch and in his personal life.

He doesn’t run away from reality. He didn’t have his greatest moments in Germany at World Cup 2006 and said of his England career nearly four years later: ‘It’s had some ups and downs, but anyone who’s played for ten years has probably had the same kind of thing. I haven’t done too badly. For about three of those years I was out of the team because, after making my debut, I was disregarded for a couple of years – probably quite rightly – because I don’t think I was ready to play regularly for my country then.

‘I had a great little patch in Euro 2004 when everything was going so well and I broke into the team and made an impact. Then I’ve had a not so good patch when it’s quite tough and you have to fight your way through it. Now, with the way I’m playing, I’m enjoying it as much as I ever have.

‘Maybe the focus is on me to score with England more but any successful team needs to get goals from all over the park. In the 2010 campaign there have been goals from all over. It’s no problem. We put pressure on ourselves to score goals. That’s a good thing. People like myself and Steven Gerrard have scored goals for our clubs and for England. There should be pressure on us to do it.’

Intriguingly, both men gearing it up in Lampard’s life in 2010 hail from Italy, England manager Fabio Capello and Carlo Ancelotti at Stamford Bridge. The two veterans had their own pressures to deal with and Lampard awarded them this accolade: ‘The Italians have very strong ideas, they’re organized and they’re winners.’

Capello’s impressive control over the England squad into what was their smoothest stroll ever to the World Cup finals (maximum points from eight matches, two fixtures to spare, Croatia crushed 5–1 at Wembley) has proven the value of his creative leadership to important players like Lampard, who scored twice that 9 September evening.

Ancelotti’s arrival at Chelsea from AC Milan in June 2009 – the club’s third Italian manager after Gianluca Vialli and Lampard’s mentor Claudio Ranieri – set off an impressive streak of wins following the four-month cameo appearance as manager by Guus Hiddink who may yet play another role in Chelsea’s future.

The Dutch coach brought his time at Stamford Bridge to a fanfare finale by taking Chelsea to victory in the 2009 FA Cup Final on 30 May despite falling behind to the fastest goal in the history of the competition. Louis Saha scored after just 25 seconds to hand Everton the lead. Yet, Didier Drogba and Lampard scored to take the trophy. Hiddink was delighted: ‘Winning in the mecca of world football, the FA Cup, that’s something I cannot believe.’ Lampard spoke for the team in praising their temporary gaffer: ‘He’s a great manager and a great man.’

To the disappointment of Chelsea fans, Hiddink returned to his job with the Russian national team. As he did so, Ancelotti announced his resignation from Milan less than an hour after their 2–0 victory over ACF Fiorentina on 31 May 2009, following the club’s decision to terminate his contract by mutual consent with a year to go.

On 1 June he was confirmed as Chelsea manager with a three-year £9 million contract. He became the club’s eyebrow-raising fifth manager in 21 months, following Jose Mourinho, Avram Grant, Luiz Felipe Scolari and Hiddink.

Frank Lampard has learned much from this eclectic bunch of talent. He’s always willing to listen and has the ability – a 2009 IQ test at Chelsea saw him score way more than 150, which is said to be the marker of very superior intelligence – to take what he needs for improvement. The IQ score was set during neurological research by Chelsea doctor Bryan English who said: ‘Frank Lampard scored one of the highest set of marks ever recorded by the company doing the tests’.

This intelligence is reflected in his pragmatic attitude to the changing faces in the management offices, for he knows that it’s business, not personal.

It’s extraordinary that for such a solid, circumspect Englishman, Frank Lampard’s football fame and future have been entangled with such a diverse assortment of foreign influence. He’s always been able to adapt. It began at Chelsea with the more emotional, much beloved and often eccentric Claudio Ranieri and continued with the modern, upfront, straight-talking, no-nonsense Jose Mourinho. The ying and yang of the European mentality.

Extraordinary also that as a man and a player he flourished under the influence of both managers to such an extent that in the football world everyone knows who you’re talking about when you say ‘Frank’. For the fans, it may be ‘Lamps’ or even ‘Frankie’, but now for the man in question, especially with Capello and in a very grown-up world, the nicknames have been replaced.

Frank’s greatest strength is that he will learn from anyone who has something worthwhile to teach him. His well brought up table manners ensure he will give anyone the time of day. His skill is to remember what matters. That learning curve has stretched through a rainbow of nationalities over his past decade in professional football.

It seems only a moment ago that the fashionable fragment of the football world, the chic and the cheeky side who made mischief personally and professionally, and sought and received most attention, flaunted itself and swaggered along the King’s Road. Back then, for a time, it became more of a stagger on that singular London thoroughfare.

Times quickly change, and it was suddenly smarter to be far more pragmatic about the advertising budget; there was not much to show off. It all changed. There’s that satisfying bounce of self-confidence, of propriety and dignity in and about the vicinity. After a period in the wilderness, the billboards are back to shout the twenty-first century attitude.

Chelsea Football Club are once again charismatic champions in the game and the Blues are where fashion and football connect; it might not be as painfully trendy as the sixties, but once again on a sunny Saturday afternoon, the place can appear, through the Persol sunglasses, more St Tropez than the west side of London.

It’s a place where David Beckham would be comfortable with the lads from Real Madrid. Certainly, Chelsea’s image-conscious imported players are. Ken Bates never tired of pointing out that by the Louis Vuitton route (ie by taxi) it’s only ten minutes from Stamford Bridge to Harrods where you can buy just about anything. Yet, for two decades, the bearded, ebullient but financially coy Bates was where the buck stopped at the Bridge. Of course, Roman Abramovich, who took over from him in 2003 as the club’s ultimate boss, is where the bucks started.

The enigmatic Abramovich changed the rules on retail therapy for football clubs around the world. He warmed up the finances of football by spending more than £100 million in exchange for eleven players in half a dozen weeks. By the beginning of 2005 that spending spree had grown, in the neat, round numbers we all like, to more than £250 million.

With all that simmering, oil-soaked currency, it seemed world football would be better equipped with chancellors rather than coaches. Could the Bank of England change interest rates if Chelsea fancied a new goalkeeper and a couple of strikers in the same weekend?

Times change, much happened in and out of football after Abramovich’s arrival, and Chelsea, like many of their fans in 2010, were enduring a spending freeze. It seemed only moments since loadsamoney ruled and the Chelsea football team where surrounded by a frenzy of speculation in the wake of 2003’s spending spree. Initially, players were as perplexed and puzzled as weekend whist players caught up in the World Poker Championships.

How big’s the pot? The odds? What’s the betting? Who plays? Who goes? Who stays? And, of course, who is in charge?

Claudio Ranieri, who took Chelsea to second in the Premiership and the semi-final of the Champions League before succumbing a few months later to the biggest peril in football – events – got extra time.

He believes that was by happenstance, which of course is just events in disguise: ‘When the new owner arrived, I thought he’d change everything, the manager first. But Sven-Goran Eriksson was not available, so Roman gave me the opportunity to drive the new car. But I knew Roman didn’t want me to drive the car, he wanted Schumacher.’

Uncertain times. Just what could the Russian oil billionaire’s financial power do? And, more importantly, for young Frank Lampard, who would it buy? Or sell? What had the lad from the East End landed in?

It wasn’t Abramovich’s millions that brought Lampard on 14 June 2001 for £11 million from West Ham and took him up west. Back then, he still had demons to exorcise, mental and physical strengths to improve, disciplines to learn.

Two summers later, what he required more than anything was one hundred per cent self-belief. It was difficult. And without it the chequebook football going on around him made him fear his future with Chelsea. He thought he would be on the bench as glamour names were bought in from around the globe. He firmly believed he would be squeezed out of the team.

Incredible as it seems with hindsight, Frank Lampard thought he had a no-hope future at Chelsea. And, if so, what of his England dreams? He’d been an England Under-21 captain and for years they’d been telling him he’d one day lead his national squad to grown-up glory.

‘The worst feeling was seeing the extent of the speculation. You’d be reading about five defenders, five midfielders, five attackers, all being linked with Chelsea every day. I think you’ve got to be allowed to feel unsettled when all that’s raging around you. It would be unnatural not to. You’ve got to be allowed to think, “Blimey, is somebody going to come in and take my position away?”’

His instincts and training kicked in, he confronted the challenge. It wasn’t in his brave and bold nature not to. Frank took up the gauntlet: ‘I wanted to have a big season. I wanted to have the best season I ever had. I wanted to be part of the new Real Madrid. And I had a chance to show I could be part of it. That’s what it was and I wanted to be involved with that. The situation at Chelsea was the sweetest dream as a footballer. I wanted to be playing in the Champions League final. I wanted to win the Premiership. There is so much belief in this squad that we believe we can win everything.’

And Frank was willing to work and work overtime to achieve the expectations his belief dictated.

He was brought up in the traditional English football family, in the pre-Starbucks old school where managers passionately talked tactics with their players over suspect bacon and eggs in greasy cafes, the HP sauce bottle and the salt and pepper pots part of the ‘war games’, the Heinz ketchup and teacups defending, the forks and knives and spoons in attack formation, the sticky Colman’s mustard jar the inside post. A student of his father Frank Lampard Senior’s classroom in his many years with West Ham, when there were lots of hard knocks in the lessons, on and off the field.

The attitude was that, even injured, you played on; you got on with it. Then you got up and did it all over again. You played every game you possibly could. You embraced the pain.

His father learned from Bobby Moore representing England and playing for West Ham. The always perfectly calm Moore rated Frank Senior extremely highly; the work ethic, the training, the extra training, was passed on from the only England captain to lead his country to a World Cup win to his friend and team-mate.

That, in turn, went from father to son. In that, the two Frank Lampards mirror each other in more than name.

When Ron Greenwood wrote of the much missed Bobby Moore in his autobiography Yours Sincerely he might have been writing about the Frank Lampard of 2005, a player who has the capacity to emulate Moore with the national team: ‘He read the game uncannily well, his anticipation always seemed to give him a head start, he was icily cold at moments of high stress and his positional sense was impeccable. He was at his best when his best was most needed and his concentration never let up. He made football look a simple and a lovely art.’

It was in this world that young Frank paid attention. He learned his lessons at his father’s often black and blue, bruised knees. Which is why he thrived at the nervy centre of Chelsea’s spend, spend, spend culture. He did what he did best – his work. He got on with his job in an extraordinary atmosphere not just surviving but thriving during Chelsea’s remarkable metamorphosis from bankrupt to bankrolled.

Terry Venables, who has the Chelsea captaincy on his colourful CV, said in 2004 that no one ‘in their wildest dreams’ could have predicted the ‘extraordinary chain of events that has made Chelsea the most talked about football club in the world today.’ Certainly, before Abramovich moved his sporting interests to the West, Chelsea were facing fantastic debts, showing losses only rivalled by Fulham and Leeds, one division better to be the bottom of.

The talk was not of championships and Europe but merely of survival. What if Abramovich hadn’t materialised? In early 2003 Chelsea were not the most obvious choice. Abramovich wanted a team in the Champions League. It did not look like Frank and his team-mates would make it.

The big hurdle, the last game of the season, was against Liverpool at the Bridge on 11 May 2003. Just under 42,000 people turned up to see Frank and the Blues triumph 2–1. It was more than another victory, for that line-up of numbers was enough for them to win the football lottery.

Russian Revolution? History! In the football world, a much bigger shake-up occurred when Abramovich bought Chelsea. Yet Frank Lampard had learned his history lessons with his A-grade Latin. And he became one of Chelsea’s highest class performers – and one of English fooball’s top earners – regularly the fulcrum of the team.

Into the Babel of world football, Frank Lampard introduced his own grammar. It was distinctive and winning. The player who believed he might be locked out of the squad instead became its lynchpin, a leader and an inspiration. He’s now as requisite, as indispensable as it ever gets in one of the most dispensable businesses where at his level a hamstring is about all you’ve got between yourself and a multi-million pound career.

One reason for Frank’s success was his constant presence, he was always playing, always on the field. His record of reaching more than 130 consecutive appearances in January 2005, (a record he’d subsequently beat) provoked Sir Alex Ferguson to pronounce Frank’s feat ‘freakish’.

A strange choice of word. Then again, the fiercely competitive Ferguson would hire Frankenstein and the bearded lady if they had Frank’s talent with a football. Rival fans, of course, would say Ferguson already has one or two.

‘I always want to play and there are a few reasons I can and one has to be luck. Not getting injured. Another is I play with minor knocks at times. I’m not saying I’m Braveheart compared to others but I do just get on with it. And I do a lot of extra work; not so much gym work, I won’t go in and pump iron, but I do like to do as much as I can on the training pitch.

‘I’ll practise my finishing, my passing, my dribbling and my sprints. Maybe that all contributes to that bit of luck I have staying fit. It’s something my old man has instilled in me since I was a kid. Now, if I don’t do that bit extra, I don’t go into the game feeling I’ve prepared right.’

His strict regimen has paid off. His is one of the first names on an England team-sheet. His ever-present performance in Euro 2004 was overshadowed by the emergence of Wayne Rooney if you believe media coverage of the time; the dressing and conference rooms of world football did not overlook Frank’s contribution.

Rooney was a super story.

Lampard was already a great, established player.

Months later, in January 2005, his greatness was accepted as fact when Frank received 40 per cent of the vote as Footballer of the Year for 2004. England captain David Beckham – 2003’s winner – was in sixth place. Wayne Rooney was second (16 per cent) followed by Steven Gerrard (9.8 per cent), Ashley Cole (9.4 per cent) and Shaun Wright-Phillips (7 per cent).

‘I wouldn’t say it’s fair, that’s not my job,’ England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson said diplomatically. But, still careful with his words, he added, ‘I congratulate Frank who has done very well for us.’

Frank is a champion, a Footballer of the Year, a graduate of a tough but honest, solid and loyal background and upbringing, and considered by the experts as the most effective midfielder in English football.

They say the boy is the father of the man. As such, with a childhood smothered in England football legend, Frank Lampard Junior has an extravagant pedigree. He is employed by one of the most thoroughly, dutifully controversial and richest men in the world. He is looking at huge honours for his club and country and personally.

Chelsea are celebrated; their kit is now sold in nearly one hundred countries and Frank’s number 8 jersey is a favourite worldwide. It sells in Beijing as well as Barking.

On the horizon, forty-four years on from that other East End boy Bobby Moore’s global conquest, is World Cup 2010. Frank Lampard is at the centre of it.

Understandably, many want to take credit for the magnificent footballer Frank has become. ‘I feel like Michelangelo. If the marble is good I can improve the player,’ said Claudio Ranieri, adding, with pride: ‘I like to think I improved Frank Lampard.’

Mourinho is more straightforward: ‘I love Frank Lampard. I wanted to make him a better player.’

And Frank himself has learned much from the managers’ styles. Ranieri’s tactics were of-the-moment, often orgulous whereas everything Mourinho dictates is pre-planned, deeply thought out, some may say Machiavellian.

Frank is diplomatic, for he holds great admiration and fondness for Ranieri. ‘First and foremost, Claudio is a good man and that’s the most important thing. Maybe the tinkering didn’t always pay off but I couldn’t have more respect for him. I was with England when he left Chelsea but I phoned him and thanked him for everything he did. He helped me a lot. Now, it’s Jose and he’s helped me a lot.’

He knew he’d become a more powerful personality and player with Mourinho, who was round-the-clock motivated and brought a more ruthless edge to Chelsea and his star midfielder. Speaking when Jose was at the top of his game at Chelsea, Frank commented: ‘The mental attitude now is win, win, win. Jose is a pleasure to work with. He’s always working on your position in the team. If you’re in a keep-ball session he will want me in the middle as if it’s a match. The training is precise.

‘At times, before it wasn’t like that. Now the accent is on winning every game we play and every competition we are in.’

Which took Frank to Christmas 2004 at the Bridge, which the record books show as not a time of good cheer for the Chelsea team. They had not won on Boxing Day for five years and only twice in fifteen years. The opposition was that ongoing irritation to Chelsea, Aston Villa, a useful side determined not to be another tick on the Blues clear drive to the Premiership title.

But Frank was chanting Chelsea’s mantra: Win, win, win! There were no thoughts for the ghosts of Christmas past.

And win they did, but by a whisper at 1–0. Damien Duff had the honour. Frank had wanted to be up the front but was forced to defend as the game was like most family Boxing Days, something of a mess, frequently embarrassing, with lots of leftovers, and everyone hoping somebody would do the right thing.

Frank did. He fed the ball through and it was passed on to Duff’s feet who powered it inside the near post. It tells much of Frank’s story that he put the victory down to the team’s discipline and hard work.

The only festive indication in Jose Mourinho’s preparation for Aston Villa – too clever for Chelsea on 17 October 2009, winning 2–1 – had been to allow his players to start training three hours later than normal on Christmas Day. ‘At the moment I only have sixteen players and I cannot give anyone a day off. Everyone is selected. I need everybody. We don’t have many midfield players at the moment.’

In Frank’s world, Christmas is a time for the two things the Lampards hold most dear – family and football. What’s important is being selected. And seeing the family, which he was able to do during Christmas 2004. ‘Christmas has always been dictated by football. I don’t remember Dad as a player but as a coach. Christmas Day was always disrupted when he had to go off training. It’s my turn. I’ve done it for years as a player and I look upon it as normal.

‘I got back to my mum and dad’s in Essex for the first part of the day. We had Christmas Dinner – but it was nothing heavy for me for I had to be back at Cobham for early evening training. I went back home and then off to Stamford Bridge and Aston Villa.’

His father would love to have his son at home for the whole day, but totally understood his son’s commitments: ‘It was always that way. I can recall going back to my mum’s house in Barking and having an early night before playing the following morning. That was the way it was. The groundwork was a big thing for Frank. You either had to get tough or get out. Frank got tough. Football is still very much part of my life. Watching Frank is an outlet for me. I’m very proud of him because although I used to play, he’s done it for himself.

‘There was a newspaper story that when some of the other Chelsea players went in at the end of training, Frank Lampard stayed out to do some laps. Now, that’s a big thing for me. Bobby Moore used to do that. He used to pile on the sweat tops and go running after training – especially if he had been out the night before. Frank’s learned that. I’m not as jittery as I used to be when I watch him play – and I see every match I can. I could see things in the game that Frank could have done better but he’s learned and I can’t teach him much, to be honest. I still chip in. He might have scored a great goal but I want to talk to him about something else in the game where perhaps he could have done better.

‘I thought Ranieri did a lot for Frank in terms of team situations. I thought he was a tremendous manager. Mourinho has taken them on again. He seems very methodical, leaves nothing to chance. You can see he has instilled the confidence he feels into his players. Frank’s worked hard and learned well.’

Such are the words of the most involved mentor of Frank’s life. Frank Senior never wanted to be accused of indulging or overpraising his son. He and his wife Pat were in their usual seats at Stamford Bridge that Boxing Day, and observed: ‘He must be doing something right. The Chelsea fans chant his name before the kick-off. That’s a big, big signal for me. You know why? You can’t kid them.’

His son thrives on that encouragement, as well as the disciplines: ‘He [Mourinho] gets in early and is very organised. You know exactly what your day and whole week will involve. Each training session has a real purpose. That is spelled out at the beginning of the day.

‘Training is intense with no time for slacking or relaxation. The joking comes afterwards. When Jose arrived there was a freshness about the place. We’d got a very exciting manager. People easily get the wrong impression of managers from the press. Ours has one attitude when he’s speaking to the media and is different person with us. Yes, he can be strict, but he can also be matey in the way he chats to you.

‘He’ll have a joke and put an arm around you. He really cares about his players and treats us like his family. Manchester United and Real Madrid are the benchmark, having been successful over the past few years, but we’re up there with them. With what we’ve got, the owner and a very exciting manager, why as a player would you want to go anywhere else?

‘I joined Chelsea because I wanted to be challenging for honours. I knew that somebody was going to have to fight very, very hard if they wanted to take my place away. I was never going to give it up without a tough struggle. I am the man in possession. I think one of Jose’s strengths is that he understands his players and their needs at any given time. He’s very approachable. Right from the start I was comfortable with him and I think all of us felt that way. He gave me confidence by saying: “I want you to carry on but I want to make you a better player.”’

But how? Mourinho revealed: ‘Frank can remain the same individually but I wanted to change him in relation to the team. If one day I tell Frank I don’t want him to be a box-to-box player but to hold back, he has to adapt to our needs. Wonderfully, he can.’

Mutual admiration: ‘The manager is great at giving confidence. He has made me believe in myself even more.’

And in the East-End way, he’s been taught to value self belief almost from 20 June 1978, the day he was born.