Steve McManaman has revealed that playing Champions League football was a critical factor in his decision to leave Liverpool back in 1999.
McManaman broke through at Liverpool in 1990 and won the FA Cup and League Cup during his nine years at Anfield, but his electrifying displays on the wing attracted the interest of Real Madrid and they made an offer McManaman couldn't refuse.
Liverpool only managed a seventh-placed finish at the end of the 1998/99 Premier League season, prompting McManaman to move to the Santiago Bernabeu in search for European glory.
McManaman - why I had to leave #LFC and watching @RobjonesLFC2 serenade @realmadriden stars https://t.co/zMTwU46u7K pic.twitter.com/GWpU48P81G
His quest proved successful, becoming the first Englishman to lift the trophy - scoring and being named Man of the Match in the final against Valencia -with a foreign club and repeating the feat two years later.
Now, McManaman has opened up about his departure from Liverpool, insisting that it was not driven by the desire fora lucrative contract:It wasn't financial, because the money Liverpool offered me to stay was virtually on a par,� McManaman said while appearing onGraham Hunter's Big Interview podcast, via the Liverpool Echo.
"Barnes, Whelan, Nicol, Hansen. To learn from those people, I had the greatest teachers in the world." #LFC https://t.co/zMTwU46u7K
I wanted to leave. At that time I had never played in the Champions League, which was a huge thing.I was playing really good football and I needed to test myself. I felt that I needed to go. I wanted to go abroad, I didn't want to play for somebody against Liverpool. I was playing good football and I had the right kind of clubs interested in me “ Barcelona, Madrid and Juventus.
I nearly went to Italy. I was taking Italian lessons that year, I'd spoken to Ian Rush and David Platt. But December/January came around, and Madrid were interested. They were European Champions, World Champions, they were the best team in the world.
That white kit, Di Stefano, Puskas, all that. And so it was Madrid.�