My Story

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In terms of content, as expected the book covers his early life and football career, starting when he was aged nine. It progresses in a logical fashion, with later chapters generally alternating between Liverpool and England events, all the up to the end of the 2006-07 season, which is when Liverpool reached the final of the Champions League, but lost to AC Milan. So within the book you get his take on classic Liverpool moments such as the Treble in 2001 and winning the Champions League in 2005, as well as similar moments for England such as the 5-1 thrashing of Germany in 2001. Tidak hanya pencapaian karier, saya juga membaca kisah emosionalnya terhadap rekan satu tim--baik LFC maupun timnas Inggris--dan opininya terhadap pemain atau pelatih di luar klubnya. Saya baru tahu kalau Rafa Benitez dingin bahkan pada Gerrard, tidak pernah sekalipun memanggilnya Stevie seperti Brendan Rodgers. Stevie juga sangat mengagumi Mourinho--penyebab kegalauannya ketika ditawari Chelsea--hingga ia berkata bahwa idealnya Mourinho-lah yang memanageri LFC saja. Kuotasi dari Mourinho tentang Stevie yang masih saya ingat inilah buktinya: Membaca buku ini membawa saya ke masa itu, sekaligus menjadi jawaban doa saya sejak lima tahun lalu bahwa akan ada biografi Stevie yang diterjemahkan (karena kalau beli yang asli mahal sekali). Saya juga senang sekali buku ini datang di momen yang tepat, yaitu ulang tahun saya dan beberapa waktu setelah ia pensiun. You could say he is a glass-half-empty kind of guy. In the book, he sheds tears on at least 10 separate occasions. The narrative is strewn with phrases about his mental meltdowns: "My head was gone,""my head was a mess,""my head was about to explode,""my head was battered,""it was doing my head in." With his insights, Gerrard is likely to ruffle a few feathers and not everyone is likely to view his book positively. But, for a boyhood Liverpool (and Gerrard) fan, this is going to be a regular re-read in the foreseeable future.

As such seasoned readers may well be put off by the style of this book. It is not particularly welcoming, and you almost need to skim the words rather than trying to take them all in as individual sentences. Certainly if you try to read the book intricately it will become a struggle, because in all honesty it just doesn't flow that well from sentence to sentence. Then again this is something that should be expected and persevered with. If you want a literary masterpiece, don't buy the autobiography of a professional footballer. This book is an autobiography of a soccer player, so it will not appeal to many people. It is not fiction, it is not unrealistic, and this is a person’s life. If you like soccer, or really any sport, you should read this book, because it shows that these professional athletes are not just what you see on TV, they are real humans, with the same struggles and life as we have. This autobiography really opens your eyes to the world of a professional soccer player, and much of it is quite surprising.Gerrard and Liverpool then ran off a string of four consecutive season finishes outside the top five Premier League positions. One bright spot during that stretch was the team’s performance in the nonleague tournaments during the 2011–12 season, when Liverpool won the League Cup and was the runner-up for the FA Cup. The club broke through in 2013–14, leading the Premier League for six of the final seven weeks of the season only to relinquish the championship in the final week to place second in the league. Gerrard played one more season with Liverpool, leaving the team following the 2014–15 season having scored 186 career goals for the club, fifth most in Liverpool history. He then joined the Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League Soccer (MLS). Gerrard played with the Galaxy for two seasons before retiring from club football in 2016. These days, Gerrard takes occasional injections to strengthen the ligaments in his hip. He is the captain of a young team that's trying to master a patient, precise, possession football that seems at odds with his own impatient style, with its apparent governing ethos of "never hit a short, simple pass when a long, spectacular one will do." Bellamy again: "The club asked a lot of him. There were times he had to carry the team … he would be in a good mood one day and then the next his head would be down and he wouldn't talk much … he is an immense player but because he was streaks ahead of everyone – even someone like Alonso – he put too much onus on himself to do everything. The club relied on him. There were days we knew that if we were going to win, Stevie was going to have to be at his best. He knew that too, and that is a lot of pressure to carry around on your shoulders." Narrated in the brutally honest tone of Liverpool's iconic captain, the book doesn't shy away from landing a few strong punches. Clearly, Gerrard couldn't care less about political correctness (especially at this stage in life). The book really shines when he goes in depth with what goes on behind the scenes of a big football club like Liverpool FC - what's happening in a club when their captain for more than 10 years have to ask repeatedly for a new contract, and finally getting an offer he couldn't possibly accept with the ultimatum of signing the contract or leaving? The description of Rafael Benitez as a cold tactician really is a highlight, one scene in particular where Gerrard speaks with Rafa after the penalty win in the FA Cup final in 2006. Gerrard is, understandably, expecting some praise (he has after all scored 2 goals in a historic final in one of the biggest competitions in English football), but the only reaction from Rafa Benitez is that the team "have to do better in the league next year".

He writes candidly of those he's played with and competed against, from Luis Suárez to Jose Mourinho, his experiences under Brendan Rodgers and Roy Hodgson. He also has an incredible and rare personal story, telling us of the extraordinary ups and downs of staying loyal to one club for your entire career. Gairah dibutuhkan di usia muda, masa-masa ketika seorang pemain bisa hidup dari kecintaannya terhadap sepak bola dan memperdalamnya melalui disiplin dan dedikasi. Para pemain berbakat yang bersedia mengorbankan segalanyalah yang akan menjadi pemain seperti Michael Owen, Jamie Carragher, dan John Terry." League titles are won by teams, not individuals. The United boys didn't outscore Gerrard on medals 50-0 because they were better players. It was because there were six of them and only one of him. 'Anxiety has been Gerrard's constant companion' Gerrard was never really a general. Deep down, he's always been a star. In 2009, he scored twice as Liverpool beat Real Madrid 4-0, prompting Zinedine Zidane to comment: "Is he the best in the world? He might not get the attention of Messi and Ronaldo, but yes, I think he just might be. If you don't have a player like Steven Gerrard, who is the engine room, it can affect the whole team. When we were winning league titles and European Cups at Real, I always said Claude Makélélé was our most important player. There is no way myself, Figo, or Raúl would have been able to do what we did without Claude. The same goes for Liverpool and Gerrard." At first, Benítez tried to persuade Gerrard to play more with the head and less with the heart. By his second season, he had decided it would be better to find a way of working with the player's nature rather than against it. So he started playing him out on the right. Gerrard considered this a demotion, and every so often he would tell the media that he preferred to play in the middle. Benítez argued that the truth was on the field. The move away from the centre coincided with Gerrard playing the best football of his career.

Gerrard mengupas perjalanan karirnya dimulai dari penyesalan ketika "terpeleset" di partai melawan Chelsea, pasang surut tim bersama para nahkoda "Pool", hingga akhir perjalanan dirinya bersama klub tercinta. Apa yang terjadi dua-tiga tahun terakhir, tentu mendapat tempat dengan porsi lebih di buku ini. Perpisahan dengan Suarez, salah satu pemain favoritnya adalah salah satu hal terberat dalam karir ayah tiga putri tersebut. Stevie G, layak dikenang sebagai salah seorang pemain terbaik di dunia. Mungkin tidak dalam mendekati level seperti "Messi" atau "Ronaldo-CR7". Namun eksplosivitas, kemampuan terbaik mengangkat tim, dan kinerja memukau di lapangan membuat sang Skipper berada di hati banyak penggemar berat Liverpool. Saya rasa hal yang sama juga berada di benak khalayak pecinta sepakbola. Stevie datang di masa pubertas saya. Saya yang tak tertarik dengan cowok nyata dan pacaran menjadikan Stevie sebagai cinta pertama. Nyatanya, saya memang terpukau pada pandangan pertama sejak melihatnya bermain untuk timnas Inggris. Literally at first sight, pas sekali ketika kamera menyorotnya menengok ke belakang, nomor dan nama di punggungnya terlihat. Sejak itu, saya mencari klub tempat ia bermain dan mulai menonton Liga Primer. Lagi-lagi, saya terpana. Ada sesuatu di klub ini yang membuat saya merinding tiap mendengar chant You'll Never Walk Alone meski hanya lewat televisi. Dan setelah mempelajari bahwa Stevie adalah pemain loyal di sana, saya sulit untuk tidak jatuh cinta pada keduanya.

Buku ini ditutup dengan kisah dan alasannya untuk pindah ke LA Galaxy--yang saya lihat berhubungan dengan keputusannya gantung sepatu. Stevie sadar ia tak semuda dan semenggebu-gebu dahulu. Ia juga sadar kehidupan tak seindah dongeng. Keinginannya di usianya yang sudah 30an sederhana, yaitu ingin dikenang saat sedang jaya-jayanya. Diingat ketika penampilannya sedang sangat baik. Dan juga kehidupan normal untuk keluarganya. Di Amerika, fans sepak bolanya tidak se-hooligan Inggris, yang bisa memuji dan mencaci Stevie kemana pun dia pergi. Ia menginginkan ketenangan. Kala itu Stevie kecil menangis di kamarnya setelah mendapat surat penolakan. Kemudian ia berteriak pada ayahnya bagaimana bisa seorang kapten Liverpool Boys tidak bisa lolos tes dan bersumpah tidak akan bermain sepak bola lagi. Ayahnya kemudian mengatakan begini, Personally this book stood out for me for a number of reasons. The first is the stark contrast between the private nature of Steven Gerrard from day to day, and how revealing he is in this book. It would have been so easy for a footballer with this career up to this point to concentrate on the professional highs and lows, and not delve too much into the personal side of things. Indeed, taking this route must have been tempting for someone who works hard to keep himself out of the media limelight. I wanted his shirt?" That thought might have crossed Roy Keane's mind at some point, but he would never have admitted it. Keane took such a dim view of shirt swapping that, when he was manager of Sunderland, he barred his players from doing it: "I had senior players coming up, and asking me for my shirt during a game … and I'm thinking, 'Are you really focused on the game at all?' You see players now who say, 'I've got 50 jerseys in my garage,' and I think, 'yeah, brilliant. But how many medals have you got?'"I decided to read this book because I am huge football fan. I am reading a football book because I love the sport. The haunting memories of Hillsborough, where his 10-year-old cousin, Jon-Paul Gilhooley, was the youngest of the 96 Liverpool fans to die in 1989, still upset Gerrard. It is clear these passages, as each new anniversary of the tragedy unfolds at Anfield, cause Gerrard the most pain and distress. He admits he found the one occasion when he was asked to read at an anniversary service almost too much to bear. 5) He’s not afraid to cry