Sami Hyypiä criticises Rafael Benitez
Hyypiä opens up
Sami Hyypiä shares his thoughts about the end of his Liverpool career, when Rafael Benitez kept the superstar on the bench.
ATTACK
Sami Hyypiä criticised Rafael Benitez yesterday
Throughout his career Sami Hyypiä has been known as a true gentleman. One cannot find a more loyal team player. Although Hyypiä usually keeps his pokerface, some things are obviously still bothering him.
Yesterday's attack against former employer Liverpool was a rare occasion. The critique was clearly aimed at the Spanish manager Rafael Benitez.
"Now I can enjoy playing football again," Hyypiä started about how he's doing in Bayer Leverkusen.
"Maybe I never completely lost that enjoyment, but I barely got to play last year. Now it's up to me again. If I play well, I can start in the next game too."
"In Liverpool I noticed that it made no difference how well I played, I was still going to end up in the stands for the next match." There is no doubt about who the comments were directed to.
The fact that Hyypiä's last start in Liverpool was the dashing away victory against Manchester United was surely bothering him. The Finn was one of the biggest heroes of the match. After that he had to wait until the last game of the season to get the chance to play. By that time it was clear that it would be Hyypiä's last game in the Liverpool jersey, and yet Benitez benched him until the very last minutes.
Maybe the humiliation of the match is still bothering Hyypiä.
"In Liverpool it was no longer up to me."
I think that's pretty much I've been moaning and whining about the whole of last spring. But I'm glad he came clear with this, even if it makes me all pissed off all over again. But, there was something that managed to cheer me up a bit, anyway...
Sami missed his first international match in over two years today after suffering from a nasty flu. Finland managed to win the match against Azerbaijan without their captain, with the two goals scored by their two centrebacks. He should be able to take part in the Lichenstein game on Wednesday.