Sami Hyypia || The Legendary Finn

Footballers and coaches watch games through different eyes to most of us, seeing things we do not see. This season, Sami Hyypia — the young manager of Bayer Leverkusen — has seen things in English football he has found hard to recognise.
'I saw a good game the week before last,’ said Hyypia. ‘The  Liverpool against United one. The tempo was there, it was really the English game. But I saw a few games before that and I was  thinking, “What’s happening?”
'Maybe the game has developed in a wrong direction that way, that when a player goes somewhere and cost £37million and he’s earning £200,000 a week he is happy just to get the money. Maybe the focus of playing football is the  second most important thing


'Somehow the passion was  missing. I saw a few games and wondered if they were trying hard enough. That is what I noticed.
'That was always the trademark of the English game. The tempo was high and there were tackles. But that Liverpool-United game was good.’ Hyypia, of course, made his name in England. A central defender at Liverpool for a decade from 1999, he left for Germany four years ago as decorated as he was respected. Since then, his career has changed direction remarkably.
Two seasons as a player at Leverkusen saw him promoted to the role of coach and a third-place Bundesliga finish in May — just a point behind Borussia Dortmund — sees  Hyypia preparing to take his team to Old Trafford in the Champions League on Tuesday.
Sitting at a table in the canteen at Leverkusen’s superbly appointed BayArena last week, Hyypia seemed to be a man  wearing the responsibilities of management very well


Straight-backed and direct, the 39-year-old was happy to be reminded of the last time he visited Manchester United, on March 14, 2009.
'That was my last 90  minutes in a Liverpool shirt and we managed to win 4-1,’ he smiled. ‘So yeah, that’s a good memory.
'I wasn’t supposed to start. Alvaro Arbeloa got injured in the warm-up. I don’t know what kind of reception I will get from the Man United fans, but for me it’s great to go back. It’s my first Champions League game as a coach and what better place to do it than Old Trafford?
'We have some players who will be playing their first Champions League game. I don’t have to motivate  anybody, that’s for sure.
'But I think I have to use my experience that it’s another football match, nothing else.
'Yes, it’s Old Trafford and its Man United, this team that has won everything but, you know, it’s only a football game. Everybody has to be calm and self-confident and do their stuff and then we will see what happens.'


Talking to Hyypia (below), it’s clear that his management — and his early success in the toughest trade in the game — has its foundations in the same logical thinking and depth of preparation that he relied upon as a player.
Bundesliga
'When I was younger I wasn’t the biggest talent,’ he said. ‘But I am a team player and I always wanted to work hard. That was maybe the key to why I was at Liverpool for 10 years and that’s what I ask of my players now.
'As a player it was much easier. You came to training half an hour before, somebody tells you what to do and you do it and then after training you go to the shower and go home. There is much more to this job of course, but it’s great that last year I got this opportunity. Everything happened very quickly. I didn’t expect that. But I was ready for a  challenge and it’s a big one.
'When I left  Liverpool they wanted me to stay as a coach but I said no because I wanted to play. I’m really happy I came. I had a good experience and the team did well so I have no regrets about leaving Liverpool.’


A 3-1 home win over Wolfsburg on Saturday means that Leverkusen have won four and lost one of their opening games. That is still just good enough to see Hyypia’s team in third place, though, in a league that looks set to be dominated by the same three teams again.
Certainly the Champions League could be a tough environment for the 2002 finalists this time round. Not only do Leverkusen have a rookie coach, they also lost two of their best  players — Andre Schurrle to Chelsea and Daniel Carvajal to Real Madrid — this summer.
'It was a step back because we had a system  and everybody worked well in it last season,’ said Hyypia. ‘Now we have to build it up again.’ Hyypia fully understands the scale of the task in a group that also features the Ukrainian team Shakhtar Donetsk. Yet the Finn has no intention of building up United into something they are not in the eyes of his players.

Asked to talk about Robin van Persie, a forward he has played against, Hyypia’s response  numbered precisely two words.
'Good player,’ he smiled.
As regards David Moyes’s United team, Hyypia has been watching their early efforts closely. Asked about the absence of Mr. Ferguson, he said: ‘Yeah, it’s strange. He was there so long and now he’s not. But I guess we all get older, and now it’s a new time there.
'I guess they have some problems there. But I think under Ferguson, United had slow starts to the  season, too. David Moyes is experienced and I don’t think he will be panicking at the moment.
'It’s an interesting game. I don’t think we need to scout Man United a lot for this game. They will play exactly the same way they played under Ferguson.'
Despite his concerns for the  English game, Hyypia remains a confirmed Anglophile. He still has a house in England and it is not hard to see him working here once again. And if management doesn’t work out, he already has an idea.
'I have not seen Jamie Carragher on TV yet but I know about it,’ he smiled. ‘Maybe I can come as translator, when it is him and Gary Neville together…

Markus Babbel once told a group of journalists that he had walked into the Liverpool dressing room after a defeat against Leicester City in 2001 only to find Sami Hyypia crying in a corner. When the Finnish defender was asked about the incident nearly a decade later he said: "Sometimes games can be very emotional. And sometimes, afterwards, one has the feeling of not having done enough, to have let down your team-mates," he told the German magazine 11Freunde in 2010.

"That was one of those days that I did not feel good [about the game]. It is absolutely no shame to be crying in the changing room. I think this story just tells how important football is for me. But it is fair to say that this approach to football at times made it difficult for me to be a professional footballer."

With comments like that it is easy to understand why Hyypia, now in charge of the Bayer Leverkusen side facing Manchester United in the Champions League on Tuesday night, became such a favourite during his 10 years at Liverpool. He could have stayed on as a coach but decided that he wanted to carry on playing and joined the German club in 2009. There he set about changing a culture which he found extraordinary.

"I noticed already in pre-season that the players weren't talking to each other after games. In Liverpool we were always talking after games, especially the player you were playing next to. We went through the different situations and said 'The next time it would be better for me if you did this … and so on.' But in Germany no one seemed to speak to each other. The game was over, no one said anything, just went to their cars and put their iPods on."

Slowly Hyypia started to communicate with his Leverkusen team-mates. The club took notice and, when Robin Dutt left the club in April of last year, the Finn and the Under-19 coach at the club, Sascha Lewandowski, were appointed joint caretaker coaches. It was an arrangement that made the old Gérard Houllier-Roy Evans combination look straightforward. Hyypia was Team Chef – as it is called in Germany – and Lewandowski was Chef Trainer. The latter, as he had a training licence, would do the coaching during games, the press conferences and the training sessions. Hyypia would do individual training with some of the players and did the pre-match press conferences.

It was a project doomed to fail and, after a season full of speculation, Lewandowski stepped down to leave Hyypia in sole charge. He has led Bayer to four wins out of five in the Bundesliga this season and the team have responded well to losing their creative spark André Schürrle to Chelsea. The midfielder Sidney Sam, who can also play in attack, and the forward Stefan Kiessling have responded to the added pressure by scoring four goals each in the opening five league games.

The 29-year-old Kiessling is a particularly interesting player. He has been scoring regularly for the past three seasons without any recognition from the national coach, Joachim Löw, and his patience finally snapped last month. He said that he would never play for Germany again as long as Löw was the coach. "I want to take away the pressure [and make sure] that this issue is not brought up time and time again. I can now fully concentrate on Bayer.

"For three years now, there has not been any contact or any info on why I am not good enough for the national team. I am not the guy to cause a stir, but I want to finally bring this issue to an end."Kiessling has no such issues at Leverkusen, where his manager has showered him with the kind of praise his goals deserve. "Without Kiessling we would really struggle," Hyypia admitted last month.

The Finn won four times as a player at Old Trafford but said in the 11Freunde interview that he does not miss anyone from Liverpool and prefers the quieter life in Leverkusen. Asked whether Liverpool was a tough city, he recalled an incident in his first season at Anfield: "I was sitting in this restaurant when I suddenly heard some shots go off. It was myself, Christian Ziege and Sander Westerveld. Like lightning we went down on the floor. We couldn't quite see what was going on. There were two entrances and we couldn't see either of them from our corner. There was an argument with a doorman. Someone was shot in the leg. We finished our meal in silence."

So Leverkusen is more sedate? "Yes, but those things are not important to me. I don't need nightclubs," said Hyypia. "Things that are important to me are infrastructure and good training facilities and I have got that here." Infrastructure rather than nightclubs rather sums up Hyypia's character but, if Leverkusen pull off an unlikely victory at Old Trafford he may just allow himself a beer.

Interview wrote:"I have got two special places in my heart. I was born in Finland, and there the job as the national team coach is the biggest job. Liverpool has the other place in my heart. I don’t want to say, ‘That’s my goal’, but -- after the ten years I played there -- it would also be a dream to one day be the Liverpool manager,"

"I live in the here and now, and that means Bayer Leverkusen, which gives me a lot of pleasure."