Heralding from the land of Thor, Loki and Odin, Liverpool landed their own Nordic legend in the summer of 2001.
Whilst the aforementioned Gods had mystical hammers and spears, our John Arne Riise was armed with a deadly left foot.
A mold breaker in many ways who paved the way for the modern fullback to get forward and make a difference, Riise wrote himself into Liverpool mythology with consistent performances and extremely important goals.
A unique style of play
You take a look at any well-performing team these days, and one of the similarities you can draw across the board is the position and intent of their full-backs.
We won league and Champions League titles with attacking full-backs. PSG will likely go back-to-back in the Champions League this weekend because of the same thing.
It’s now commonplace, but that wasn’t always the case. Fullbacks used to defend, and that was it.
Before Riise’s arrival, we’d seen the swashbuckling style of left back used effectively only a handful of times.
The biggest examples of this were Roberto Carlos and Cafu. Now, I’m absolutely not saying that Riise was anywhere near the level of those two greats, but it takes a certain calibre of player to even attempt to break into that category.
Riise was gifted with an endless engine and a devastating left foot. For 90 minutes and sometimes more, he’d be all over the left-hand side of the pitch. He’d commit to overlaps in the 89th minute, leaving us wondering how he had anything left in the tank.
His stamina was important, but his ball striking and eye for goal made him into the legend he is at Anfield. He was relentless in a time when we needed something to pin our hopes to.
Riise’s Arrival
As a part of a David Trezuguet lead Monaco team, Riise picked up his first major honour as a player by winning Ligue 1 in 2000. With such a big win for the club, naturally, the bigger players in the team start seeking pastures new.
Trezeguet, Rafael Marquez, Fabian Barthez and Ludovic Guily all stated their interest in leaving. Riise was no different. Riise’s admission of a new adventure left him very much out of favour in the Monaco side and he was barely featured the following year.
Monaco lost their heavy hitters and slumped to a lowly 15th. The majority of the team was unhappy, and Riise wasn’t seeing minutes anywhere close to what we deserved.
After a season of watching from the bench, he was granted the chance to leave.
Despite being on the shelf for the best part of a year, he still had a lot of Premier League interest. He had the choice of Leeds United, Fulham or Liverpool.
In the end, Merseyside was his only choice, and he joined the Reds for £4 million that summer.
Riise’s Impact
Now, unless you’d been following Ligue 1 extensively for the couple of seasons prior to his signing, you’d have no idea who John Arne Riise was.
Liverpool had just come off the back of a treble-winning season, picking up the League Cup, FA Cup and UEFA Cup.
Whilst it was a success, wholesale changes were made to the team in the hope of taking that extra step. Household names like Robbie Fowler and Gary McAllister had left the club, opening the door for new blood to stake their claim in a red shirt.
Our well-built, orange-haired man was unveiled to the Liverpool faithful alongside club legends like Jerzy Dudek and Milan Baros, and you’d be forgiven for just letting that transfer fly out of your mind as quickly as it entered, but that wouldn't last long.
Riise's first game for the Reds was in the European Super Cup against Champions League winners and German juggernauts, Bayern Munich.
The European curtain raiser can be used to set the tone for the season for many teams. To have such a prestigious trophy under your belt before a Premier League ball is kicked is fantastic for morale.
Having that as your first game and first chance to impress at the club is almost unheard of.
Riise, as he was used many times in a Liverpool shirt, started on the left-hand side of midfield. This was long before the obsession with wingers, when left midfielder really meant the left side of midfield, and not ‘let’s see how often I can get to the opposing team's by-line’.
23 minutes in, a ball is knocked over the top to Michael Owen, which, if you’re a defending team in the year 2001, is the last thing you want to see.
Owen’s electric speed means he’s inside the box in a matter of seconds and squares a perfect ball over to the marauding Riise to tap in at the back post. The perfect way to open your account and introduce yourself to the Liverpool faithful.
Oddly enough, it might have been the easiest goal he scored for the Reds. The rest of them weren’t so easy, but my word, they were spectacular.
A lasting legacy
Football at the moment is a game of inches. You’ve got coaches playing possession-obsessive football. Wingers are taught to pass the ball back into midfield instead of driving on, and threats of being hooked if you even dare to take a shot from outside the box.
I think it’s fair to say that football in this era was played with a little bit more freedom. During the years Riise spent at Liverpool, consistently, the world's best players were the most expressive.
We’re talking about the era involving Ronaldinho, who some would argue is the most exciting player to ever touch a pitch. With this air of freedom, players take more chances and try things they simply wouldn’t do today.
Riise, in terms of his career and style of play, was in the right era at the right time. It was barbaric to think that one of your biggest goal threats would be a left back, but that’s what he became for Liverpool.
His ball striking was fantastic for crosses, but we rarely saw a huge return in assists. What we did see was a mammoth return in goals.
I don’t think there has been a player in our history who has hit a ball harder than Riise. Sure, we’ve had players who can strike it cleaner and technically better, but in terms of power, he has no equal.
Have you ever heard of a free kick breaking another player's leg? That’s what happened when Liverpool played Manchester United in 2006. The free kick was about 40 yards out, which never really made much of a difference to Riise.
The ball is laid off, and Riise strikes it with the same ferocity he has done time and time before.
Alan Smith was the brave man who jumped in front of the shot that day, and as he blocked it, the ball dislocated his ankle and broke part of his leg, something I don’t think has ever happened in world football, especially not on this stage.
But there is a reason teams would try to close the space on a Riise free kick. There is always one player in any Liverpool team, regardless of era or generation, when we get a free kick in shooting distance, we just assume they’ll take it.
Trent Alexander-Arnold, Steven Gerrard, Luis Suarez, etc. Riise was them and then some. One of the set-piece specialists that you were almost surprised if the goalkeeper wasn’t tested.
Teams would look genuinely dejected when they’d give away a foul in those positions because they knew what was coming.
Either this is going in, or I’m getting hurt in the wall; there was rarely an in between.
I don’t tend to get too hung up on stats, especially nowadays. Whilst they’re an indicator of form, they don’t give you the full picture of how the player performed on the pitch. In this case, stats do Riise justice.
In his 7 years at Liverpool, he clocked a sensational 348 appearances and found the net 31 times. Given when he played and the team he played in, that’s phenomenal.
Whilst Riise is responsible for the fastest goal in League Cup final history and is well known for his free-kick winner against Manchester United in 2001 at Anfield, how he played the game and the excitement he brought is why I remember John Arne Riise.
As a young lad growing up watching Liverpool, you attach yourself to certain players. How do you watch an Auburn Nordic animal strike a ball at 112km/h into the top corner against your biggest rivals and not fall completely in love?
Liverpool Lore will return next Thursday with another installment.
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