Jerzy Dudek has a bit of a temper? Stop the presses!
The former Liverpool keeper is back airing his dirty laundry in his brilliantly titled autobiography ‘A Big Pole In Our Goal’ – serialised in the Daily Mirror.
This time around, a confrontation with Rafa Benitez shortly after Liverpool’s successful Champions League campaign in 2005 takes centre stage.
After the signing of Pepe Reina, Dudek was faced with two options – leave the club or be demoted to number two goalkeeper. Dudek claims he was informed of interest from Bundesliga club Cologne by Benitez and wanted to leave so he could play regular first team football, but he was frustrated with how the deal had stalled.
“I got more and more frustrated with him until transfer deadline day when I finally boiled over.”
“As soon as training had finished, I stormed over to him and ripped my gloves off in an aggressive manner. I was so angry that the lads said later the aggression was pouring out of me. I raised my voice.”
However, his voice wasn’t the only thing Dudek considered raising. At one point, rather worryingly, the keeper could hear voices telling him to raise his fist to the Spaniard.
“I was furious with him, absolutely fuming, and in my head I could hear a devilish voice saying ‘Punch him in the face – punch him in the face and he’ll let you go to Germany’. I don’t know how, but I managed to stop myself.”
However, he managed to come to his senses and came to the conclusion that striking his boss was probably a bad idea.
“To be completely honest, I genuinely considered punching Rafa in the face. Then the consequences of doing so flashed through my mind. Would he let me go? Or would it just lead to a massive media scandal? Surely I couldn’t stay if I gave him a smack?”
“Punching a Liverpool manager who had won the European Cup only a few months earlier wouldn’t have looked too good on the CV, I guess, but I was still angry.”
