No one ever talks about Ian Rush’s 48th goal of the 1983-84 season. But, as Rush explains to Michael Owen, it was the worst of the season to score.
These two strikers have 504 Liverpool goals between them, 47 scored by Rush in that record-breaking campaign which ended with a European Cup win in Rome.
So with a Champions League final looming, with Mohamed Salah in sight of that extraordinary total, it seems apposite to bring together two great Liverpool goal-scorers.
Liverpool goal-scoring icons Ian Rush and Michael Owen have assessed the European final
But that 48th goal? That European Cup final in 1984 went to a penalty shoot-out. At the start of the season, UEFA had awarded the final to Rome’s Stadio Olimpico so AS Roma had home advantage. And, with the match finishing 1-1 after extra-time, it came down to penalties, which is why Rush’s 48th goal — which didn’t count on his personal tally for the season — turned out to be the most problematic.
‘I don’t take penalties, you see,’ says Rush, a reminder that the record would be higher if he did. ‘We only had two penalty takers: Phil Neal and Graeme Souness. [Manager] Joe Fagan was leaving everything to Souness to organise at the end of the game. So Graeme came over to me and said: “Will you take one?” Reluctantly I said: “Yes.”
‘Then Souness told Steve Nicol he was taking one. He didn’t want to take one. And then [left back] Alan Kennedy kept saying: “I want to take one.” And Souness said: “You’re not taking one!” But no one else could take them. Kenny Dalglish had gone off. So, reluctantly, Souness had to say yes to Alan, because he couldn’t get no one else.
‘Originally it was going to be Souness first, Phil Neal, then me… and the next thing we knew Steve Nicol had just walked away. And Souness said: “Where’s he going?!” And he was walking off to take the first penalty. He just wanted to get it over and done with.’
Nicol missed. It didn’t look good. Sixty thousand baying Romans whistling at an excruciatingly high pitch whenever Liverpool stepped up and they were 1-0 down.
Still, Rush took the fourth penalty to make it 3-2 to Liverpool.
Rush won the European Cup with Liverpool in both 1981 and 1984
‘The most difficult and most nerve-racking thing was walking from halfway to the spot,’ he says. ‘I was s****ing myself! You’re by yourself, you’ve none of your team-mates and you’ve 60,000 booing at you.
‘When I scored, it’s the most relieved I’ve been. I dropped to my knees. Weirdly enough, the keeper made it easy for me because he went really early. As you’re running, you see him go.’
After Rush, Francesco Graziani stepped up, Bruce Grobbelaar performed his spaghetti legs routine, the Roma striker missed and Kennedy had the chance to win the shoot-out 4-2. ‘And he scores the perfect penalty!’ finishes Rush.
Owen, who was four at the time, is a rapt listener and empathises.
‘It’s strange taking penalties. There’s no joy in it. Whenever I scored a big penalty in a shoot-out it was pure relief that you’re not the one that is going to cost all your mates. There’s no time to celebrate. It’s more: “Thank God for that! It’s not me.” When you score in open play, that’s pleasure. But scoring a penalty is just relief you’re not letting everyone down.’
Rush agrees. ‘And when Steve Nicol missed, you just think: “I’m not going to be the only one who misses!”’
That Rush and Owen find common ground is unsurprising. Their paths are uncannily similar. Both were raised in Flintshire, just across the border in north Wales, Owen in Hawarden and Rush in Flint.
Owen admits there is no joy in taking a penalty in a big final – only relief if you score
Rush played for Chester City and both progressed to Liverpool with extraordinary success. In 2001, Owen was integral to the FA Cup, League Cup, and UEFA Cup treble-winning team and was also the Ballon D’Or winner that year. Rush, as well as being the club’s record goal-scorer, won five league titles, two European Cups, three FA Cups and five League Cups.
Both moved abroad to European giants, Juventus and Real Madrid respectively, and neither move worked out as well as they wanted. Rush returned to Liverpool and Owen to Newcastle and Manchester United, where he was on the bench for the 2011 Champions League final defeat by Barcelona.
‘We had similar paths,’ says Owen. ‘We were both from a similar area and played for the same teams. One of my greatest achievements as a child was playing for the Deeside district. We’d all heard of Gary Speed and Ian Rush playing for them, so straightaway you think you’re in good company. Rushy had scored 70-something goals, an all-time record. And when I was 10 or 11 I broke his record in the team.
‘So, straightaway, you think: “My God, I’ve got a chance of being a professional footballer, if I can beat his record at 11.” Unfortunately I couldn’t beat his Liverpool record!
‘At least I’ve taken one record off him. But my first memories of Rushy are him making me cry because he scored against Everton in the FA Cup final in 1986. I always remember him making it 3-1, because the ball hit a camera which was placed in the goal.’
‘They sent me the bill for that!’ says Rush.
Liverpool won the European Cup in Istanbul the season Owen left to join Real Madrid
Rush, also an Everton fan as a child, was something of a scourge of the club he once supported, famously scoring four goals in a Merseyside derby Liverpool won 5-0 in 1982. Back then, Rush was friendly with Wales team-mate and Everton captain Kevin Ratcliffe.
‘I had a six-month ban for speeding and as I lived in Flint and Kevin lived in Connah’s Quay, Kevin would take me in. And on match day, he said he’d take me home after.
‘We came out of the ground and had to walk 200 yards to his car. And these five or six Evertonians come up to us. And I was thinking the worst. But they went straight past me and hammered Ratcliffe. So I just legged it to his car! Then on the Monday, I turned up for him to take me to training and he shot off without me. I got in an hour late. Imagine scoring four goals and going in an hour late on Monday morning. I got absolutely hammered by [Liverpool coach] Ronnie Moran. “Big time are you now?” And I was: “No, honestly”.’
Naturally, though, the conversation is predominantly around Saturday’s Champions League final. And, as a former Real Madrid player and team-mate of their coach Zinedine Zidane, Owen is better placed than most to analyse.
‘In terms of a Champions League final, it doesn’t get much better,’ he says. ‘I never had Zidane down as a manager, I must admit. He was reasonably quiet in the dressing room. He didn’t miss a trick. You’d see him assessing the situation but I didn’t think he would want to go into management.
‘It’s quite frightening what he has done [winning two Champions League trophies, a league title and two FIFA Club World Cups since taking over in 2016]. There’s been talk of him getting sacked even after winning back-to-back Champions Leagues and possibly three on the spin. Yes, there are some great players at the club. But he’s shaped them into a great team.
‘To do that, so young, in his first real job, at a club which is so political. There are two huge papers [covering Real Madrid] fighting with each other. You have to keep both happy, or else one turns on you. Then you have the president. Then you have huge egos in the team. You’re juggling so many balls, more so than at any other club in the world. To do that with no experience of being a manager…’
Rush, of course, has his own experience of playing Real Madrid in a European Cup final, in 1981 when that man Kennedy again supplied the winning goal, in open play this time. ‘It was fantastic,’ he says. ‘They had Laurie Cunningham playing for them. And they talk about full-backs now, being wing backs and all that. But Alan Kennedy and Phil Neal were doing it in them days. For him to get the goal was unbelievable.’
Owen did taste European success with the Reds, winning the then UEFA Cup in May 2001
Owen’s European final with Liverpool was a 5-4 win over Alaves in the UEFA Cup. ‘This could be like that,’ says Rush. ‘It could be 5-4 to either side. It’s that wide open and too close to call. Real Madrid are not the team they have been, but they step up when needed. Liverpool can have 20, 30 minutes of pure brilliance.
‘But they can be 2-0, 3-0 up and you wouldn’t be confident. You don’t know what to expect. For the neutral, it should be fantastic. You’re just hoping that with the front three at Liverpool in form it will be difficult for Real to stop them from scoring.’
Owen concurs. ‘This could go either way. They’re contrasting teams in terms of experience and styles. I know everyone is putting Real Madrid as favourites but it’s a toss-of-a-coin game for me.
‘I think we might know after 15-20 minutes where the game is going. If Liverpool are getting success, they could run away.
‘The buzz around Anfield is huge. The style of play around Liverpool is a massive draw for neutrals. But if you’re a fan, it’s worth every penny to watch this Liverpool team. They rarely disappoint, especially in the big games.’
And as for the prospect of losing that record, it’s only become an issue for Rush recently.
‘I didn’t realise until two months ago that I had the record! I knew I’d scored 47 but I thought someone like Roger Hunt had scored 50. Of course you want to keep records, but they’re there to be broken. And when I did score 47, we won three trophies. If you score 47 and don’t win anything, individually it’s a great season but Mo is really humble and he’d swap all of them for the team to win something.’
With Salah on 44, it seems unlikely that Rush will lose it now.
‘Put it this way, if he beats mine, I’ll bow down to him myself,’ says Rush. ‘As long as they win! 5-4 to Real Madrid is no good!’