BRILLIANT INTERVIEW WITH JOHN ARNE RIISE
REMARKABLE INTERVIEW WITH JOHN ARNE RIISE, WHOSE SPORTING PROWESS IS MATCHED ONLY BY THE CONSTANT TURMOIL IN HIS LIFE
IN THE early summer of 2005, John Arne Riise walked into a branch of McDonald’s in the Norwegian town of Alesund. He was not hungry.
‘I had seen someone go in there,’ Riise explained this week. ‘At school I was bullied. Never invited to parties and stuff. Not picked for sport.
‘Pale kid, ginger hair, freckles. You get it. That guy was one of those who did it. It was a fluke that I saw him, but he obviously worked there. So I came to the counter for the Big Mac. I didn’t even want one, just the reaction. He turned and it was: “Next please”. He looked straight at me, in to my eyes. He knew.
‘I said nothing, walked out and threw the McDonald’s away. It wasn’t planned but it was the perfect reply. There is absolutely no disrespect that you are working in McDonald’s. But I had just won the Champions League. It felt good.’
Riise saves that story for the final page of his new autobiography. That feels telling. It is meant to feel like closure and for the former Liverpool player it represents exactly that. THINK of John Arne Riise and what do you get? Good player, certainly. A steady guy, probably. No drama. Not much to see. Wrong.
Jamie Redknapp, who played with him, called him ‘a machine’ and his work up and down the left side of that Liverpool team was metronomic over seven years and 348 games. But that moniker was inappropriate. Riise carried frailties, worries and insecurities through his career that were so deep it is a wonder he made it out the other side.
During it all, he was too scared to articulate his issues, afraid it would derail life on the field. So he feels better now it’s all over. His third wife, Louise, has helped with that also.
But in his mind he still has what he calls his ‘black box’. That is the place where all the bad stuff lives, the trauma of his parents’ divorce, the loneliness, the guilt over two failed marriages and difficulties that has placed on relationships with his three children.
And then there is his own late father, Hans. Did he really hit his mother as people said? Why didn’t his dad let him know he was dying? And why was he never told where he was buried?
Riise’s book, Running Man, contains one of the most revealing sporting stories to be told this year, but for the author the number of copies it sells is not the most important thing.
‘I was nervous about being that open, yeah,’ nodded Riise. ‘It was a risk but I needed it out there.
‘In football you are not supposed to show weakness so now is the perfect chance to open that black box in my head. However well I played, I never thought I would start the next game anyway.
‘So I didn’t want to go to Rafa (Benitez) and say: “I am going through a divorce” or “I am mentally exhausted” because I knew I’d be rested.
‘So I played to the strong Riise image and hid everything. Who wants to mess up a career by talking about personal stuff?’
Riise won a record 110 caps for Norway and a Champions League, FA Cup and League Cup at Liverpool. But he feels he was never popular back home. They preferred Manchester United’s Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and he has never quite got over that.
‘He has never done or said anything wrong,’ shrugged Riise. ‘He is exactly how Norwegian people would like him to be. I am not.’
As Riise became well-known, his younger sister was also bullied at school. When she was older she had beer poured over her at a graduation event. Eventually she left town.
A statue of Riise was erected outside his former club in Alesund in 2005, but at its unveiling he noticed it did not carry his name. Instead the plaque said only: ‘The Footballer Player’. This year they finally put that right.
On the closure of his international career, meanwhile, he was offered a dinner by the Norwegian FA. Riise accepted, but it never happened. ‘It’s almost like jealousy,’ he said. ‘In Norway you are not supposed to talk about yourself or say what you want to achieve. Me? I said what I wanted to do and then I did it. They don’t like that.’
Riise’s relationship with his country is complicated, but he feels it’s better now. The book has helped and so did a spell on a reality TV show. ‘People could see Riise the person and not Riise the footballer,’ he smiled.
‘Harry Redknapp was loved already but now people know him even more after the jungle. For me a desert island helped.’
In terms of his relationship with himself, that has always been the hardest thing. At the root of everything has been a desperate desire to be liked. At times, it has crippled him. Ignored for school teams — ‘they would pick someone on crutches ahead of me’ — Riise took to running. Twice a day, three times a day, sometimes up a hill with his mum at the top with a stopwatch. He was twelve. It worked in that it earned him a move to Monaco as a teenager. But it didn’t solve the self-esteem issues. ‘ Being good at sport usually makes you popular and happy but not me,’ he said. ‘That’s weird, eh?’ A father at 19, Riise was divorced twice by the age of 31. Before both ceremonies he absolutely knew he was making a mistake, but he went ahead anyway. He says he has good relationships with his children now but has found it hard to hug them or express his love. This may be related to the break-up of his parents’ marriage when he was six. Riise is actually the surname of his step-father, Thormod. His own father’s family name was Eikrem. Riise has for years wrestled with a dilemma over whether to add that name to his many tattoos as a way of honouring his real dad. His mother has claimed she was beaten by her first husband. Riise did not witness it but, asked this week whether he had reached a
‘I used to love games against United – Rooney, Ronaldo, Ferdinand, Keane – but I never saw myself as equal’
decision on the tattoo, he said: ‘I now know more about the history behind my mum and dad than I knew before. So I am not gonna do that. I have decided.’
Riise’s father died aged 40 in 1999. Riise raced to his bedside from Monaco, but was five minutes late. He has never forgiven himself for stopping for lunch on the way.
Kept away from the funeral by his mother, he was nevertheless asked to pay for it. He has spent two decades not knowing where his father had been laid to rest.
‘Someone heard me say about the grave and I got about 150 messages on Twitter saying they know where it is,’ he revealed.
‘So the Norwegian people helped me there. I am going to the grave at New Year and will pay respects. It’s another thing I have to get out of my system.’ AT HIS current home in Oslo, Riise has a photograph of himself kissing the Champions League trophy on the pitch in Istanbul in 2005. ‘I said to myself as I held it that I had made it,’ he smiled. ‘Whatever happened after that, it would never matter.’
His inner doubts had shown themselves there, too. Usually Riise was safe from them on the field, but he missed a penalty in the shootout against Milan after suddenly losing faith in a left foot that he knew could propel the ball like a rocket. ‘I had cramp and felt insecure,’ he recalled. ‘Walking forwards I had three options. Smash it, place it or do a Panenka chip. I went for safety and regret it because it is the only time of my life I went for safety in anything. Dida saved it.
‘I walked back and Carra (Jamie Carragher) said: “Ginge, didn’t you realise that Dida went to that same side for every penalty so far?”. I was like: “Why didn’t you tell me before?” It still annoys me! But Carra is funny. He text me the other day asking if he gets a good mention in the book. I said: “Of course”.’
Riise loves Carragher and also Steven Gerrard. They are two of the players he trusted enough to discuss his problems.
That Liverpool team flattered to deceive in the Premier League, but did rather well against tomorrow’s opponents Manchester United at times. The Kop still sing about the free-kick Riise fizzed past Fabien Barthez in 2001.
Barthez already knew about Riise’s power, having had his wrist broken by a shot while the two men were at Monaco.
‘I used to love the big games against them,’ he said. ‘Rooney, Ronaldo, Ferdinand, Keane... all these players. But I never saw myself as equal even though I had success. I just felt like a small boy from a little city in Norway.
‘They had everything. Winning. Confidence. Ambition. And they knew it. When a player comes to the pitch with confidence, you know. And they had it. Because they were so good.’
Riise is a fan of current United manager, Jose Mourinho. Less so of his team. ‘It’s weird to see a massive club going through this now, on and off the pitch,’ he said.
‘Mourinho looks different than he used to and it’s weird to see them at Old Trafford sitting back. They are letting the opposition have 70 per cent of the ball. That’s not the United I remember.’ RIISE believes his career could be have been ended by a teammate in 2007. Having argued with Craig Bellamy on a club trip to Portugal, Riise went to bed only for the Welshman to burst in to his room and attack him with a golf club.
Bellamy has subsequently expressed his own regret, calling his behaviour ‘pathetic, drunk, and bullying’. Riise doesn’t disagree.
‘I just wanted him to think twice, go back to his room and then we can meet up in the morning and finish it off properly,’ he said. ‘I was ready to do that but he didn’t show. He was strange as he was cocky and confident and loud — screaming and shouting in training — but if you stood up to him he was like a big puppy.
‘ I remember Fulham versus Liverpool and Clint Dempsey said something to Craig and he s*** his pants. Bellamy is complicated and I don’t know much about it. So I can forgive, but I don’t forget.
‘If he had hit me in his first stroke — if he had hit my shins — I would have been done.’
Liverpool played Barcelona in the Nou Camp soon after the incident. They won 2- 1 and Bellamy and Riise scored the goals. Bellamy celebrated his by swinging an imaginary golf club (right).
‘It was the most annoying thing for me that he did it,’ Riise said. ‘It was disrespecting me.’
Riise was told he was no longer wanted by Benitez towards the end of the 2007-08 season. The news came a week after he had scored an own goal against Chelsea in a Champions League semi-final that Liverpool lost.
After the meeting, the left back cried in his car at Melwood just yards from where someone had sprayed graffiti on a wall. It said: ‘Riise — Go Home’.
‘I spoke to Rafa recently about coming to see him to talk about coaching,’ Riise laughed. ‘I have always said that one day I will have him admit he made a mistake letting me go but I know it won’t happen.
‘I knew they wanted competition for me, but maybe the own goal put more pressure on to do that. But Rafa was honest. He just told me face to face. That is why I keep in touch. He is a fantastic manager and a good person and friend.’
Riise’s fondness for Liverpool endures and is reciprocated.
Immigration at John Lennon airport used to wave him through without seeing his passport.
‘It felt like home when I came and still does,’ he said. ‘I learned the Scouse accent quickly and I love coming back here.
‘I am doing my coaching badges. The plan is to move to the UK and Liverpool could be an option.’ RECENTLY Riise’s seven-year-old son realised his dad had been a good footballer and asked if he knew Cristiano Ronaldo. So they watched some video footage and Riise ordered him a Juventus shirt.
Bit by bit, Riise is squaring the circles of his life, filling in the missing pieces.
In Norway they still raise eyebrows. They are not sure whether he will follow through his stated intention to be a manager. Only recently, they point out, he said he wanted to be an agent. Some still reference the parts of Riise they didn’t like.
The unsolicited text messages he sent to female celebrities at the height of his fame and the red Ferrari he once owned.
‘They hammered me for that car in Norway,’ said Riise. ‘And the worst thing is that I gave in and sold it. I was running away from the bullies again. It still irritates me now’.
Riise is still only 38 but says he no longer worries about what people think of him.
Who knows if that is true? But he has recovered from being left £3m in debt by an unscrupulous agent and has patched up his relationship with his mother who also once represented him.
In his book Riise describes her as a publicity-seeker which is hardly diplomatic. ‘I have said that out loud to her,’ he said. ‘But now we are in a perfect place and we learned from the bad parts.’
That could have been an apt title for Riise’s autobiography. Learned from the bad parts. He insists he has and we hope he is right.
If it turns out that he hasn’t, he will at least always have Liverpool, the club that gave him the courage to walk into a fast food restaurant on a summer day in 2005 and deal with some of his demons. John Arne Riise: Running Man is published by deCoubertin Books and is out now. www.decoubertin.co.uk
‘Solskjaer is how Norwegian people would like him to be. I am not.’ ‘Bellamy was cocky, screaming and shouting in training but was like a big puppy if you stood up to him’