Sami Hyypiä signs on for tenth year with Liverpool

300th Premiership appearance goes unrealised against Arsenal

print this

Central defender Sami Hyypiä, 34, one of the pillars of the Finnish national team, has extended his contract with Liverpool FC to run until the summer of 2009.
      Hyypiä joined the Merseyside club in 1999, from the Dutch side Willem II.
      He has since become a regular in the Liverpool squad and an Anfield legend under both Gerard Houllier and the present manager Rafael Benitez, and has played 440 games in a red Liverpool shirt, scoring 32 goals.
     
Last year it looked briefly as if he was being cast in a secondary role, following the acquisition of Danish international Daniel Agger, but Agger’s prolonged absence through injury this season has meant Hyypiä has been present in nearly all of Liverpool’s Premiership and European Champions League fixtures.
      Hyypiä expressed his pleasure at working out a new contract with Liverpool, saying “I am very happy to have agreed a new deal. This is a great club with fantastic supporters, so I'm delighted."
     
The Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez pointed to Hyypiä’s importance as a role-model role model for younger defenders such as Agger and Martin Skrtel.
      "Sami has a lot to offer. He is a fantastic professional who is an example to all young footballers. He understands the game and is clever. All these things mean he can help other players. He has shown this year how important he is to us on the pitch, and he can continue to do that next season."
      Hyypiä was on the bench and not used for Liverpool’s away game at Arsenal on Saturday, and thus did not get a chance to mark up 300 Premiership matches. He has already passed the magic figure of 100 European Champions League appearances, and he has won nearly everything possible during his career at Anfield, including winners’ medals in the 2005 European Champions League, the UEFA Cup in 2001, two FA Cups, and two English League Cups.
      He was voted Sports Personality of the Year in Finland in 2001, and has been chosen as Finnish Footballer of the Year on no less than six occasions, two fewer than his one-time Liverpool colleague Jari Litmanen.
     
When Hyypiä joined the Reds, the club paid Willem II roughly £2.5 million, making him one of the best bargains ever signed to Anfield.
      Almost unbelievable among the many statistics the defender has notched up there is that he played every minute of 57 consecutive European games for Liverpool from November 2001 to February 2006.
      Equally astonishing (given the position and role he has to play) is the fact that during the 2000/2001 English Premiership campaign Sami Hyypiä went through an entire season - making 35 first-team appearances - without picking up a single yellow or red card.
      You try doing that when you are as big as he is, built like an outhouse door, and in precisely the role where referees expect you to bend the rules or be forced to make a late desperate lunge to stop a marauding striker.
      Hyypiä is the first to admit that he is not the fastest runner on the field, but a consummate sense of timing and placement has stood the giant Finn in very good stead, and continues to do so, even as the years rack up.


Links:
  Sami Hyypiä (Wikipedia)
  Sami Hyypiä on the Liverpool FC website

Helsingin Sanomat