Steven Gerrard: The Soap Opera Ending
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Steven Gerrard: The Soap Opera Ending

This weekend Steven Gerrard plays his final game for Liverpool at Anfield. Eight days later he will play his last ever match for the club that he as embodied for well over a decade.

There are things that seem as though they will always be. Events that roll around on an regular basis – Christmas, weddings and funerals, elections – once you have been through enough the patterns become deeply embedded. Whether we like them or not, the familiarity this engenders can offer comfort. They are cherished by some, and unite others in a common dislike.

For football fans of a certain age, Steven Gerrard starting another season with Liverpool falls into that category. It is as if he always will be turning out in red on the first day in August, talking with crumpled brow and grimace about finally bringing the league title back to Merseyside. There will forever be another Gerrard performance on a European night at Anfield, more songs from opposition fans, vital goals, needless bookings, more inspirational performances and Premier League disappointments. For 15 years, he has embodied the club. He is a thread that extends back to the likes of Rush and Barnes and reaches into the present day via Fowler, Carragher, and Suarez.

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But on Saturday Gerrard will play his last game at Anfield for the club; eight days later he will play his final Premier League match for Liverpool when they face Stoke City at the Britannia Stadium. It is perhaps befitting of Gerrard's Premier League career that there will be no great occasion to mark his final match: it is just an ordinary game away against perhaps the most resolutely ordinary opposition possible. Barring the most bizarre set of results, Liverpool cannot finish among the top four and secure Champions League football; it is also very unlikely that they will be overhauled for fifth.

Gerrard's Liverpool career will thus end without the prize he wanted most: a Premier League title. Yet he has won everything else for Liverpool: two FA Cups, three League Cups, a Community Shield, the UEFA Cup and two UEFA Super Cups. And, of course, the Champions League in 2005.

So there will be no Hollywood ending, but Steven Gerrard isn't a Hollywood player. He is pure British soap opera: the overblown dramas, the betrayals and passionate reconciliations, the sometimes unbelievable plot twists. He was never going to escape in a flaming helicopter clutching an AK47 in one hand and a supermodel in the other; he was destined to leave in a drawn-out but predictable storyline that had been leaked to the press months ahead of its transmission. The ignominy of a 38-second red card against Man United, the FA Cup semi-final defeat to Aston Villa, the slide into squad player status. And now a slow walk down the tunnel. The end credits will roll and Gerard's Liverpool career will fade from vivid red to into darkness. And in August it will all begin again without him.

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But Steven Gerrard's departure shows us that nothing – not even goodbyes – can last forever. And what good soap opera can resist bringing back its old favourites when the ratings start to dip?

Gerrard making his debut for Liverpool against Blackburn Rovers in 1998, replacing Vegard Heggem.

In 2001 Gerard was part of the Liverpool side that won an FA Cup, League Cup and UEFA Cup treble.

Gerrard's greatest success as a Liverpool player came with a Champions League victory in 2005.

12 months later he won his second FA Cup after an unforgettable final against West Ham. Gerrard scored twice, the second coming in injury time to level the score at three a piece. He later scored front the spot in Liverpool's penalty shootout win.

His final piece of silverware for the club, the 2012 League Cup, came after a penalty shootout victory over Cardiff City at Wembley. Gerrard missed his spot kick, but Liverpool went on to win 3-2.

The defeat to Chelsea that effectively ended Liverpool's Premier League challenge. No one - least of all Steven Gerrard - needs reminding that his slip gave away the vital goal.

A red card after 38 seconds against Man United was a bitter end to Gerrard's rivalry with the club

All photos by PA Images