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Jamie Carragher has named the most and least intimidating atmospheres to play in as a professional footballer
Playing across the continent pitted the 45-year-old against some of his toughest tests, with Carragher now revealing facing the likes of Olympiacos, Galatasaray and Besiktas were the most daunting fixtures
Carragher:
"I would probably say Turkey. Turkey or Greece [are the toughest places to go away from home]
"You know when you go to an Olympiacos, you’re thinking ‘oh’ an hour before the game, you go out and have a look at the pitch for a European game. Turkey was the same - Besiktas, Galatasaray."
"It’s not so much the game, a lot of places can have a great atmosphere once the game starts, but you know you’re thinking ‘this is lively’. Even an hour before the game in the warm-up you’re thinking ‘oh, this could go off here’, so I would say those places, but I loved it."
One away stadium that he saw a drastic increase in success was Everton's Goodison Park - the venue named as his least intimidating visit.
Carragher added
"You class Everton as a rival, obviously, alongside a Chelsea or United or Arsenal, but they were never as good as those teams,"
"So when you’re going to their grounds, intimidating atmosphere, almost like a derby game at Old Trafford, top quality players, so it is always going to be difficult to win there. But, with Everton it was that atmosphere, it was a derby game, but we were better than them and you always knew that.
"We had a great record there in terms of winning. I think of all the success Liverpool had in the 70s and 80s, but I think under Gerard Houllier we won there four years in a row there, which was a record. Even Jurgen Klopp’s team I don’t think do that.
"We had a great record at Everton, I used to love going to Goodison. Great atmosphere."
the ex-Liverpool man was asked who the funniest members of the Liverpool squad were throughout his time at the club.
Carra
"Didi Hamann was funny - he used to make me laugh. Pepe Reina was a big character as well. Danny Murphy - he’d always give me a little chuckle and a giggle,"
"Pepe was a big character, Danny was funny with the one-liners, and Didi was just almost like a bit mad, so you’d almost be laughing at just some of the antics or the gear he had on, or what he’d been up to. And the fact he was foreign, he still got our humour and wit. He understood what was going on.
"Craig Bellamy was hilarious - very funny, unless it was you who was on the end of his sharp tongue. I think we had a couple of little ones - little bit of banter. We were arguing about how good he was as a player, so we were winding him up and everywhere he’d been, he’d been loved.
"He’d played for a lot of clubs and he said ‘name one club where you don’t see my name’, so I went ‘Liverpool’ and he said ‘alright, besides Liverpool!’"
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