I passed out in the Anfield locker room, but my injury won’t be the reason I won’t play much for Liverpool
Jari Litmanen will participate in Saturday’s Legends match at Anfield for both Liverpool and Ajax.
When Ajax and the legendary Liverpool team take on one other on Saturday, Jari Litmanen will make his Anfield debut after a decade.
The longtime Reds supporter, who spent two periods in Amsterdam and won five Eredivisie titles as well as the Champions League, is a club legend for the Dutch powerhouse. The 53-year-old is one of the most well-known players in the traveling Ajax team as a result.
However, he has also been confirmed as a late addition to the Liverpool squad, and will make a belated official debut for the Reds legends as a result, having last played in the ‘Celebration of the 96’ charity match in 2014. Such an appearance comes 13 years after hanging up his boots and 22 years after his last first team outing for the club.
It is not the first time he has made a belated debut, of course. The Finn joined Liverpool on a free transfer from Barcelona in January 2001, but that wasn’t the first time the Reds tried to lure him to Anfield.
In the end, three clubs made an offer in 1999: Liverpool, Barcelona and Bayern Munich,” he recently recalled to the Guardian when looking back over his career. “It was not difficult to choose Barca: they had the same philosophy as Ajax.
“They are two distinct clubs that have a common foundation. I’ve heard [Pep] Guardiola remark, “We just painted the chapel; Cruyff built it.”
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