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Bob Paisley
| Category: | Special European Hall of Fame - one of the five all-time best managers from the English game based on performance in Europe |
| Year Inducted: | 2008 |
Profile by Robert Galvin, the author of The Football Hall of Fame, the official book of the National Football Museum Hall of Fame:
Bob Paisley perfected a winning formula that yielded three European Cups and one UEFA Cup in the space of six seasons - a record that made Liverpool the most feared side in Europe.
His first European Cup triumph - the defeat of Borussia Moenchengladbach in the final of 1977 - remains arguably the most memorable. Famously, Paisley was returning to Rome for the first time since he marched on the city with the invading Allied forces during the Second World War.
Equally famously, Paisley stayed sober during the victory celebrations, in order to ‘savour the atmosphere', although one journalist later claimed that the real reason for the decision was that the hotel bar did not sell his favourite brand of beer - brown ale.
Four years later, however, Paisley achieved a feat that gave him the greatest professional satisfaction: the single-goal victory over Spanish giants Real Madrid in Paris. As a member of the Liverpool coaching staff during the late 1950s and early 1960s, Paisley had marvelled, like millions of other football fans across the Continent, at the great Real side of Alfredo di Stefano and Ferenc Puskas.
On hearing the final whistle in Paris, Paisley hugged Alan Kennedy, the Liverpool left-back and goalscorer that night. ‘Bob was beside himself with joy, on cloud nine,' Kennedy recalled later. ‘It meant so much to him to beat the great Real Madrid.' Afterwards, a proud and jubilant Paisley told reporters: ‘We've won the European Cup three times for Liverpool and England.'
In between times, Liverpool had defended their crown at Wembley, beating Bruges, with an outstanding goal engineered by one of Paisley's signings, Graeme Souness, and finished delicately by another, Kenny Dalglish. Two years earlier, Paisley's side defeated the same opposition 4-3 on aggregate in the final of the UEFA Cup - his first European trophy as manager.
Under his leadership, Liverpool amended the tactics they employed in domestic competitions in order to cope with Continental opposition expert at drawing the opposition out and then hitting them on the break.
‘Because of this,' explained Alan Hansen, another of Paisley's signings, ‘in a lot of our European ties, and especially those away from home, we didn't leave anywhere near as much space behind our defence as we did in domestic matches.'
Their opponents may have had more technical ability, conceded Hansen. But Liverpool were ‘streets ahead' in other important aspects of the game: resilience, strength of character, and physical stamina. ‘Once we put them under pressure, they collapsed,'
Of course, once Liverpool had possession they could also play a bit. ‘All our players were comfortable on the ball,' Hansen would write. ‘And by stretching the play a bit, with the defence that little bit deeper, we benefited considerably from giving ourselves extra room in which to play going forward.'
An ability to keep possession and build attacks from the back was a vital part of Liverpool's success, particular away from Anfield. ‘When we got to away games and the fans were going mad, doing their best to put us under pressure, Bob said that it must be our priority to quieten them down,' Kennedy explained.
Soon after that famous victory in Italy, a t the ceremony to install Paisley as manager of the year, his predecessor at Anfield, Bill Shankly, asked to contribute a few appropriate words, rasped: ‘If you think I am feeling a wee bit jealous . . .then you'd be bloody right!'