'Roy Hodgson claimed he hated the Europa League' - Mark Schwarzer on the glory run which gave Fulham fans the time of our lives

And Mark Schwarzer can recall that it was in the Eternal City that Fulham’s greatest manager of the modern era well and truly lost his rag and declared that he ‘hated’ the Europa League.

This was during the early stages of the glorious march to the 2010 final, when Fulham had tossed away a lead and suffered a 2-1 group-stage defeat by Roma – with red cards for Erik Nevland (who’d just arrived as a sub) and Paul Konchesky adding to the ire of the future England boss.

“With the two red cards, it was a nightmare of a game,” remembers Schwarzer, “Roy was livid with the performance. He said ‘I hate this competition anyway. I’ve been in the final once and lost’.

“I countered that after we had beaten Basel (to qualify for the knock-out stage) by saying ‘I’ve been in a final before and lost it but, jeez, I want to give it everything I can to get back and have a chance to win it’.

“Roy wasn’t a real shouter but he would raise his voice and a lot of expletives would come out and you knew he was really raging. He’d be rocking back and forth and you knew he wasn’t happy.

“But he didn’t have to be that way too often. In general, he was comfortable and happy with the way everyone applied themselves.”

Hodgson, who’d lost a UEFA Cup Final with Inter Milan back in 1997, spoke those words in a fit of pique and he soon changed his tune as his underdogs stormed across the continent – staging a series of comebacks, dodging volcanic ash clouds and coming to within a cruel extra-time deflection of taking Atletico Madrid to penalties in the final.

The highlights real from that European run is engrained in the memory of every supporter who witnessed it. From the blizzard in Basel, to Bobby Zamora’s belter against Shakhtar Donetsk (rated by Schwarzer as possibly the best team he ever played against); from Zoltan Gera’s summersaults and Clint Dempsey’s glorious chip against Juventus, to victory over Bundesliga champions Wolfsburg to another comeback in the semi-final against Hamburg – whose stadium would host the final.   

For most Fulham fans, that Europa run represented the time of our football-supporting lives.

The career of Schwarzer – who played SIXTY matches for Fulham that season before heading to the World Cup with Australia – was extraordinary in its longevity.

In all, he made 874 appearances for clubs and country and was a member of Leicester City’s miraculous title-winning squad at the age of 43. And no foreign player has featured in more Premier League matches than the big Aussie keeper’s 514.

Yet that Europa League campaign was a major highlight – after he had been part of a similar run at Middlesbrough, who lost in the UEFA Cup Final in 2006.

Schwarzer credits Hodgson with building a team of experienced players, excellent characters with a remarkable camaraderie – who had to overcome early doubts over their manager’s relentlessly repetitive training sessions in order to reach only the second major final in Fulham’s history.

And Schwarzer, 54, admits he was one of several players in that team who was desperate to prove his doubters wrong after he’s been written off as ‘past it’ when he left Boro for the Cottage in 2008 - with eight years of his career still to run.

“A lot of players in that squad had a point to prove,” says Schwarzer, “Dickson Etuhu and Simon Davies came in having had a bad time with injuries and they were managed really well. Davies was exceptional.

“Damien Duff was one of a lot of players who were fringe players elsewhere or players that people thought were past it, like myself, or simply not good enough.

“Danny Murphy was in the twilight of his career but he was a phenomenal player. The relationship he and Dickson formed was very strong and solid.

“The first couple of months were tough but the players who didn’t buy into it were moved on and those that did flourished.

“Everyone was really hard-working from the second half of the (2008-9) season onwards that was the squad who achieved what we did. There was a real professional, respect and camaraderie.

“I don’t think we could have done much better with that group of players. Of course, we could have won the final and we were unlucky not to go to penalties at least. I still kick myself that we didn’t.

“But the road to the final, how we overcame huge setbacks and obstacles and to get to the final was an incredible accomplishment.

“Those moments, like Atletico’s winner, could have been different but they are just moments. Could we have done better than finishing seventh and reach a Europa League Final? Probably not. We were at the upper limits of what that squad could achieve.

“That’s in hindsight. At the time, we felt we could do more. That was the self-belief.”

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Schwarzer arrived at Fulham within weeks of our ‘Great Escape’ when victories over Manchester City, Birmingham and Portsmouth earned an astonishing reprieve from relegation.  

He said: “I’d been at Boro for nearly 12 years and one of the reasons I left was because there was a belief around the club that I was past it. They offered me a one-year contract with no guarantees.

“I said I’m pretty sure the minimum I get offered will be a two-year contract and that was the case.

“They had lost faith in me, a lot of the supporters had lost faith, and sometimes it’s best for both parties to move on.

“I was a team-mate of Gareth Southgate for five years, then he was my manager for two. He said he wasn’t making the ultimate decision and we are still on good terms. He sent me a really nice letter.

“I had offers from Juve and Bayern Munich but it was as a No 2 but I wasn’t prepared to do that at that point. I wanted to go to another World Cup and felt I needed to be paying week in, week out.

“Fulham was my best option. Mike Kelly (Hodgson’s assistant and goalkeeper coach) had been instrumental in signing me for Boro in ‘97.

“He had sounded me out but Fulham were in a very precarious position. I knew there was genuine interest if the stars aligned and Fulham stayed up. It was a possibility but it felt a long shot because everyone thought Fulham would go down. So I was rooting for Fulham to stay up.

“Mike spoke very highly of Roy. When I spoke to Roy he was very clear on the type of players he wanted to bring in. The old chairman (Mohamed Al Fayed) was very clear he didn’t want to be in the same predicament the following season so Roy had scope to change things.

“He bought players with know-how who fitted in to the system. We were drilled constantly into a system which was really effective and even if individually you weren’t having your best day, you fell back into the system.

“We were still really difficult to beat, the games were always tight defensively we were very strong and could always score goals.

“It took time to gel but once then it fell into place and we really enjoyed it. The coaching staff were brilliant – Roy, Ray Lewington, Mike Kelly and Billy McKinlay. The medical staff and the strength and conditioning was all being built. The attention to detail was exceptional.”

But it started off with players moaning constantly about ‘boring’ training sessions.

“Those first three months in 2008 was hell for people,” says Schwarzer, “They moaned no end about training. Roy hated us playing small-sided games. I’ve spoken to him about it since and he regrets not giving the players a little more reward and allow us to enjoy training sessions more.

“We’d go to Ray Lewington about wanting to play small-sided games. And at the end of a session Roy would say ‘right, I know you want to play a game. Ray, you take the f***ing game’ and then he’d go inside. That was Roy. I don’t why he hated it so much.

“But the penny dropped with the players realising this wasn’t going to change and it shouldn’t change because we are having a lot of success, we’re playing well so we’re just going to have to suck it up, there’s no point moaning any more.

“As a keeper, our training is always repetitive. That’s what you do. But there’d be sessions of 10 men against the keeper with no defenders, just to run through patterns, then a square pass and a tap-in. That could be boring for me!”

When Schwarzer spoke of players who didn’t buy in to Hodgson’s methods, I mentioned the name of midfield maverick and fan favourite Jimmy Bullard, who was shipped out before Fulham achieved their best-ever top-flight finish of seventh place to qualify for the Europa League.

Bullard clashed frequently with Hodgson, a serious coach who personifies the idea of ‘not suffering fools gladly’.

“You said that name, not me!” Schwarzer laughs. “Jimmy had played a big role in the club staying up the previous season. That can’t be underestimated. That was the Great Escape and it was special.

“But from when I arrived, things were different. The manager wanted to bring in a different level of professionalism, to be competitive in the top half of the table.”

Schwarzer had always loved playing at the Cottage for Boro and for Australia.

He said: “The Cottage was a fortress in my time at the club. I’d played there a lot and the Australian national team played home games there.

“I always loved playing at the Cottage as an away player and that wasn’t because it was ‘nice’ – it was to do with the experience.

“The new Riverside Stand is remarkable, they have done an incredible job but I also love the Johnny Haynes Stand, as much as it’s pretty uncomfortable for a big guy to sit in (when Schwarzer sits in the press box for media work) - it’s iconic. And the Cottage itself is special.”

After that defeat against Roma, Fulham needed to win away in Basel – then a crack outfit with a long unbeaten home record – and the Whites prevailed 3-2. “Basel was huge because they hadn’t lost at home in years,” says Schwarzer, “It was a monumental task – it was freezing and snowing.

But we had belief we could good there and win. It was a fantastic performance. “Then in the knock-out stages, Shakhtar Donetsk were probably the best team I ever played against. Their first 45 minutes at the Cottage was right up there.

“But they got complacent, switched off, we came back and Bobby scored an amazing winner.

“Going to Donetsk in February was freezing, the pitch was terrible. They couldn’t play their football which was a result for us. We took the lead and held on for a large part of the game. Murph was sent off for a rush of blood – that’s little man’s syndrome, isn’t it?”

Then on to Juve and a night of nights at the Cottage - only after a dire display in a 3-1 defeat in Turin.

“The Juve away game was by far and away our worst performance,” he says, “We felt we let ourselves and our fans down massively because we had played so well in the rest of the tournament. That was the worst performance we put in that entire season.

“We had a lifeline in scoring a goal. But we knew we had forged out a great run of form at the Cottage. We felt we could win. You know in a knock-out match, you score one and the opposition can wobble, you get two and there’s a real sense that the are holding on.

“We knew the ground would come to life. We made it a bit more difficult for ourselves by conceding early. But there was always hope and belief.

“It was the story of the season that you’re behind but as soon as it’s 1-1 on all the night, there’s a sense of belief from the fans.

“We got the second and from that moment ‘we are going to do this, we’ve got this’. Ten men helped (after Fabio Cannavaro’s sending-off with the second leg at 1-1) but it was a dead-cert red card and we would have scored. Shakhtar couldn’t break us down when we were down to ten but we broke down Juve.”

Dempsey’s winner will go down in Fulham folklore but the American was a regular sub during that season. And after Fulham won both legs of the quarter-final against Wolfsburg – with Zamora netting in both – the Whites embarked on an epic road trip for the semi-final leg in Hamburg, after the Icelandic ash cloud had wreaked havoc with air travel.

“We took 18 hours to get to Hamburg,” recalls Schwarzer, “We got stuck on an autobahn for two or three hours. The players were on the road playing keepy-ups. It wasn’t ideal prep but nothing ever fazed us because of the amount of experience in the squad.

“To get a 0-0 there, when they were so desperate to play in the final at their home ground, was a great result.”

Before the second leg, Zamora declared himself unfit and Dempsey was told he would start as a makeshift centre-forward – only for a Zamora U-turn to spark rage in the American.

Schwarzer said: “Clint was an absolute fighter. He fights for everything.

“You speak to him and he’s the calmest, nicest guy but you put him in a competitive environment and he becomes this animal with a complete and utter devotion and fixation on fighting to win.

“He was someone we had to manage at times. He could get over-fixated in a training session and he would lose it and be an angry man. That’s to do with his upbringing and how he had to fight for everything.

“Bobby didn’t train the day before the second leg against Hamburg and on the morning of the game Clint was told ‘Bobby isn’t going to be fit and you’re starting’.

“Then he turned up at the ground – and Bobby had told Roy ‘I want to give it a go’ and he felt he could do it. “Clint was devastated and angry. A lot of us were in the changing room and Clint had been called into the manager’s office to tell him he wouldn’t be starting. He came out and put his hand through the window and stormed off.

“It was no surprise, it was just Clint. He was a fighter. He was a brilliant player for us. I don’t know if he understood how important he was for the team. I hope he does.”

That second leg brought another comeback as Davies and Zoltan Gera netted in the space of seven second-half minutes to reach the final – to the strains of ‘Stand Up If You Still Believe!” from all four sides of Craven Cottage.

The final, a 2-1 defeat with a Diego Forlan winner deep in extra-time, still grates with Schwarzer. He said: “We were so unlucky with both goals, the first one was a shot which was going in a different direction which just fell to Sergio Aguero who was free on the six-yard box.

“The second one, the shot is going wide then it clips Brede’s leg and goes in. You can’t get angry with anyone about that. Shit happens. We were so unlucky.

“I felt the way we got ourselves back in the game with Simon Davies’ equaliser, we had earned our luck and deserved to get to penalties at the very least.

“It was devastation. I’d been in one final before with Boro and lost 4-0, when we had gone for it and been exposed in the last 15 minutes by a very good Sevilla side.

“This time around, we were never outplayed or inferior, we held our own and deserved penalties in the way we performed on the night. I still feel aggrieved by it.”

That was Schwarzer’s 60th and final Fulham match of a campaign which had started in the qualifying round in Lithuania the previous July.

“The manager kept asking me if I wanted to play and I said ‘if you ask me, I’ll always say ‘yes’.” And if you want to play the reserve keeper (Pascal Zuberbuhler), you had better tell me not ask me!

“My mentality was that it is so hard to become a No 1 so when you are a No 1 you don’t want to give anyone else the opportunity to show what they can do and a platform to take your position. I want to play every game.”

Within days of the final, Arsene Wenger made a bid to sign Schwarzer for Arsenal.

Schwarzer said: “It was two days before our first game at the World Cup (in South Africa). Roy called me up and said they had an offer from Arsenal and he wanted to know whether I wanted to go.

“He said ‘you’ve been great and I wanted to ask you because you deserve that opportunity’. I said ‘there’s not many club I want to leave Fulham for – I had never played Champions League football and Arsenal wanted me as a No 1 – and I was like ‘yes, unfortunately, I do want to go'.

“He said ‘I understand, I thought you’d say that, we will do our best to make it happen. We will sort another keeper out, we will get a bit of money for you and everyone will be happy’.

“But unfortunately Roy left (for Liverpool) two weeks later and the club didn’t appoint a new manager until a few weeks before the start of the new season.

“I was in a predicament. I knew there was interest from Arsenal but everyone at the club was telling me there wasn’t – I knew there was, because Roy had told me. With that opportunity laid out in front of you, I was bitterly disappointed.

“My first conversation with Mark Hughes was ‘gaffer nice to meet you but I’m sure you are aware that Arsenal have come in for me and I want to go’. He did his best at pretending not to know what I was talking about and that was the annoying bit. It could and should have been dealt with in a better way.

“In hindsight, I understand it. I don’t regret anything. Fulham looked after me and I signed a new contract. I fractured a bone in my back and was unavailable for ten weeks and the club still extended my contract and they didn’t have to do that. Then I had an amazing experience going to Chelsea and Leicester.”

But Schwarzer’s final months at Fulham were blighted by what he regards as the ‘gutless’ actions of boss Martin Jol – who wanted to sign his fellow Dutchman Maarten Stekelenburg to replace the Aussie.

“The January before I left, Martin Jol tried to bring in Stekelenburg on loan,” he recalls. “I felt the manager relied on me a lot and I thought his dealing with that was really poor and lacking in respect and pretty gutless.

“If he’d come to me and said ‘we want to bring in this guy, I’ve worked with him before and I want him to be No 1’ then I would have been disappointed but I’d have respected him. But he didn’t.

“Then you find out the guy is in the country ready to sign for Fulham and then at the last minute it all fell through. Although he didn’t get off the plane, actually.

“Then the manager acts as if nothing had ever happened and wanted to be my friend again then there’s no respect there.

“That was a real disappointment the way I left the club but very few people get the ending they want.

“Jol had come in to the club and said ‘I’m not going to change things’ then all he did was start to fiddle.

“I was certain by the way in which he dealt with players - Danny Murphy was another one - that it wasn’t going to end well.

“Regardless of my own situation, he underestimated the value of certain players and thought he could replace them with players who wouldn’t question him as a manager.

“And that was his downfall. He had a lot of players who weren’t going to fight for the cause or the club. They were all about self-preservation and ultimately that led to the club going down.”

Dimitar Berbatov and Bryan Ruiz were a pair of talented showmen – but the idea that two such luxury players could both be regular first-team starters at a smaller Premier League club was hopelessly naïve.

Schwarzer said: “I feel for Bryan Ruiz, he was a good player and a huge amount of expectation on a player coming from the Dutch league where the levels are completely different. He needed more time and he needed the right players around him.

“With Berbatov, there is no doubting that the guy was a phenomenal player but he was also a luxury player. What had been built at Fulham before him wasn’t about having one individual luxury player that demanded the ball in every shape or form and felt he didn’t have to help out the rest of the time.

“And the manager put all his cards on Berbatov and ultimately that led to his demise and that wasn’t the first time it happened to him."

There are similarities between the end of the Hodgson era and the current transition from Marco Silva’s excellent five-year spell.

Schwarzer, now a media pundit, is viewing the start of Alvaro Arbeloa’s reign with interest – while still holding enormous affection for Fulham.  

He said: “The club have done really well with reconnecting with ex-players, not just the 2010 team, but all throughout the club’s histories and the new stand has given them the opportunity to do that.

“It’s a fantastic family club. There are some amazing people who still work at the club from when I was there.

“There were a couple of seasons (under Silva) where they might have beaten that seventh place and cracked on into Europe – it’s disappointing that they tailed off on each occasion.

“This season is a difficult, transitional, one because you’ve had Marco Silva for a large period and he has shaped a team which is very competitive in the Premier League and be on the fringes of Europe and you’ve gone to a manager with zero experience of working outside of Spain as a manager and limited experience of managing at the top level.

“There has to be level heads and they have to be wary of the pitfalls. The signs are a lot better than they were a few weeks ago, they are playing some good football.

“You can’t live in the past. It’s about hiring players with the right experience. A lot of the players he (Arbeloa) has brought in are young players from Real’s B team, with limited first-team experience but that is a lot of risk when you’re trying to survive in the Premier League but that is going to be their challenge.”    

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