Steven Gerrard can be considered as one of the best midfielders to have blessed football with their presence. Gerrard was discovered by his local upper-division football club, Liverpool FC, at age nine. He played for Liverpool’s youth squad and signed a professional contract with them at age 17. His first-team debut came on 29th May 1998, and he became a regular contributor the following year. Gerrard had proved himself as a star midfielder by the 2000–01 season when Gerrard earned England’s Young Player of the Year honours.
Gerrard was selected Liverpool’s captain in 2003, at just age 23. In the 2004–05 season he led Liverpool to the club’s first Champions League title in 21 years, scoring an important goal in Liverpool’s dramatic three-goal comeback versus AC Milan in the final. During the succeeding off-season, he became embroiled in a high-profile contract dispute with Liverpool that almost resulted in his transfer to Chelsea FC before he eventually re-signed with his longtime club. Gerrard then helped Liverpool win both the 2005–06 FA Cup and UEFA Super Cup, and he was named the Professional Footballers’ Association Player of the Year at season’s end. In 2007 Liverpool advanced to the Champions League final for the second time in three years but lost to AC Milan by a score of 2–1. Gerrard tallied a career-high 24 goals in the 2008–09 Premier League season, which netted him the Football Writers’ Association Footballer of the Year award.
Gerrard and Liverpool then ran off a string of four back-to-back season finishes outside the top five Premier League positions. One bright spot during that stretch was the team’s performance in the non-league tournaments during the 2011–12 season when Liverpool won the League Cup and was the runner-up for the FA Cup. The club broke through in 2013–14, leading the Premier League for six of the final seven weeks of the season only to relinquish the championship in the final week to place second in the league. Gerrard played one more season with Liverpool, leaving the team following the 2014–15 season having scored 186 career goals for the club, fifth most in Liverpool history. He joined the Los Angeles Galaxy in the Major League Soccer (MLS). Gerrard played with the Galaxy for two seasons before retiring from club football in 2016. Gerrard was a member of the English national under-21 team, and he debuted with the senior national team in 2000. He made one display in the 2000 European Championship (Euro 2000), but an injury kept him out of the 2002 World Cup. Gerrard was a frequent donor to England’s runs to the quarterfinals in both the Euro 2004 and the 2006 World Cup. Gerrard was named the captain of the English national team during qualification for the 2010 World Cup, in which the team was subsequently knocked out in the round of 16. England again advanced to the quarterfinals of Euro 2012 but was eliminated from the 2014 World Cup after having played just two games (both losses), which was the earliest the country had ever been knocked out of the tournament finals; Gerrard retired from international football shortly after the end of the World Cup.
After ending his playing career, Gerrard remained on the sidelines, first as a youth coach for Liverpool in 2017 and then as manager of Rangers, one of Scotland’s most-storied clubs, in 2018. He was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2006.
