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Jari Litmanen would go on to dazzle at Ajax
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During the mid-1990s, there were few better attacking midfielders on the planet than Jari Litmanen. The game’s first bona fide Finnish superstar, Litmanen was the talismanic presence in the all-conquering Ajax side that won the 1995 Champions League and 12 other trophies during his seven-year spell with the Dutch giants. Litmanen arrived in Amsterdam from Finnish side My Pa, but only after trying his luck in England.
"During my time in the army, I visited clubs in Sweden, Switzerland, Spain and England, ” Litmanen tells Four Four Two. “Someone arranged a week for me at Leeds. I played one reserve game and trained once with the first team, but English football back then was completely different. “Even if they’d offered me a contract, I would have said no – it wasn’t for me. It was a lot of long balls, too much football in the air, not the kind of game I could play. ”
When Litmanen left Ajax in 1999, he reunited with his former boss Louis van Gaal at Barcelona - another club he had gone on trial with as a youngster. “In the first week, I trained with the second team, then there was a break in the Spanish league and many of the players were on holiday, ” he recalls. “One evening, the phone rang in my hotel room. Someone said: “Hello, are you Jari Litmanen? This is Johan Cruyff, I’m the coach of Barcelona. Do you know me? ” The best features, fun and footballing quizzes, straight to your inbox every week. “I thought someone was messing with me, but he said, “Tomorrow you’re coming to train with us, is that OK? ” I said yes, thinking I was going to train with the second team. “Then he told me, “No, with the first team. ” Suddenly, I was training alongside Hristo Stoichkov, Michael Laudrup, Pep Guardiola, Andoni Zubizarreta, Jose Mari Bakero… it felt surreal, an amazing experience.
“After the last session, Cruyff said, “You did well, I like you – keep working hard and in a couple of years you’ll get your chance somewhere. ” “Barcelona already had three foreign players – Stoichkov, Laudrup and Ronald Koeman – so there was no space for me in the squad. ” For more than a decade, Joe Mewis has worked in football journalism as a reporter and editor. Mewis has had stints at Mirror Football and Leeds Live among others and worked at Four Four Two throughout Euro 2024, reporting on the tournament. In addition to his journalist work, Mewis is also the author of four football history books that include times on Leeds United and the England national team. Now working as a digital marketing coordinator at Harrogate Town, too, Mewis counts some of his best career moments as being in the iconic Spygate press conference under Marcelo Bielsa and seeing his beloved Leeds lift the Championship trophy during lockdown. You must confirm your public display name before commenting Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
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