Watch: Not Carra or Gerrard: Hamman names surprise player as ‘reason’ Liverpool won 2005 UCL

Liverpool fans are always happy to reminisce about winning the Champions League in 2005 and Dietmar Hamann has provided his unique take on the game.

Speaking on ‘That Peter Crouch Podcast’, the German said: “The guy is in the shower, two minutes later somebody comes, ‘Djimi, you’ve got a carry on’.

“Now, once you finish mentally with a game, to get back into that zone, into the focus again, it’s near enough impossible.

“Djimi played as well as anyone in the second half and I always say my hero, the reason we won the Champions League, it’s not me, it’s not Steven Gerrard – it’s Djimi Traore.

“Because he had a goal-line clearance, he had a few last ditch tackles, one of the best tacklers, one of the quickest players and Djimi played as well as anyone and this is what set us apart from other teams.”

It’s certainly a huge claim from the 50-year-old and just goes to show how underappreciated Djimi Traore’s role was for the Istanbul heroics.

Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher and Jerzy Dudek will all have fair reason to be considered the biggest influence but the Frenchman was certainly appreciated by his teammate.

You can view Hamann’s comments on Traore (from 15:24) via That Peter Crouch Podcast on YouTube: