Liverpool great Jamie Carragher has named one legendary centre-back as the perfect choice for a defensive partner.
Having joined Liverpool’s youth academy in 1988, Carragher was called up to the first team in January of 1997 after impressive performances for the reserve team, making his senior debut in a League Cup quarter-final fixture against Middlesbrough.
He would go on to become the club’s second highest appearance-maker, pulling on the famous Red shirt on 737 occasions in his 17-year spell on Merseyside, and tallied up a haul of nine major trophies along the way, including two FA Cups, one UEFA Cup and the UEFA Champions League trophy in 2005.
Just a few months prior to the conclusion of the 2012-13 Premier League campaign, Carragher announced that he would be calling time on his career at the end of the season and played his final game for the club in a 1-0 victory over Queens Park Rangers.
In footage shared by Sky Sports Retro, Carragher was asked to name his ideal partner in central defence and didn’t hesitate to name Italian great Franco Baresi as the one defender that he would have ‘loved’ to play alongside during his career.
“I would have loved to have played one game with Franco Baresi. The thing I loved about him is that he wasn’t the biggest centre. He was very quick, but his understanding of organising the team, when to push up and drop off. Defensively they [AC Milan] were as good as anything we’ve ever seen.”
Baresi is widely considered to be one of the greatest defenders to have ever played the game.
Much like Carragher, the former Italy captain is a one-club man, having spent the entirety of his 20-year professional career at AC Milan.
Baresi won multiple major honours for the Italian giants including three European Cups and no less than six Serie A league titles, alongside the World Cup with Italy in 1982.
