Liverpool Legend Jamie Carragher Reveals He Nearly Punched Alvaro Arbeloa During a Game
By Jake Purvis
Jamie Carragher has admitted almost punching former Liverpool teammate Alvaro Arbeloa during an on-field altercation.
The pair ended up in a scuffle during Liverpool's 2-0 win over West Bromwich Albion back in May 2009 - Arbeloa's last season at Liverpool.
The incident came up when Carragher was discussing the Netflix docuseries The Last Dance about Michael Jordans's famed Chicago Bulls team. Despite the six championships the team won, Jordan has come under some criticism since the release of the docuseries for the manner in which he treated his teammates.
Carragher came to his defence when talking to Sky Sports (via the Daily Mirror) and gave an insight to Jordan's willingness to win, "He's [Jordan] obviously the best player ever in basketball, I'm obviously nowhere near that in football. He got into rucks at times with his teammates because he went so close to the line.
"When you're so passionate about something it will push you to the line, now it's very difficult to not then cross that line."
"I was on a football pitch and nearly struck one of my own teammates, or punched, Arbeloa. Now I don't look back at that proud, but that was always going to happen at some stage or another, or the odd little thing in training, because you're so intense.
"You wanted to win, everything mattered and at times you would cross the line."
Carragher believes that the bust-up was due to some lazy defending from Arbeloa with Liverpool trying to help Pepe Reina win the Golden Glove as the 2008/09 season came to a close.
Despite this incident, Arbeloa has a successful two-year stint at Liverpool, earning him a move to Real Madrid where he would win two UEFA Champions Leagues and one La Liga title.