There are not many people who can get away with a leather jacket. Especially a fur-lined, double-breasted leather jacket. But Jari Litmanen, now 53, is definitely one of those people, as he strolls through the Old Town in his adopted home city of Tallinn. It would be impossible in Finland or Amsterdam but here he walks freely, seemingly just another middle-aged man trying to stay out of the cold. But between 1994 and 1996 he was the best footballer at Ajax, then the best male team in the world. Of course, he was loved for his talent. But he was also loved for the way he kicked the ball, the way he looked. Nineties Litmanen was a vibe, and it turns out the 2024 version isn’t far off.
The Finn doesn’t grant many interviews, certainly not in person. His aloofness has fed the image that he is shy, reserved, mercurial, perhaps even a little arrogant. This is the opposite picture of the person who comes bouncing into the room, who beams comfortably at the camera. Litmanen is generous with his time, polite to all those around him, meticulous with his details. He is also surprisingly funny. Not laugh-a-minute funny, but there is a mischief in his face, a sparkle in those dark eyes. We talk about his recent appearance on the Finnish version of Top Gun, his new Instagram account (in which he shares positive news of Edwin van der Sar’s recovery from serious illness), his acting as an Amsterdam diamond jeweller and comedic timing in Finnish children’s films as a Dutch art dealer and an Italian pizza delivery man.
Is Litmanen in danger of being a bit of a card? He shakes his head. “But before Covid, I did play in the father-son matches at my boy’s school,” he says with a laugh. “But Covid stuck with me for a couple of years. Now, I’m trying to do more things. It’s not the same though, not 100%. I can now walk, cycle, and can now do one hour of cross-country skiing. But I have to be careful because I remember how low I was. I’m more focused on family life in Tallinn than doing things in football. My wife is Estonian. I live here, Finland is my country, but Amsterdam is my city.”
Litmanen is, by a distance, the greatest Finnish player of all time, although he never led his country to a major tournament. As a spectator, he eagerly awaits Thursday’s Euro 2024 playoff semi-final in Cardiff. “They are the favourite but not as strong as they were,” he says with a smile of Wales.
It is difficult to overstate how much reverence they have for Litmanen at Ajax. Walk around Amsterdam and you can see his shirt adorning apartment windows or keychains in the souvenir shops, 30 years after his heyday. To put his popularity into context, Ajax have just announced a retro Litmanen fashion line. The only other player to have one is Johan Cruyff. Five Eredivisie titles, three Dutch Cups and a famous Champions League title in 1995 have left their mark on player and club.
Things could have been so different. The road to Ajax and European glory was not clear and Litmanen came close to signing for many other clubs as a teenager. “I went to train with Malmö with Roy Hodgson when I was 17,” Litmanen says. “I had also visited PSV for two weeks, one week each at Leeds and Barcelona when Johan Cruyff was the [Barcelona] coach.
“A complication was that I had to do military service. It is compulsory in Finland. I did 11 months when I was 19. We would have to survive in the forest for a few days when it was -25C and also when it was +25C. Finland has been invaded in the past. People know what can happen. We learned to protect our country with our guns.”
Litmanen eventually earned a trial at Ajax, aged 21, which nearly ended in disaster. “I had a bad first training match, playing on the right, and had a kick on my thigh. After the game, Louis van Gaal said: ‘No, he doesn’t understand the Ajax system.’ But the physio and chief scout pleaded for another game as a second striker, my position. Van Gaal only agreed as Dennis Bergkamp had an ankle problem. I scored four goals and two assists and signed for Ajax the next day.
“Van Gaal told me to spend a season shadowing Bergkamp. He was so much better than me. But Van Gaal said he would stay just one more year and then leave. When Bergkamp left [for Internazionale in 1993] I was ready. He showed me the way. Edgar Davids, Edwin van der Sar, Patrick Kluivert, Clarence Seedorf, Finidi George, Nwankwo Kanu all came through. I signed at the perfect time. It would not have been the same if I had signed one year earlier or later.”
These youngsters were the lifeblood of that Ajax side that beat Milan in 1995. Litmanen was the linchpin, a creator and a finisher who knitted everything together.
Coming from a football backwater, Litmanen had always gone the extra mile to get the edge. He would take saunas in nothing but his boots, so they would mould to his feet, and later lost his sponsorship deal because he wouldn’t change from Copa Mundials to the new Adidas brand.
“I tested Predators in training – it must have been the worst session I ever had. I’m a football player because of feeling. Boots are the most important equipment. I always did strange things. I was a strange guy, practising alone, stretching all the time. I was ready to do more than the others, who first laughed at me, and then copied me.”
If the 1995 Champions League final was his pinnacle, it was a bittersweet match with an out-of-sorts Litmanen replaced in the second half by Kluivert, who scored Ajax’s winner.
“I didn’t feel well for a week, didn’t sleep and my eyes were red. I have an allergy to grass and plants but only three times in my life I have had a heavy reaction. One of those was before that Champions League final. That was unlucky. It was unclear if I could play. I was really tired. You have to be 100% when Marcel Desailly is man-marking you. So I was totally gone in that match. The change was logical.”
Litmanen scored six goals from midfield en route to that 1995 final, and the following season top-scored in the Champions League with nine goals, including one in the final against Juventus before a penalty shootout defeat. “We were better in ’96 than ’95. [Frank] Rijkaard had finished, Seedorf had left but we were one year more experienced. But we missed five players through injury and suspension, including Marc Overmars. He was maybe the most dangerous winger in Europe.”
Litmanen stayed at Ajax through the 90s, turning down interest “from Liverpool, Milan and Atlético Madrid”, despite many of his teammates moving on. “In the end, three clubs made an offer in 1999: Liverpool, Barcelona and Bayern Munich. It was not difficult to choose Barça: they had the same philosophy as Ajax. They are two different clubs who are built from the same source. I have heard [Pep] Guardiola say: ‘Cruyff built the chapel, and we just painted it.’”
But Litmanen’s first season in Catalonia was dominated by injuries. The Observer joked at the time that he was “going the way of Pope John Paul II, making few appearances and looking more frail each time”, and by the time Litmanen had recovered in the summer of 2000, the club had descended into turmoil.
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“The president, Josep Lluís Núñez, left the club after 23 years,” explains Litmanen. “Van Gaal [who also joined Barcelona from Ajax in 1997] won two league titles in three years, but also left. We didn’t really have a coach for a while. All the players were away for the Euros. [Luís] Figo went [to Real Madrid]. It was chaos.”
Litmanen left a few months later to join Liverpool, the club he had supported as a boy. Hailed by Gérard Houllier as “world class”, he immediately made an impression on youngsters such as Steven Gerrard. “From the moment I saw Litmanen at Melwood, I was bewitched,” the Englishman wrote in his first autobiography. “He was like a chess grandmaster, always anticipating three or four moves ahead.”
But just as at Ajax and Barcelona, his first season at his new club was disrupted. In March 2001, Litmanen broke a wrist in a World Cup qualifier against England, at Anfield of all places. Amazingly he finished the game, almost scoring an equaliser. “It broke into eight pieces,” Litmanen says. “After the game, I collapsed in the dressing room after the adrenaline wore off. I went to the hospital but I don’t remember the journey.”
Recovered and revitalised, Litmanen sparked into life in his second season at Liverpool. “I played much more with Houllier but when he had his heart problem, Phil Thompson came in,” says Litmanen. “My minutes dropped down. Suddenly I didn’t play at all. I remember there were two games in four days in September 2001, Tottenham and Dynamo Kyiv, where I scored the only goals in two 1-0 wins. It took another month for me to start another league match. As a player, you think: ‘What did I do wrong?’ But I never asked why. I have never said anything negative about players or staff.
“I didn’t miss any training or games because of illness or injury. That was my best year ever, fitness-wise. People would come up to me in Tesco and ask why I wasn’t playing. I didn’t have an explanation.”
Litmanen returned to Ajax in 2002 and although he won another league title, acting as a “big brother” to Zlatan Ibrahimovic, injuries began to take hold. Some of the misfortune was almost ridiculous. At Malmö, a lemonade bottle top flew into Litmanen’s eye. “Hasse Borg, the sporting director, used a snuff tobacco box to open it. Before I realised, the top was in my eye. For six weeks I couldn’t do anything. Even now, I can’t see very well in that eye.”
At Fulham in 2008, he fell ill with a fever and an irregular heartbeat. “I went to the hospital and they put me to sleep, they shocked my heart. After that my heartbeat was normal, but I missed three or four weeks.” On his return, Fulham’s reserve goalkeeper Ricardo Batista accidentally launched a ball into the back of his head. “The next thing I know I was on the ground. The players were around me. I was out for seven to 10 days with a concussion.” Litmamen never made a competitive appearance for Fulham.
It would be easy for Litmanen to feel as if his talent was spoiled by bad luck. But he sees the beginning of his career – signing for the next European superpower from obscurity, Bergkamp’s mentorship and the perfect coach in Van Gaal – as a blessing. Alongside other legends of the game in the De Boer twins, Seedorf, Davids, Kluivert, Kanu and his good friend Van der Sar, he was fundamental in making a good Ajax era a great one. “There has been a lot of luck and unluckiness in my life and career,” Litmanen says with a smile. “In that period, a lot of lucky things happened.”
Litmanen retired in 2011 at the age of 40. An injury-prone genius who carved out a 24-year career. For a few of those years, he was one of the best and most graceful players in the world and people loved him for that, a Finnish king in glass slippers.
