had wanted to do for a long time and not for financial reasons alone, telling the magazine 90 Minutes that it was about the allure of Real Madrid and Alfredo Di Stéfano, Ferenc Puskás and Madrid's legacy, as well as the desire to test himself in the Champions League. In 2021, McManaman finally shed new light on his decision to leave Liverpool back in 1999, claiming that a combination of factors including being underappreciated at Liverpool – having not been offered the right contractual deal (as the club presumed on his staying on indefinitely simply because he was a local talent thus only sanctioning higher offers commensurate with his true value when they realised he would actually leave); and that the club were poor in communicating and handling his matters including selling him to FC Barcelona (without consulting him at all) – were all behind his decision back then. These were details which McManaman had never personally revealed publicly prior; and for over 20 years (arguably for confidentiality purposes and to protect the club's reputation). At the time, in McManaman's final games for the club in the 1998–99 season, he began turning in mixed performances, with the media accusing him of playing out his final season in a "desultory manner". His form dipped at times, largely due to a combination of injuries (his first recurrent achilles injuries for over five years having set in after years of playing constantly)—where he had already missed an entire month from mid-November, only to return and reluctantly limp off the pitch (as captain) following a tackle by future Liverpool player Dietmar Hamann on his return game on Boxing Day (another compound injury that sidelined him for another month). Other factors for his loss of form included his later being restricted to substitute appearances (as Houllier wanted to cut the side's dependency on his gameplay and replace him,) as well as suffering a loss of confidence in certain games where even the home fans turned against him over the contract debacle, with some labelling him a "traitor" and a Judas figure. Nonetheless, Houllier also avoided dropping McManaman entirely from the squad and gave him the chance to play. Houllier stated: "Macca had decided to leave, that's why he didn't sign the year before. When I arrived it was his final year and I didn't want to punish him in any way for that, although I