With Gerard Houllier’s death football loses one of its great minds and greatest gentlemen

2020 has already robbed us of so much and now it has taken an innovator and a master tactician meshed with the most wonderful soul

People will remember how you made them feel. And the true measure of one’s impact is how long it lasts, the legacy you leave behind.

Gerard Houllier passed that wisdom on to his assistant Phil Thompson when he was the manager of Liverpool, and after he passed away on Sunday night, warm tributes will deservedly flow for a football revolutionary with a big heart that he - quite literally - gave to the game.

The news of his death at the age of 73, first filtering out of France on Monday morning, was both shocking and devastating. 

This year has already robbed us of so much and now it had taken an innovator, a master tactician, one of the most intelligent minds you could find meshed with the most wonderful soul.

Houllier was instructive to the rejuvenation of French football, the modernisation of Liverpool and the development strategy of the Red Bull franchise. The best youth policies around Europe have been informed by his ideas, which he’d share openly.

Houllier lived for guiding emerging talents and the tributes from Ashley Young, Michael Owen, Memphis Depay and Jamie Carragher - to select only a few - speak to that.

He cared about the advancement of women’s football too, as the behemoth Lyon and OL Reign will testify.

Houllier won titles with Paris Saint-Germain and Lyon, was a huge part of the brains trust that restored France to the pinnacle of the game, his five full seasons at Liverpool brought five major pieces of silverware, a return to the Champions League, a second-placed top-flight finish, but also a complete repainting of the club.

As Thompson put it, Houllier took them “from being on the front pages to the back pages again. We were a proper football club again with one of the best training grounds in Europe.”

Melwood was overhauled, there was a greater focus on nutrition and sports science with a culture of indulgence being replaced by one of excellence.

He brought through arguably the greatest player in the club’s history in Steven Gerrard. And Liverpool’s former captain had told Houllier that the Miracle of Istanbul wouldn’t have happened without the experience of winning the Uefa Cup in 2001.

Jurgen Klopp has often referenced the influence of those who came before him as part of the Merseysiders’ story to conquering Europe and England again. Houllier “hauled the club into the 21st century,” per former chairman David Moores.

Not even open heart surgery, undertaken in October 2001 after he fell ill at half-time at Anfield during a match against Leeds, could keep him from fulfilling what he viewed as a calling rather than a job. He was ordered to recover for a year, but was back in the dugout after five months.

Houllier would admit he was fortunate to live given the quick diagnosis, the lack of traffic in reaching the hospital and the surgeon not being away as he originally had planned.

Houllier will be remembered fondly by Liverpool (Getty Images)

On account of that, he was told to ease up on football. “I would rather stop breathing,” was Houllier’s retort.

And so, he continued to serve the game until his end. The element that sticks, though, is not his devotion to the support, but how it was carried out: with genuine care, effort and being accessible plus overwhelmingly kind.

Houllier made time for everyone he possibly could. He would respond to messages, happily offer insight and engage in long calls to talk about a player or strategy or whatever you wanted to despite a stacked schedule.

Houllier was genuinely interested in how you were and what your opinion was too. He loved asking questions as much as he loved being detailed in answering them. Football was always to be shared, to be thought about, to be a common experience.

It is no wonder that as the reflections flood in, they are centred on the man.

People will remember how you made them feel. Houllier’s legacy as one of football’s great minds and ultimate gentlemen will live on.