All eyes will be on the Emirates Stadium on Tuesday night as Arsenal face PSG in one of the most anticipated matches of this year’s Champions League group stage.
The match is being shown live on Amazon Prime and an impressive line-up of experts including Frank Lampard, Clarence Seedorf, Daniel Sturridge and Laura Georges are set to offer their views on the action.
Of course, Lampard himself lifted the Champions League trophy as a player; He also had an illustrious career with Chelsea, during which he won three Premier League titles, four FA Cups and the Europa League, as well as numerous individual awards. The former West Ham, Man City and New York City midfielder also made 106 appearances for England, appearing in three World Cups and scoring 29 goals.
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Since hanging up his boots he has had mixed success as a manager, taking Derby County to the Championship play-offs in his first season before returning to Stamford Bridge to finish as FA Cup runners-up. However, he was later sacked by Chelsea and saw mismanagement at Everton also result in his sacking.
Despite everything, Lampard is still considered one of the best midfielders of his generation and remains a popular figure in the football world. His personal life still makes headlines following his marriage to TV presenter Christine Bleakley nearly a decade ago.
The couple spoke candidly about their life together throughout their relationship, while Lampard opened up about the tragedy that left him acting like a “zombie” at the peak of his career. Here are some things you may not know about the Chelsea legend.
‘Strange’ meeting with his wife
Lampard met his future wife, TV presenter Christine Bleakley, at the Pride of Britain Awards in 2009.
Two years later, in 2015, they got engaged and married. They now have two five-year-old children, Patricia and Freddie. The football player has two more daughters, Luna and Isla, from his previous relationship with the Spanish model. Helen Rives.
Frank and Christine, who have hosted shows including The One Show and Dancing on Ice, together form one of the most popular celebrity couples in the UK, but by their own admission, their relationship got off to an “awkward” start. The TV presenter almost did not give him the time of day.
“Frank came up to me and said, ‘I’ve been watching you on The One Show,'” Christine said on Loose Women. “And I said, ‘No, you don’t! Who was my guest last night?’ And he was able to tell me!”
“Then there was a strange entrance at the party,” he added. “I just laughed and we both giggled. That was it. Somehow he got my number and on the way home I called a number that was hiding my number. I answered and it was him.
“‘Wow, you’re so eager!’ I said it was a bit of a joke, we chatted and he said he enjoyed meeting me and wanted to stay in touch.”
The TV presenter added: “Then he left for England the next day, so I didn’t see him for a few weeks. But we talked on the phone every night while he was away and talked for four hours one night.
“When we met again a few weeks later, we had all the awkward conversations. I knew right away that this could be serious because I knew we could be friends and she made me laugh and we laughed a lot. I was so, so glad we met on the phone, it was definitely a matter of timing for us.”
Shocking family drama
In April 2008, Lampard suffered a devastating family tragedy when his mother Pat died at the age of 58.
The woman, who was hospitalized with pneumonia and taken to intensive care for “a week”, died of a brain hemorrhage, leaving her family in shock, although her condition seemed to be improving.
The Chelsea star, then 29, was heartbroken by the tragedy and broke down in tears on the pitch a few days later as he scored the goal that took the Blues to their first Champions League final. He dedicated much of his career success to his mother, whom he described as his “best friend.”
Still dealing with his pain years later, he admitted in the following months that he was “a zombie”, knowing that he “wasn’t right”.
“This was the first time I went through extreme mental health,” he told the CEO’s Diary podcast last year. “Growing up, I was a mother’s child. I relied on her, and when I grew up I thought, ‘What if my mother wasn’t there?’ I would panic.
“I was 29 years old, it happened very suddenly, I was in a hotel where we stayed before the match, we were playing Wigan in the evening. My sister called me and said that she got sick and went to the hospital.”
“My mom was getting a little better, then we got a call saying she had passed away, had a brain hemorrhage,” he continued. “Everyone was excited just as he was recovering, he passed away right there, so it was like the ultimate devastation. Years later I realized this happens to a lot of people and when you’re a young man you haven’t been through this. ‘You’ve really lost nobody, there’s no real sense of what this is.’ “
Lampard said his mother was “everything” to him and wondered whether he should quit football after the tragedy.
“I lost everything, the person closest to me. I will never forget the feeling in my stomach,” he said. “If I talk about it, I instantly realize it again. I lost my best friend, the person who gave me all these kind of emotional things and warmth. That sudden feeling that someone won’t be with you, it’s not like that.” It can’t be compared to anything when it’s this close.
“I look back and think, ‘Maybe I should have gotten out of this situation.’ [football]life is bigger than this’ but that was probably a minor coping mechanism for me. In the second leg we played a game against Liverpool and I scored a penalty, we won the game and now we are being sent to the Champions League final.
“I remember sitting in the dressing room afterwards and feeling a tremendous sense of exhaustion, physical and mental exhaustion,” Lampard said. he added. “I went home and opened a beer, I couldn’t even drink it, and went to bed and that’s when it all came out of me, it was like this full blown pain for a week or two.”
The former Everton manager also said he keeps his mother’s voice notes on his phone but regrets not making more videos while his mother was alive. He said he was glad he met Christine because she was “not in the right” following his mother’s death.
“I still have his number on my phone and I still have a few voice memo things,” he said. “We have never been a family that makes videos or anything like that, I wish we were.
“The only thing is that my mother’s sister is Sandra Redknapp, Harry Redknapp’s wife, and every time I talk to Sandra I hear my mother’s voice. They look very similar, they sound very similar and it was painful at first but now it’s gentle beautiful because it’s a memory for me.”
“The feeling of grief catches up with me every now and then, years later,” he added. “I think I probably had a year where I was single, drinking a bit but I was playing great football, I had a really good year in football, it was weird. Then I met Christine and thank God she came to me at the same time because I was a bit at fault.”
radio line
A year after his mother’s death, Lampard was involved in a live radio row with LBC talkshow host James O’Brien as he defended himself against accusations that he was a bad father.
His former partner, Elen Rives, told a newspaper the footballer was “heartless” and accused him of moving them into a small flat while they lived a single lifestyle in their former home. After his sister warned him that the allegations were being discussed live on the radio, Lampard telephoned to defend himself and accused O’Brien of insulting him.
Fighting back against the allegations, he said: “I find it insulting that you say you will fight me tooth and nail and imply that I will not fight tooth and nail.” “You don’t know anything about me and you imply that I’m weak and a jerk because I don’t fight tooth and nail.
“What I want you to do in the future is to think when it comes to personal matters about people’s families, their children, and you’re degrading them as people. Sometimes you have to think before you talk about things because now you’re talking about personal people. Next time I’ll talk to you man to man, forget the radio show, this “I will discuss the matter with you man to man.”
He added: “Unfortunately I have to go through this in the public eye. Now someone approached my ex-girlfriend pretending to be a friend and caught her when she was a bit drunk and in a bad mood and took a bunch of stuff out of her.
“Someone basically tricked him. He was tricked. And by being tricked and then [it] It comes out as a pure quote, as if he sold his story. “He revealed his story in a moment of weakness.”