This was a game in which The Guardian reported that McManaman "ran his legs into the ground" all day and assisted his mentor John Barnes in scoring the late winner by flicking on Mark Walters' cross.

[15] Although McManaman had a couple of quieter seasons with the advent of the Premier League, in which Liverpool initially struggled, he continued to develop a reputation as one of English football's two best emerging young wingers[28] alongside Ryan Giggs of Manchester United.

McManaman was credited for making the free role that manager Evans gave him work,[48] with the result being that Liverpool were playing some of the most aesthetically pleasing attacking football at the time in England.

[63] The deal subsequently fell apart amidst recriminations about the player's remuneration demands and Barcelona's motives for the bid, being in negotiation with Brazilian superstar Rivaldo at the same time and snubbing McManaman when he travelled to Spain to meet them.

[91] New manager Gérard Houllier, who had replaced Roy Evans as full coach following the failure of their joint-managerial role that very season,[92] was widely believed to want to get rid of the "Spice Boys" mentality[93] and cavalier attitudes at the club,[94] having told many players they were surplus to requirements (including Jason McAteer, Phil Babb, Rob Jones, Stig Inge Bjørnebye, David James and Paul Ince), and where there were exits for seventeen other players who would leave the club in the next year ahead.

[103] In 2021, McManaman finally shed new light on his decision to leave Liverpool back in 1999, stating 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.

Before and during Saturday's game at Anfield he was subjected to some frightful abuse, accused by supporters of both teams of being a "greedy bastard"...It is wholly dependent upon your standpoint as to whether McManaman is a sporting trail-blazer enjoying the benefits of a free market or the very personification of the greed which many would argue has devalued football in recent times.

Forward Raúl told the press that the dressing room was "a cesspit of lies, treachery and whispers" and commented that he felt "sorry for new players like Steve McManaman coming into the club".

"[120] Previously, Real Madrid had appointed John Toshack as its new coach and had been obliged to sell influential players such as Predrag Mijatović, Davor Šuker and Christian Panucci due to mounting debt, while Clarence Seedorf was later released shortly after McManaman arrived.

McManaman proved immediately to be popular with Real Madrid's supporters at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium after scoring three times and creating several goals in his first few pre-season games for Los Merengues.

[131] Following this tournament, McManaman and the team returned to Spain and established themselves as a strong European side under new coach Vicente del Bosque, who had replaced John Toshack in November.

[135] On 24 May 2000 in the Champions League Final at the Stade de France, Paris, McManaman arguably experienced his finest moment as a professional footballer, scoring a spectacular volley in a 3–0 victory over Valencia.

[35][130] Despite the Champions League final performance and having established himself as a valuable player in his first year in Madrid (including being listed alongside Fernando Redondo in Real Madrid's technical director Pirri's end of season official report as one of the two "untouchables" around whom the team should be built for the coming campaign),[139] the arrival of a new club president in Florentino Pérez, closely followed by former Barcelona superstar midfielder Luís Figo in a club-record transfer, saw the club forced to sell several key players to reduce debt.

[170] Nonetheless, after only playing 21 games of which he started only nine times, and making a meagre 15 appearances in La Liga, questions constantly arose throughout the season about McManaman's ability and reasons for staying in Spain considering his diminished role, lack of first-team action and international attention.

[citation needed] At the start of the 2003–04 pre-season, the signing of fellow Englishman David Beckham proved the last straw in eventually forcing McManaman down the pecking order at Real Madrid.

[188] On the pitch, a combination of niggling injuries (including a long-term achilles problem not dissipating[189]) and the rise of an in-form and up-and-coming Shaun Wright-Phillips saw him lose his preferred right midfield position.

[192] Off the field at City, Fowler and McManaman were caught up in a sex scandal[193] that appeared in the News of the World following a failed attempt by the pair to gain an injunction to prevent publication, costing them £50,000 in addition to making the case look like an invariable admission of guilt.

[194] The court case came soon after football's "roasting" and rape allegations at Chelsea earlier that year[195] and served only to exacerbate their situations and affected their reputations off and on the pitch at the club, while an incident involving Fowler and McManaman and three other players deliberately missing the team bus at Leicester also did not go down well with the fans, manager and media.

However, they eventually decided to relinquish their bid stating that "MLS clubs were keen to lose the reputation that top stars only arrive to play in America for a final swansong in their careers".

[214] Frequently man-marked in the quarter-final against Spain, McManaman burst back into the latter part of the semi-final against Germany and in the final moments of extra-time nearly assisted Darren Anderton in scoring a late winner.

[215] Together with teammates Gascoigne, Shearer and David Seaman, McManaman was listed in the official Team of the Tournament, as well as shortlisted behind eventual winner, Jürgen Klinsmann, for the Most Valuable Player award.

In England's World Cup qualifier against Albania at St James' Park last September, four days after Munich, he made a fleeting appearance of such apparent apathy that even he was taken aback, never mind Eriksson.

[258] However, the same statistics also cast light on a different kind of dilemma for Eriksson after it was revealed that: "...For Real Madrid, he (McManaman) completed 83% of his passes and while that figure only fell to 82% in the Champions League it dropped to 73% when he was wearing an England shirt.

Defeat to Alex Ferguson's Manchester United in three title races (from 1995–96 through 1996–97) including the 1996 FA Cup final, a game where the Liverpool team arrived to inspect the pitch wearing cream coloured Armani suits- intensified the criticism.

[308] It was widely reported in the Spanish media that McManaman's commitment to the team won the respect of his fellow professionals like Zidane, Raúl, Guti, Iván Helguera and the two men often considered to be his two best friends at the club, Figo and Ronaldo, who backed him publicly on several occasions in press interviews.

[309][310] Additionally, it is believed that McManaman also forced himself to reinvent his game and transform himself with a versatility that enabled him to play utility roles in the side, thus helping him shake off a nickname he was initially given by the Spanish press, El Cartero ("the postman"), which suggested that his delivery was unpredictable.

[333] By 2007, McManaman became a full-time media pundit, having joined Setanta Sports as a football analyst and, for the 2007–08 season, he was given his own television show — Macca's Monday Night — reflecting on life in the Barclays Premier League.

In late November 2010 and in May 2011, McManaman was the halftime in-studio analyst alongside Gary Lineker and Trevor Francis for La Liga's El Clásico broadcast on Al Jazeera Sports +3.

[360] In 2019, McManaman was also named as being part of the UEFA Euro 2020 official 48-man all-star ambassador squad from 12 nations, alongside former teammates Figo, Michael Owen, Paul Gascoigne and Alan Shearer.

[369] In July 2007, McManaman was named executive director of Carson Yeung's Hong Kong-listed company Grandtop International Holdings Ltd, which subsequently took a 29.9% stake in Premier League side Birmingham City.