Jurgen Klopp will wave to the Kop this Sunday after Liverpool's game against Wolverhampton. Photo: Getty Images/John Powell
Jurgen Klopp remembers the first time he was offered the chance to become Liverpool's modern-day Bill Shankly. It turns out that one of the great football romances was not love at first sight.
«Liverpool?» says Klopp. “No, no chance. Three years before I came here, Ian Ayre [former LFC CEO] called me when I was in Dortmund and asked if I was interested.
“At that moment I thought: «A?» Dortmund were flying, perhaps they were champions again.
Liverpool were not in the best position. This is not a place where you can come and say: “Yes, Liverpool is calling, yes, let's go.”
It looks like a myth-busting revelation as Klopp approaches the final minutes of his Anfield reign, shattering the image of the football-loving, beer-drinking, cigarette-smoking, hyper-emotional hipster coach who had such a deep-rooted interest in city football.
“I watched a lot of football 15 years before I came here, but how much Liverpool did I watch? No,” says Klopp.
Luckily for Liverpool and football romantics, the storylines have been linked since 2015. Nine years later, Klopp is fully committed to the idea that perhaps a higher power was at work, a perfect fit,” fulfilling prophecies of being in tune with what he affectionately calls “the Shankly-trained left.”
< p>“Three years later the situation has changed. This was my #1 choice for some reason. This is not entirely explainable. I just thought this is exactly what I want.»
Among his many respected observations, Shankly once said: «Liverpool is made for me, and I am made for Liverpool.»
This is similar to Klopp's farewell interview.
“Bill Shankly didn’t do it alone. It's about the people and the city. You can't do what Bill did in every city in the world,” says Klopp.
“You can't do it in London, where there are 25 clubs. If you go down this street you might support Crystal Palace or Fulham, and on the next street you'll be a little closer to Chelsea or something else. Here it is red or blue, so this is where you can do it.
“People, of course, like to win, but especially to fight for it. This is part of our history: we do get hit hard, hit hard and get back up again.
“The general outlook on life in Liverpool is very similar to mine. I'm ready to fight for the right things. Do I think I deserve everything? No, it's okay if others have it too. I’m not a socialist, but I come from there [the political left] and that’s how I understand life. I fit in so well. I didn't have to change one bit. It was the biggest blessing. Just be yourself and go from there. That's why it worked. The rest of the world doesn't like it, but Liverpool rather like it.
“People in England see it: you either love Liverpool or hate Liverpool. Obviously, it was very easy for me to fall in love with the club and the people.”
Klopp connected with the emotions of Liverpool fans and revived success club. Photo: PA/Peter Byrne
Updating the playbook for the prototypical Liverpool manager, Klopp will always be quoted in the same way as Shankly.
Over the course of Liverpool's 491 games, Klopp was forced to conservatively attend 982 «official» press conferences and give at least 3,500 television interviews.
On this glorious Kirkby day, he smiles. enthusiastically ahead of his last interaction with the dailies, energetically reminiscing.
Klopp is happy on demobilization, his desire for a fuller and healthier life away from the intrusive label of «Liverpool manager» being the real reason for his departure. .
He will attend the Champions League final in hopes of seeing his beloved Borussia Dortmund beat Real Madrid, watch the Euros, go to the Paralympics in August, spend more time at his villa in Mallorca and enjoy the spontaneity of simply saying yes to visiting performances by his favorite pop artists, free from the shackles of a schedule.
“I love what I do, but it’s very intense and there’s no room for anything else,” says Klopp.
“I wasn’t a coach in the sense that you plan a workout, go home and take a shower. Especially not here. I'll be 57 in a month. I want to take a break and see what it does for me.”
He stresses that his work is not comparable to the work of surgeons «cutting up the body», but there are aspects of management that he does not will miss.
When Klopp recalls a quote attributed to Diego Simeone about how he wasn't sure whether winning would bring him happiness or greater relief that the responsibility of winning had been pushed into another week, Klopp nods in agreement.< /p>
“I hope everyone will understand that I am a little different from him! But I absolutely understand what he’s saying,” he says.
“Apart from meeting Ulla [Klopp’s wife], meeting me is a lot about talking about football for everyone. I'm all for people like Google: «Why are you doing this?» Why are you doing this?”
“Friends come to visit, watch the game, and for me it’s work, but for them it’s a holiday.”
“I listen to a lot of audiobooks. I love to read, but when I read, everyone talks to me, so when I put on my headphones, people realize that I'm clearly not listening!
Klopp's trademark intensity on the touchline takes an emotional toll. Photo: PA/Richard Sellers
The weight of the Liverpool shirt is said to be too heavy for the players. It's like a feather compared to the burden of a coach like Klopp.
“That's probably one of my strongest traits, to feel responsible for an incredible amount of things,” he says.
“It was a big deal when I said I would step aside because I know what it means to a lot of other people. There's a really great mood here, really good relationships. Bad days or good days, this building has a really nice atmosphere. We like each other. The reason is that if I don't feel good when I walk into a building, I don't let them feel it.
“I had to overcome it. I had to think about myself first, which doesn't really happen very often.”
One person can only take on so much hard work. Klopp set the tone in that first impromptu introduction, vowing to turn doubters into believers and declaring that he would reign in Switzerland if he failed to win a trophy within four years.
“It went very well. in Switzerland. My ski holidays will not be in Switzerland!” — he says, laughing again.
“I'm pretty sure people think I planned to say these things. I just wanted to survive the press conference. My English wasn't that good. My best English skill was taking three words and putting them together into a phrase. Now, if there is a chance to misunderstand, I do it!
“In the days [before the first press conference] I was talking to people about why they left Brendan [Rogers] for me and what happened when they didn't become champions in 2014 and what it means to be so close. I realized that everyone doubted what Liverpool were doing and no one liked the team. Even the team didn't like the team! You could see it. The players were uncomfortable in their own skin. They signed for Liverpool and found it difficult to live up to people's expectations.
“The comment about four years was not made to buy time, but I know how football works. If you don't go where people want you to go early enough, it won't happen. What I really wanted to say was that [if we don't win the trophy] you will need a coach from Switzerland. Either way, it was f***! It's something more that you'll have to try with someone else.»
Klopp on the day he was introduced in as Liverpool manager in October 2015. Photo: Reuters/Craig Brough
The Champions League, Premier League, Club World Cup, FA Cup and two League Cups have barely scratched the surface of the transformation.
The name of the biggest misses in 2019 and 2022 is still relevant.
“We were unlucky or maybe at some points we were not good enough to win three Premier Leagues, three Champions Leagues. We all know that by making a little better decision here or there, we were that close. Minutes, millimeters and inches make all the difference for us,” he says.
“Is it Sky TV that always shows Vinny screaming [Vincent Kompany’s goal against Leicester in 2019]? Every now and then you see something and think, “Are you kidding me?” Are you really kidding me?
“Seconds before that goal I thought: 'Come on Brendan, take Maddison off, he's tired.' He was five yards away and all he had to do was move to block the blow. I was lying on the sofa with my hands in my pockets and within a second I felt like I was having a stroke.”
The pain of defeats to Real Madrid in the 2018 and 2022 Champions League finals has also not subsided, which is becoming most obviously when Klopp refers to the winning performance of «that damn Courtois».
Klopp's Liverpool lost two Champions League finals to Real Madrid Photo: Shutterstock/Ronald Wittek
“Could it have been more successful? Yes,” he says, pausing and then laughing for maximum dramatic effect.
«With me? I don't know. We did absolutely everything. I'm very self-critical, but I don't think critically. We had really good times with super football moments, real development, difficult moments and overcoming them. I look back with a smile.
“I'm so glad that we can leave the club in a position where it's healthy. I'm not expecting a cleanup, but it's not mine anymore, and you hear that beep-beep-beep.” , and it's close to a long beep [pretends to be on life support].
“That's what I'm most proud of, that we could get through this, despite all the crazy times that were going on. never overdid it.”
Liverpool's Champions League success came in 2019 after beating Liverpool 2-0. Tottenham Hotspur in the final. Photo: Getty Images/Javier Soriano
“Never overdo it”? This is an interesting, deliberately cautious choice of words, as Klopp is acutely aware that his legacy will be enhanced in the unlikely event that Manchester City make 115 charges that would result in retrospective action.
«We never tried too hard and then you don't get the guarantee of achieving that goal, and then after a few years you get punished, deducted points and all that,» says Klopp.
«It's terrible, I'm not sure that (those found guilty) were deliberately deceiving, but somehow they knew. Mmm. It's probably not 100 percent true, but (they thought), 'Maybe we can handle this,' and they obviously couldn't, and I really like the way we did it.»
How about this effort will be immortalized with a statue, and Klopp will forever and symbolically be by Shankly's side at the end of the Kop?
«I don't need that,» says Klopp. “I'm not sure what Bill and all the other guys thought about it.”
Shankly, unfortunately, passed away before he was given the honor.
“Well, then I have them for another 40 years to think about it!” Klopp offers.
Statue or not, Liverpool are no longer pining for a new Shankly. This is a real triumph of the last nine years. Future generations will want to serenade their Jurgen Klopp.
Klopp in the Liverpool team he inherited…
“Phil Coutinho is good. Last line, no offense to the guys, but too slow to play a high line with Kolo Tore and the other guy [Mamadou Saho]! But the quality was there, it just didn’t correspond to how I wanted to play.
“We played in Zion on a frozen field. The day before I found out that we had Brad Smith standing next to me in training and it was too awkward to ask him who he was.»
On FSG's transfer policy…
» People say «they didn't support him enough» and stuff like that, but I never thought of it that way. If my son asked me for fifty euros and I only had 25, what can I do other than just give him 25? I didn't want to convey to the outside world the feeling that we were not united.
“If we had a dispute, it was internal, and externally we said that this is our way, and this is how we do it. I don't know any other way. I realized that this is our path. Liverpool's journey
On the misses against Manchester City in 2019 and 2022…
“In those seasons we had 364 really enjoyable days where we scored 90-plus points and were almost goals. Then at one moment it is terrible, terrible; the block at City [John Stones in 2019], the handball from Rodri [vs Everton in 2022], so many little things that make you think, 'Oh my God!'
Liverpool came so close to scoring in the Etihad decider in 2019 when John Stones cleared the ball off the line for City Credit: Sky Sports On misses against Real Madrid in 2018 and 2022. .
“Hit the bar (2022). Ramos (2018). Was it a red card? I'm not sure, but it was tough.
“We're playing this game in 2022 and we're throwing shots at them every three minutes, but their goalie has 12 hands and then they score that goal and then we talk about one mistake where we could have defended that one better.” goal.”
Thibaut Courtois has repeatedly denied Liverpool the 2022 Champions League final. Photo: AP/Christophe Hena On what's next…
“It's obvious that the world has gone crazy. If I leave the door a little open, I could sign today for next season or maybe start in two years. I just don't want this at all. I want to take a break and understand what this means to me.”
About communicating with the media…
“Do you know how many interviews we have after the game? Why should I have personal problems with you, but if you send this shitty message when I'm not at my best, that's where we'll clash. Like the poor guy from Denmark. I've had seven or eight interviews before, and then he presses this [button] and says you're usually the one who has the intensity.
“Oh my God, I actually thought I did really well on that.” . If I had said what I really thought, I would have killed him… at that particular moment!»
With the team, he leaves for Arne Slot…
«It's really cool, a very vital club with an excellent training ground, a sensational stadium, not bad financially. On roses? We have always been solid and at a high level. Let's go from there. It gives me the best feeling. Arsenal is young. They could leave again, Pep won't stay at City forever and even De Bruyne is getting older. So there is a good chance of staying in this group.”
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