“We get punched hard, get up and go again.”
Jürgen Klopp
Introduction
There won’t be a dry eye at Anfield on Sunday when Jürgen Klopp manages Liverpool for the last time in his nine-year tenure against Wolves. Klopp joins the ranks of Bob Paisley and Bill Shankly as Anfield royalty—football managers whom fans took to their hearts and truly adored. A man who has been given the key to Liverpool and become an adopted Liverpudlian. Klopp has a football brain second to none. A former striker and defender at Mainz 05 who would later become their manager after retiring from the club in 2001. He secured the club’s Bundesliga promotion in 2004 before resigning due to relegation in the 2006-7 season.
The Klopp Way
After a glorious spell as manager at Borussia Dortmund, he helped them win the Bundesliga title in 2010-11 before winning them the domestic double. They were also a runner-up in the 2012-13 UEFA Champions League. He left in 2015 after being their longest-serving manager. Appointed the Liverpool manager the same year and taking over from Brendan Rogers, Jürgen inherited a club that was doubted and not liked. Not even the team wanted the club. Klopp took a gamble and turned down a coaching job in Switzerland to attempt to drag this prized possession out of the doldrums. The fans were losing patience. It was a good team but not good enough for rich pickings in the Premiership cabinet.
Klopp became their physical jump lead—a human defibrillator that returned them to a winning streak. The dissent within the team was boiling over, but their new manager contained it and thrashed out their differences in private. He wanted to do it the right way, the Liverpool way. That meant not overspending and only spending what you earned. Only then could Liverpool become a healthy club, a mantra left by the devout Socialist Bill Shankly: the right way or the highway.
The Liverpool Heartbeat
To become a great football manager, you must live and breathe your club’s existence. Klopp did precisely that; he felt the joy and the pain. Sitting in the dugout at home and away games, it was almost like having a stroke when that ball never hit the back of the net, and your team left the pitch after the final whistle with their shoulders sunk and heads bowed. There are plenty of books on leadership, but Jürgen chose to ignore them. He is a man who works on experience. He suffers but learns to suffer and pulls the positives away from the negatives. Unity brings strength and determination and ultimately wins and success. Just be yourself, and you will succeed.
Klopp knew precisely what to do—lighting up the eyes of children, working closely with the youth squad, going to or writing to that sick individual when they made a cry for help and making the Anfield family at the centre of all his decisions. A father figure who sees the sheer importance of the fan, the boot room worker, the pitch grass cutter and the players. He never deviated from his plan; lose or win, you prepare for the next game. You don’t overdo it; you just run in cruise control. He feels the responsibility on his shoulders and manages it by breaking free listening to audiobooks. His headphones go on, and he is no longer listening to the droning chatter that can deafen you and drown you.
You Will Never Walk Alone
At 56, Jürgen Klopp has plenty to be proud of during his nine years as Liverpool’s manager. This animated German has won eight significant honours, including the Premier League and Champions League, their first league title in thirty years. He knows when he leaves Anfield for the last time, driving away from the ground for the last time, that he has done more than enough and leaves the club in a very healthy place for Arne Slot to adopt the mantle. Yes, he will return occasionally like any former Liverpool manager, but his work is done. He has a clean sheet and is ready for his next challenge, whatever that may be. Klopp is no meddler but will always remember his time with the club. It is too iconic to forget, but he promises to continue his strong bond with the Liverpool family and the community that makes Liverpool such a great city.
