EDITORIAL – Why Jürgen Klopp is the coach we dream of having

We didn’t see it coming, but it had to happen one day: this Friday, January 26, 2024, a winter morning when all the lights were green for its Reds, Jürgen Klopp has announced that he will step down as manager of Liverpool FC. Nine years after his arrival, his decision had the effect of a small explosion. Perhaps because there was something comforting in seeing him there, sitting comfortably on his bench. Perhaps also because Anfield is a special setting where the notions of fidelity and loyalty surpass everything. Even wins.

Klopp has, however, won some battles. Time passed, but it seemed like he had no control over him. We had forgiven him everything. Its off season, its blatant acts of bad faith, its less inspired choices – in short, all its little rough edges. With the exception of a certain weariness with the microphones, the German didn’t let anything show. He had just swapped his little square glasses behind the long down jacket, cap and sneakers.

The wave of emotion aroused by the announcement of his departure stems from a very human feeling. In this brutal era where coaches fall like bowling pins, the people need guidance. And Jürgen Klopp is one of them. For what he did, of course. But also for what it is. An endearing guy as much as a point of attachment, which is important for a port city like Liverpool, open to broader horizons, and more resistant to Brexit than the rest of the Kingdom.

Throughout time, Liverpool has been embodied by great characters. We loved Kenny Dalglish. Before him, we pampered Bob Paisley. But we especially revered Bill Shankly, whose statue is erected in front of Anfield today. We don’t know if Jürgen Klopp’s portrait will be sculpted near the stadium one day, but we’re pretty sure that we will be able to write, in 50 years: we loved Jürgen Klopp.

In the legend alongside Bill Shankly

Great stories are always well-cut. 50 years ago, Bill Shankly announced his departure from Liverpool. The one we nicknamed Shanks had created something. It was he who demanded that Liverpool players wear all red to become these Reds eternal. It was he, too, who put the club on the map of Europe, before Paisley capitalized on his work.

If Bill Shankly brought this club to the highest level, Jürgen Klopp brought it back to life. And as a nod to the past, it was by evoking weariness of the profession that Shankly justified his withdrawal, during a public speech on July 12, 1974. The British city then plunged into disarray upon learning the new. In his message to fans, Klopp mentioned the same reasons. His announcement generated the same reactions. In South America, it is said that football is a feeling. England is the cradle of king sport, it lives it like no one else in Europe. Emotions cannot be explained.

Although it is always nice to take out the memory box, there is no need to go back in time, basically, to measure the deep mark that Jürgen Klopp will leave. His contemporaries are best placed to talk about it, starting with Pep Guardiola, the favorite enemy, the man whose executioner Klopp has become over the years and on the scale of a continent, from Germany to Italy. ‘England.

Usually so polite, Pep Guardiola cracked the armor by paying tribute to the man he described as “his greatest rival “. Because Klopp is and should remain the only coach in history to have found the antidote to the Catalan’s total football. Which also says something about its impact on the game. Its concepts recounted an era in the evolution of styles, with this notion of gegenpressing popularized and this rock’n roll football, without calculation and more vertical, generator of unbridled matches when spring arrives and the altitude rises.

A unique method and personality

Klopp and Guardiola respect and admire each other because they are not alike. They are matched only by their longevity. They have managed to survive in a hostile jungle that crushes all those who venture there, extricating themselves from this precariousness to achieve prosperity. And find a place in popular culture. Enter books, hearts and homes. Everything else opposes them. Pep Guardiola is cerebral. Jürgen Klopp is an animal. So who would be the ideal coach? The German has always had his supporters against the one who is considered an ultimate reference in history. Quite a feat, all the same.

Where Pep Guardiola is a bottomless pit, an absolute genius for everything related to football, from tactics to nutrition, Jürgen Klopp, who does not have as many tools as the City manager, has a rather exceptional relationship with humans. He will remain this charismatic coach capable of keeping the right distance on a match day before showing up unexpectedly the next day to go into the kitchen, open the fridge, grab a beer and put the world to rights when one of his players did everything backwards. All these ingredients characterize the recipe for its success. Man is solar. The coach has nothing to do with school. Klopp is not a teacher. He is a trainer in the literal sense of the word, a propagator of force. He is defined by his good nature, his energy, his methodology.

Jürgen Klopp will always be loved at Liverpool because he looks like that club, ultimately. He embodied the virtues, the passion. His football spread the vibrations. There is not a moment when the Liverpuldians will not think of him when they set the Liver bird – absolute symbol of the city and the coat of arms – to tell yourself that the bird is going to leave its nest. And it was a bird of great nights. Every weekend, for the next few weeks, each of his outings will take place to the rhythm of songs, hearts, laughter and tears, to bring him to the peak of his glory and the end of his adventure, with this big door illuminated by a final crusade against Pep Guardiola. Who knows if these two will not meet again to bring out the memory box, too, in their next life, over a beer? By May, we will have taken care to tell you Auf Wiedersehen, Jürgen. And to remember that even far from the Mersey, wherever you are, you will never walk alone.