‘I’m muddling through with my English at a low level, and the team listen,’ Klopp said with classic self-deprecation in an interview with German Focus magazine a month into his tenure. ‘Everyone’s cool at the club and eager to develop, we take time to do it properly.’ He was having so much fun and working so hard that he didn’t quite have the time to appreciate his luck just yet, he revealed. ‘It’s passed us by a little bit but, of course, there has been a moment where you think: “It’s so great being the coach of Liverpool.” I never thought I’d be here one day.’
Nevertheless, it took a little while before cultural footballing differences were fully reconciled on the training pitch. ‘The odd misunderstanding was inevitable,’ Krawietz says. ‘Everybody throws in their twenty years of footballing experience; you think you’re all talking about the same things but in the end you realise they’re two wholly different things.’
Pressing and tackling, the way the coaching staff understand it, expressly forbids fouling the opponent. A foul immediately renders your own ball-winning attempts futile. But during the very first tactical exercise, meant to be a light session, the Liverpool players flew into the challenges with abandon, believing that they had to interrupt the opposition build-up by any means necessary. Klopp had to stop them and tell them to slow down. Krawietz remembers the episode with a content smile. ‘It was cool to see that the lads were absolutely ready to implement new ideas and immerse themselves in them completely. That made life a lot easier for us.’
Lallana says that the players responded to the manager’s ‘honesty’: ‘He can give you a bollocking, he can really praise you. The hugs, they are really genuine as well. He will tell you when he is happy with you. He will tell you when he is not happy with you. He is just genuine, straight-up. He can’t hide his emotions, can he? If he wants to say something he will end up saying it. He says he can be your friend, but not your best friend, because he has to have those difficult conversations with you at times.’
Belgian striker Christian Benteke, for example, found the team’s new direction a bit tricky to adjust to. Klopp quickly realised that the 6ft 3in forward was not best-suited to a high-energy pressing and counter-pressing game. Divock Origi and former Hoffenheim forward Roberto Firmino (as a false 9) were preferred instead. The Klopp–Benteke partnership failed to get off the ground. The German had years ago decided for himself that there is no point explaining to players why they aren’t being picked, that all he can do is tell them about the areas of their game that they can improve. But Benteke couldn’t reconcile the coach’s silent stance with his keenness to sign him for Borussia Dortmund a couple of years earlier. Klopp had met the former Aston Villa striker in a hotel in Germany, enthusiastically talked about the prospect of working together, and thrown in a few text messages subsequently for good measure. But the move had never materialised. (Like his peers Antonio Conte and José Mourinho, Klopp is a voracious texter. On the day of Dortmund’s Champions League final, no less, he sent a message to Kevin De Bruyne, then at Chelsea, expressing his excitement at the prospect of coaching the Belgian at Dortmund in 2013–14. The prospective move was eventually vetoed at the last minute by the Blues.)
Benteke, on as a substitute at Stamford Bridge, did score Liverpool’s third goal to secure a 3-1 win over Chelsea, Klopp’s first win in the league after two draws (0-0 at Spurs, 1-1 v Southampton), a frustrating 1-1 in his debut home game, against Russian outfit Rubin Kazan in the Europa League, and a League Cup win over Bournemouth (1-0). Beating Mourinho’s champions in west London with cleverly executed counter-attacking football served as a crucial marker of early progress. Maybe the wall-to-wall hype on sports television and in the back pages since Klopp’s arrival on Merseyside was justified, after all.
‘Can you win the league?’ a reporter asked Klopp after the final whistle. ‘Are you crazy?’ he barked back incredulously. ‘At first, I thought I didn’t understand the question. I’ve been here for three weeks. The last time Liverpool won an away game, I was still on holiday.’ Later, in a separate briefing in the tunnel, he was bombarded with questions about Liverpool’s targets in the January transfer window and their chances of qualifying for the Champions League. They were eighth at this point. ‘I can’t believe the impatience,’ he said. ‘They want to know whether I’ll finish fourth,’ he shouted at referee Mark Clattenburg. ‘Welcome to England,’ he nodded.
The flight of Klopp’s private plane from Germany to Liverpool had been monitored on the Internet by 35,500 Reds supporters, before the club had put him up in a boutique hotel on Hope Street ahead of his unveiling. The heavy symbolism was not accidental: in the minds of many fans, the Swabian wasn’t so much the new coach but a harbinger of dreams, the man who would shake the club out of its mid-table stupor and ring in a return to glorious days past. ‘His appointment feels so instinctively right because the 48-year-old’s extra-large personality will immediately cut through much of the befuddled silence that has befallen Anfield since the club almost won the championship in 2014 and ensure the volume is from now on turned all the way up,’ wrote the Guardian. Former Liverpool player Mark Lawrenson, not a man prone to emotional outbreaks, predicted that Klopp would ‘bring back excitement to Anfield’. With his ‘over-sized personality and 1,000-megawatt smile, he’s box office,’ Lawrenson added during a break from doing a show for lfc.tv in a city-centre high-rise. ‘People hope that he will bring back the good times. That’s already worth something.’
No other footballing country believes as much in the transformative powers of a manager as England, and Liverpool is the city that believes it most–thanks to Bill Shankly. The club’s past greatness and a much more complicated present, in which they’ve been forced to play catch-up with richer rivals and upstarts, has created an unsteady climate, swinging wildly from overblown expectation to deep depression. Many prospective saviours have come and gone, unable to navigate the maelstrom of volatility.
Klopp (dark jeans, black blazer, Chelsea boots) presented himself as a supremely relaxed football electrician at his unveiling, confident that a bit of re-wiring could get the current flowing again, but also acknowledged the complexity of the overall challenge. ‘We must not carry 20kg of history on our backs,’ he warned, nor should the club bemoan its relative lack of funds. ‘We should not think about money, only football.’ Amen. Liverpool’s situation, he added, was ‘not that bad. It’s a good time to make changes, a restart.’ He promised ‘full-throttle football’ to cook up an emotional storm in the stadium but was at pains to play down his own importance. He was neither ‘an idiot’ nor ‘a genius’, ‘a know-it-all’ or ‘a dreamer’, he ventured, before landing the killer line. ‘I’m just a normal guy from the Black Forest. I’m the Normal One.’ Cue laughter all around. It takes huge amounts of self-assuredness to proclaim yourself ordinary in front of the world’s media ahead of the first day in a big job. Süddeutsche Zeitung was reminded of the famous scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, where the eponymous hero tries–and fails–to convince a crowd of disciples that he’s wholly unworthy of their adulation. ‘Only the true messiah denies his own divinity,’ one woman exclaims. Liverpool, not slow to recognise the marketing potential of the new man in charge, duly trademarked ‘The Normal One’ as a phrase and produced a range of official merchandise bearing the slogan.
FSG president Mike Gordon says he was not surprised by the huge hype that greeted Klopp’s appointment. ‘Jürgen Klopp and Liverpool FC really are a match made in heaven. The passion of our fans, the authenticity of our fans and our supporters, the way that they feel about our football and their intelligence as football fans, meant that they understood right away that this was an extraordinary person to lead something that was so important to them. While I keep mentioning that the substance of Jürgen actually surpasses the style, the style is still very compelling. We all can agree on that. It is not surprising that the people took to him immediately and so powerfully. That started at the very first press conference. That is
among the least surprising things that have happened so far.’
Gordon predicted to the LFC press department that they would be ‘getting a Ferrari’ in the new manager. Kenny Dalglish, too, anticipated a white-knuckle ride. ‘I just heard Klopp’s press conference and he sounds very, very impressive,’ the former coach said. ‘I think the supporters will need to fasten their seat belts–I’m sure they will really enjoy him.’
Acquaintances from Germany who visited Klopp in Liverpool during his first season in England noted that everybody at Anfield and Melwood happily opened doors for them as soon as they announced that they were there to see the manager. TV reporter Martin Quast sat in Klopp’s office one day, waiting to shoot an interview, and could already hear his friend’s laughter echoing through the corridors. ‘I took a peek outside and saw Liverpool employees running about, all with huge smiles on their faces. And of course Kloppo’s there among them, making jokes and making them feel good. That’s his style, that kind of openness. I remember in his place in Mainz, all the doors to the various apartments were always open, and the guy who rented the flat above him would just pop in for breakfast in the morning. He just loves having people around him.’ Klopp’s so approachable that he’s unofficially been serving as Melwood’s resident agony aunt. At least one LFC employee with relationship troubles has turned to him for advice.
Before the Swabian’s arrival, goalkeeper Simon Mignolet had taken it upon himself to organise get-togethers and team events. Klopp sought him out and told him that there would be much more of that in the coming months. ‘We are one team and one family,’ the manager announced. That ethos expressly stretched to non-playing staff, Klopp made clear. He learned the names of all eighty employees at Melwood, lined them up in the dining hall and introduced them to the players, explaining that the squad and the staff had ‘a responsibility’ to help each other achieve their best.
In Klopp’s mind, the match-going public, too, had an important role to play even though he was reluctant to make any overt demands. At Mainz and Dortmund, he had seen players regularly tap into the stadium’s energy, but Anfield, the crucible of football, didn’t quite live up to its billing as a cauldron. Supporters left in droves eight minutes before the end in the 2-1 loss against Crystal Palace in November 2015, Klopp’s first defeat as Liverpool coach. ‘I felt pretty alone at that moment,’ he said afterwards, visibly disappointed with the crowd’s premature capitulation. But as a new immigrant member of the LFC community, he had to be careful not to blame the audience for the paucity of the show. The supporters’ reaction was understandable and amounted to a silent but powerful commandment: he and the team had a duty to produce football that would thrill and hold the prospect of success until the very last second, he conceded. ‘We should be responsible that nobody can leave the stadium a minute before [the end] because everything can happen,’ Klopp said. ‘We have to show that and we didn’t.’
The Etihad proved a much more hospitable environment in the next league game. Klopp’s Reds tore through the shaky Manchester City defence to win 4-1 and offer more evidence of an upturn in fortune. A year and a half later, Lallana believes that trip along the M62 marked ‘the best game’ of the Klopp era so far. ‘I really enjoyed it, it was a real team performance,’ he says. A subsequent meeting with the same opponents in the final of the League Cup was altogether less pleasant for Lallana and the rest of the squad. Liverpool did well to come back for a 1-1 draw at Wembley, against a City team boasting more individual quality, but lost the penalty shoot-out after extra-time had come and gone without further goals. ‘We feel down but now we have to stand up. Only silly idiots stay on the floor and wait for the next defeat,’ Klopp said. His frustration about losing out on his first piece of English silverware was tempered by the knowledge that Liverpool had fought valiantly with little left in the tank.
The league campaign failed to take off, however. Big wins were followed by draws and defeats against the lesser lights, in an unnerving pattern that would become familiar. Six months after he’d started managing on Merseyside, the team was still treading water in the table outside the European places.
‘Jürgen has done a lot of things right,’ Steve McManaman told Süddeutsche Zeitung in April 2016. ‘He’s very popular, even fans of other clubs like him. Over the last few months, I have had plenty of Manchester United, Arsenal or Chelsea supporters come up to me and say: “I’d love him to be our manager.” He’s very charismatic, he says the right things, people love his passion on the touchline. Jürgen’s won over the fans, they believe in him. But there’s an obvious lack of consistency, as far as results are concerned. Jürgen’s squad doesn’t have enough depth and quality to deliver five, six really good matches in a row.’
Progress didn’t so much register in points as in decibels. The Kop was beginning to suspend its doubts, amassed over a near-decade without a significant trophy, and find its voice again. In mid-December, Belgian striker Divock Origi scored a dramatic, very late equaliser to rescue a point for Liverpool at home to West Brom (2-2). Klopp took the players in front of the Kop after the final whistle to show his and the team’s appreciation for the unwavering support to the very end. ‘It was the best atmosphere since I came here,’ he said. ‘Of course people are disappointed but they didn’t let us feel that. They saw that the lads tried everything and played football.’ The gesture was–predictably–belittled in some quarters as an overblown celebration of a mediocre result against mediocre opposition, but Klopp didn’t care about the view from the outside. The players’ tribute was a piece of clever crowd management, meant to remind Anfield of its extraordinary power to influence a result.
You sow the wind to reap the storm. And harvest-time came quickly. The last-16 draw in the Europa League pitted Liverpool against their hated rivals Manchester United. Europe’s second competition, previously an unloved consolation prize for teams who had failed to break into the top four, offered a backdoor entrance into the Champions League for the winner, and, almost as importantly, a chance to ruin United’s season. Anfield, crackling with the excitement befitting a big European tie, played its assigned role in pushing the home side to a devastating 2-0 win in the first leg. A cool, controlled 1-1 draw in the return at Old Trafford sealed qualification for the quarter-finals. Klopp knew the next opponents quite well: Borussia Dortmund.
‘These two games were certainly challenging for the both of us, and also for our friendship,’ says Borussia CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke, relieved that the saxophonist in the Marbella hotel lobby has finally concluded his medley of Kenny G’s greatest hits. ‘We had to do some things we usually wouldn’t have done.’ Watzke had implored the players to get into ‘competitive mode, out of the hugging mode’ ahead of the emotional reunion with their former manager. ‘He wants to kill our team and the fans with kindness,’ the BVB boss had warned. ‘But we aren’t playing against our friend Kloppo. We mustn’t lose our aggression.’
Watzke emphasises that he hadn’t said anything disrespectful. ‘All I said was: these games cannot turn into the Jürgen Klopp festival. I had heard that he was a little miffed about that and from the way his family greeted me ahead of the return leg in Liverpool, I could tell he had indeed taken it badly. It also annoyed him that it worked.’ It had only worked up to point, however, as Watzke is quick to admit. The crowd at the Signal Iduna Park were ready for battle but the players found it hard to come to terms with Klopp sitting on the opposition bench. ‘In a normal game, we would beat them,’ says Watzke. ‘But this wasn’t a normal game. At the beginning, the team were completely inhibited, you could feel that we lacked bite in the first half. It probably would have been worse if I hadn’t talked so much to the players and the people around the club beforehand.’
Klopp could not hide that the return to Westphalia had touched him, too. ‘I lied if I told you all that stuff going on didn’t somehow knock me sideways,’ he said after the 1-1 draw. The ice-cool facade he had put on the day before, he now confessed, had been just tha
t. ‘I prefer being here than in North Korea,’ he had joked on the eve of the game. ‘But I don’t think there will be a big emotional effect on me. We will change, get out there and play. That’s it.’
For Dortmund, it certainly wasn’t. Unable to play to the incredibly high standards of their season thus far, the Thomas Tuchel-coached side only truly got going well into the second half. Due to the away goals rule, the advantage lay with Liverpool. ‘Anfield will burn,’ Klopp threatened. His competitive streak trumped all emotional connections to former comrades-in-arms, temporarily at least. ‘I bumped into him outside the changing rooms–they’re very close together at Anfield–and wished him “a good game”,’ says BVB team manager Fritz Lünschermann. ‘He went: “Listen, you arse. I don’t want to see a good game. I want to win.”’
At first, it was Dortmund that laid fire to Liverpool’s home. The Bundesliga side’s mazy, cutting runs in the final third completely overwhelmed the flat-footed defence of the Merseysiders to give the Black and Yellows a 2-0 lead within nine minutes. The Premier League team needed three goals to advance against vastly superior opposition. The game was over.
Klopp thought otherwise. In the dressing room at half-time, he showed his team clips of three Liverpool attacking moves that had nearly paid off, assuring them that more chances were bound to come. He also reminded the players of their club’s capacity to triumph in the most unlikely circumstances, mentioning the comeback of all comebacks, Liverpool’s Champions League win over AC Milan in Istanbul 2005, after going 3-0 down in the first forty-five minutes. ‘He told us we should create something that we could tell our grandchildren about one day,’ said Origi.
Bring the Noise_The Jürgen Klopp Story Page 10