It almost doesn’t matter who he really is. It’s what he represents that counts most. All the cliches. We don’t like losing. We don’t like being looked down upon. Forever being re-classified. We’ve been getting told for 25 years now that we’re no longer a big club. That we’ve got no right to dream our dreams. Then periodically, we awaken, and shock the lot of them. Smack them all between the eyes. A treble here, a European Cup there. Almost the best league title-winning side of all time.
Brendan Rodgers walked the Liverpool walk for 18 months of his 36 in total. In time we’ll come to see that this was enough for his legacy to be always respected. Placed in its proper context.
It’s Klopp’s time now. He will be burdened with all the unreasonable expectation that comes with our territory. The thing is — and the reason why he is such a sublime fit for us — is that the man is made for unreasonable expectation. At least that’s the impression he gives. Those intense smiling eyes. That maniacal grin. He wants it as nasty as it can get. His shrink may tell a different story but for Liverpool Football Club and all who sail in her right now, his is the aura of a man with unbridled self confidence. A man without doubts.
From the distance we’ve been afforded up until now Klopp appears almost a caricature of a great football manager. A method actor in the ultimate role written for him. His screen presence is so voluminous it makes Jose Mourinho look like that charisma-free no-mark that Ricky Gervais trots out on Sky every now and again. Watch Klopp in front of a television camera. He’s actually quite scary. Imagine what he does to players.
He feels so perfect for Liverpool Football club in 2015 because he comes gift wrapped as Shankly-esque as it’s possible to imagine. Google him. I’m sure you have. You’ll find anecdote after apocryphal tale about his legendary keeping-it-real exploits.
He wouldn’t train at the Emirates before a Champions League game with Arsenal, but took his side to a local park to train instead. He walks home after the match, alone with his thoughts and his ruck sack. He doesn’t wear a suit, and rejoices in being a bad scruff. He took his team on a pre-season camp to the Swedish wilderness and denied them electricity…and food. Well, he made them fish for it themselves from a nearby lake. And they didn’t hate him for it.
Our Jurgen — boy that feels good right now — is a bit of a God-botherer if truth be told. A deeply religious Protestant man. Still, his faith has instilled in him a zealatory that he seems to have applied to the art of football managing. He had an epiphany as a young coach, that appears to have shaped his career. Get on this (he’s talking about his time at Mainz and his reverence for that amazing Arrigo Sacchi-inspired AC Milan side of the early 90s):
“Even though we were in the second division we were the first German team to play 4-4-2 without a libero. We watched this very boring video, 500 times, of Sacchi doing defensive drills, using sticks and without the ball, with Maldini, Baresi and Albertini. We used to think before then that if the other players are better, you have to lose. After that we learned anything is possible — you can beat better teams by using tactics.”
Wow. That last bit. That’s what makes him Liverpool’s man. Liverpool Football Club cannot win an unfair game — where four of the world’s top seven richest teams play in the same league — without divine intervention. Klopp may have worked out a way.
With a wage bill less than QPR’s he took on and overcame the leviathan that was, and remains, Bayern Munich. Cynics may say it’s a one-team league like the Scottish Premier but just imagine if St Mirren emerged now to not only challenge Celtic and become the country’s No.2 team, but to actually overhaul them and to win two titles. And then to top that by getting to the Champions League final, leaving the likes of Ronaldo and Real Madrid in their humble wake. You’d fancy Liverpool getting their coach in, wouldn’t you?
Read Klopp interviews. What comes through relentlessly is that he wants to win, but win in a certain way. He wants to prove something to someone. To his mother, to God, but most likely to himself.
This lad is an elite European coach. One of a select group of about half a dozen managers working in the world game today. The other five only take jobs with clubs that guarantee squads and trophies that will further enhance their already muscular CVs.
Klopp doesn’t seem to need that in his life.
He is truly a throwback. A contradiction in many senses — for instance he seems to have no problem being a shameless shill in doing adverts for some heavy weight corporations (Puma, Opel and others) and yet it is hard to escape the conclusion that here is a man on a mission that represents something more honest.
By the time Klopp’s predecessors have come to appreciate this, the burden of that realisation has broken them. No-one is the same after Liverpool. I think Klopp knows this. I think that’s why he wanted our job. He is a man who will have done his homework. He will know the history. He will have researched our sub-cultures and customs.
Nothing though can fully prepare him for our reality, though.
This is real world now, Jurgen. This is not a drill. We will bury you if you fail us. But win for us and return us to the promised land — not halfway, but all the way — and you will truly walk with gods.
Statues will be erected to you, children will be named after you, hairstyles and leisure wear will be worn in your image. Strap yourself in, lad, it’s going to be mad. Enjoy it regardless.
TAW Player: Raphael Honigstein on Jurgen Klopp
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Pics: PA Images & David Rawcliffe-Propaganda Photo
For the past 12 months I haven’t really wanted to go through another ‘rebuilding’ process.
But I am well up for this one.
How are the press-ups coming along Rob?
Nice one…you’ve fucking jinxed it.
We certainly needed something to lift the depression of the last year. Some sort of upper. A shot in the arm. However, this feels more like the defibrillator pads are on the chest and the applicant is shouting “GET BACK”!
Welcome Jurgen. Become a Kop legend. Bring your own style of exciting football. Forget the past other than to respect it. Make your own history.
YES!
I’m well up for this. He’s the perfect fit I think.
Nice. Sums it up. I think he’s more into Scouse kids one day being called Juergen than anything to do with money. Bloke now has a chance – albeit starting with a shitty hand – to become a part of the club’s and the city’s history.
Still, £6m a year not bad for such a sack-wearing ascetic
For me, this is without doubt the biggest and most exciting decision FSG mave made since they took the club over. In fact it could the biggest decision for us since the PL formed and football was born.
Rafa was a huge signing for us, and other good things have been done by our owners at times in the last 23 years, but they feel less than this simply because we needed a statement of intent for once – and boy have we got it.
Signing Suarez or Torres? Stadium expansion? Sacking Hodgson? All good and lovely – but this has really brought the buzz back.
Hopefully this feeds to the players and they simply go out, have a spring in their step, have fun and smash the mothers out of Spurs in 9 days time.
RobF…..is it that much of a shitty hand though?
I can’t think of any new Liverpool manager who has walked into the job with a better squad at his disposal.
Yes, some had better players, star players to use but none have had such a high base to start from.
Sorting through the sadness and something resembling fury over FSG’s unwillingness to back Rodgers in the transfer market – how much of that 300M counts if most of your choices are either vetoed or eliminated summarily through age or wage constraints.
Could we have gone all the way if we had Willian instead of Victor Moses? Could we have kicked on the next season with Sanchez instead of Balotelli? If we could have played out of the back with Vorm and Williams rather than Mignolet and Lovren?
The Rodgers era will always be sullied with what-ifs and could have beens. And I find it personally important to acknowledge and respect that, knowing that we did have a limited, but also brilliant and dignified manager who understood the club. For that Rodgers should be honored.
That said, I am really, really effing excited – bordering on disbelief – that we have landed one of the true elites in the game. And of the handful of elites, we somehow manage to land the one who fits our culture like a glove.
I’d like to think that this is some masterstroke by FSG, but it seems clear that we have simply stepped into a Tyrannosaurus sized pile of good luck.
As Public Enemy once remarked, “Bring the noise!”
Walter, lad, get over the mawkish Rodgers sentiments please.
How do you know he was overruled on many transfers. Noone has a fucking clue.
He was lucky enough to preside over probably the most skillful player I have ever seen in over 40 years watching LFC – and I include the King in that statement.
Suarez was a maverick genius who could not be coached – least of all by a fella from Swansea. He went out on that pitch and played by instinct – to his own set of rules learned on the hard scrabble streets of Uruguay. You think he gave a fuck what Rodgers said in the pre game talks???
Once he left, the emperor had no clothes. Move on.
Willkommen, Jurgen – Vorsprung durch Technik, baby!
No one can deny Suárez played by instinct with immense creativity, and his workrate pulled everyone else along and elevated their game. But Suárez himself said that BR helped his game in important ways. He went to Barça because it was always his dream since boyhood and for his family. But he sat alone in his car and cried when he came back to Melwood and visited Brendan & his former teammates.
Those who think 2013-14 was ALL and ONLY down to Suárez actually insult the contribution made by everyone else. It was the season that electrified the entire PL, not only our club. Until Stevie slipped… I don’t think slipping or throwing a tantrum and stamping on an opponent’s ankle are things that were written in Brendan’s little black book on the sideline or drilled during practice sessions.
Then why wasn’t Suarez as consistently good under Kenny?
I really despise this “it was all Luis” rubbish.
“The Rodgers era will always be sullied with what-ifs and could have beens. And I find it personally important to acknowledge and respect that, knowing that we did have a limited, but also brilliant and dignified manager who understood the club. For that Rodgers should be honored.”
Totally agree.
True, was talking more about the whole setup, the lack of culpability, the expectations or aims (or not); the huge negativity surrounding the club at present. Squad-wise, I’m sure he would have bitten your hand off if given this set of players when he first took over at Dortmund. I expect several of our players to suddenly make you go, ‘Whoah – that’s what he can do?!’
That was answering Michael. But not ‘you’ personally, rather ‘one will go… Whoah!’ We need the German ‘man’ (for ‘one’) here – luckily we have got him!
He’s left with a load of dead wood that need clearing out ASAP I hope his search for quality replacements extends beyond Southampton
and heads deep into der fatherland
Didn’t let myself get caught up in it the past few days because I knew I couldnt take the heartbreak if it fell through. Now he’s on a plane to John Lennon and I feel like pinching myself. Even if it all eventually goes tits up this is so fucking exciting and mad. The competition look on with envy. You played a blinder FSG
Good article here.
I’m a bit concerned that all the things I like about Jurgen, are the same things that potential detractors within the press or closer to home may use against him.
Ultimately I’m not bothered about them though. Let’s just get behind the guy and celebrate this most definite coup.
Get in!
Without a shred of doubt, he’s the want that we need! Wilkommen Jurgen!
Great article, Rob. Crisp, clear, somehow reminiscent of the vibes of ’13! I’ve got Wildest Dreams by Wildest Dreams blasting on the stereo. Seems appropriate somehow.
Cheers!
I think Jurgen is a throw back to our great managers. Some of you young ones don’t know what it was like to be at Anfield in the 70’s and 80’s but it wasn’t like St Etienne and Chelsea SF every week. We didn’t play well all of the time. Sometimes we were shite. We used to play Huddersfield Town, Leicester , Sheffield United etc. and they would all give us a game. The difference was that we never gave up. I respect the different views of all supporters but I’m afraid some of you have been caught up in this new technology world. I’m sorry Ellie but I have been to every match this season and your Brendan wasn’t up to it. His insistence upon self belief and playing his way was ultimately his downfall. It isn’t about his belief , it’s about Liverpool Football Club. Life long reds I know stopped going. Jurgen gives us hope, he has weaknesses like all of us but he has humility and is capable of laughing at others and himself. I think he will be a great. When I was 19 as part of my job I had to drop some stuff of at the office at Anfield, I waited in the old wood panelled corridor outside the old ticket office and Bob Paiisley walked past and asked if I was ok and being seen to. He went into the office and came out again and on the way past said to me ‘bring your boots next time son’. He shook my hand and went on his way. That’s what it’s about young ones. I think , this time, the owners and Ian Ayre have got it right and well done to them. Come on you mighty Reds.
It’s so odd when I come to TAW articles many hours after they’ve been posted and see people mention my name when I haven’t even posted a comment. Brendan Rodgers was not ‘my Brendan’. He is merely a decent man who I respected and who I hated to see viciously abused for things that were unrelated to the job he was hired to do. I would feel that way about any person.
I’ll never understand why fans can’t simply love their club without feeling the need to counter balance it with hatred toward someone or something else. Just love your club and support it. That’s it.
FSG had a plan and they waited until the moment they thought was strategically right to act on it. The outcome has made us all happy for a variety of reasons. Let’s see if the dream becomes a reality. I certainly hope it will. But I want sustained long-term success — not one big win in isolation that we then celebrate for 10 years while longingly hoping for another miracle. I said on Twitter that when I see 6 BIG decisive wins that are also clean sheets and when we’re firmly in the top 3 in the table for at least half the season, I’ll know (1) that our lads have found the net and discovered how to put the ball actually in it, and (2) the gaping holes in our defence will be on the mend. That’s when I’ll truly relax and let my hope run wild.
I love Rob, but after reading more about Klopp and seeing him dunk a football off a swing, I think I love him more.
As the kids would say, it’s all going to go off massive style.
Ahaha what a gem this article is. “Almost the best league title-winning side of all time.” PMSL.
Good luck with me.Klopp, he’s a top bloke. but please, PLEASE, understand that this is not your year. Nor is the next one.
Lovely to see that you’re posting on a website dedicated to a team you clearly don’t support. Cheers!
I just want to scream and shout in pure excitement!! AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JURGEN EFFIN KLOPP!!! THIS WILL BE AWESOME!!!! AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
I can’t help but read all this with a massive grin and chills up my spine.
This is going to be boss!
He’s 6ft 4, not 6ft 2…
Doesn’t rhyme, la.
Can’t help but read this with a massive grin on my face. Not because I’m a Liverpool fan, but because I can’t believe that someone not heavily under the influence of an illegal substance could have written this with a straight face.
You want to know why Liverpool fans are ridiculed up and down the country on a daily basis? Well, you’ve got your answer, right here.
Arsed. Thanks for the hits, ‘Rick’.
I wonder how Red Devil’s doing four years on… if a week’s a long time in politics, four years is a long time in football; reckon it’s gonna be at least that long before any Red Devils are any of our business again!
His song
When I saw Jurgen WELL I’M A BELIEVER
cos when I saw Jurgen there’s no doubt in my mind
He is klopp ooooh I a believer we’ll win the league Yeh
With this guy
KLOPP DOESN’T BELIEVE IN FAIRY TALES ETC