Jürgen Klopp and the leaving of a “superpower of world football”
Liverpool 2 Wolves 0, 19th May 2024
LIVERPOOL 2 (Mac Allister 34, Quansah 40)
WOLVES 0
Well the long goodbye came to an end yesterday and as if by Germanic precision everything went perfectly to plan, and Jürgen Norbert Klopp had an absolute ball! His team played quick, sharp, incisive football in elongated bursts that should have seen a game Wolverhampton Wanderers concede far more than the two first half goals that easily and ultimately sealed a comfortable home win. Anfield has rarely looked or sounded so beautiful with a pre-game mosiac in honour of the genial German the equal of a spine tingling rendition of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” before legends old and new were acclaimed once more in song by a Kop who with 5 minutes remaining were joined by all three sides of this Liverpudlian coliseum, and all in beautiful harmony and deference, love and adulation, for Jürgen Norbert Klopp.
“I’m so glad, that Jürgen is a Red” continued for 10 minutes until the shrill of a referee’s whistle signalled the end of the managerial reign of a man with the key to the city of Liverpool and with the hearts and love of millions around the known world. Everyone, from personal favourite players Thiago Alcântara and Joël Matip through to club personnel and coaches were afforded hearty goodbyes before, with barely a dry eye to be found in this storied footballing house, the “normal one” from Stuttgart rather enjoyed himself!
I won’t have been alone yesterday when shedding more tears than perhaps we all should admit to, but when the captain hugs his manager in a vain attempt to hide his tears and the vice-captain is openly crying in front of The Kop during yet another beautiful rendition of “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, well we can all allow ourselves to be human once in a while can’t we?
I blame Jürgen Klopp! For 18 months his team played “PlayStation Football” (copyright pending) that no team in the world could compete with. Shankly’s vision of building a team so great as to needing “a team from bloody Mars to beat us!” was writ large, and his team would be a single Premier League point and the width of a Parisian goalpost from chasing the impossible all over again. His “boys” and “kids” are becoming not just fantastic footballers but humble human men before our eyes, cup final winners too, and the man with the widest smile in football, even eclipsing that of the King, Kenny Dalglish, achieved this and so, so much more with humility and grace, warmth, compassion and love, coupled with an unfathomable desire to be the very best.
Football managers rarely if ever leave under these devotional, evangelical circumstances. Nor do they suggest a song for his successor in front of 60,000 of his adoring worshippers! To suggest that Arne Slot has rather large shoes to fill would be a monumental understatement but on the upside and, according to his predecessor, he’s being bequeathed a “superpower of world football”.
No pressure then!
Race for the Title
Manchester City P 38 W 28 D 7 L 3 GD 62 Points 91
Arsenal P 38 W 28 D 5 L 5 GD 62 Points 89
LIVERPOOL P 38 W 24 D 10 L 4 GD 45 Points 82
Manchester City did what Manchester do, winning their last league game of the season to wrap up the Premier League title and dashing the hearts of their nearest challengers. So often the Mighty Reds, this season it’s the “Gunners” of Arsenal who have to swallow the bitterest pill of all. Forever on the periphery and with games in hand (after being crowned Club Champions of the World lest we forget), Pep Guardiola’s monstrous winning team clicked into gear and never looked like losing as Liverpool imploded after the 3–4 FA Cup defeat at Manchester United and Arsenal could only (only!) post 89 points. Manchester City were always going to post 90+ points, it’s what that winning machine does. Tawdry and unseemly FFP rules breaches aside, 4 Premier League titles on the bounce is a MONUMENTAL achievement.
It’s for others to decide how tarnished these achievements will be judged in our coming future.
"Chasing the Impossible and a Sword of Damocles" - available via Amazon
A final word from The Boss
On how he feels about what he experienced due to the fact it is ‘not normal’ for a manager to receive such a send-off when leaving a club…
“No, I don’t think it’s normal. I knew for a long time already that our relationship was pretty special, I love that. I really think that the people made a difference for this club. How I said, these people are the superpower of this club, these people keep the club going, these people push the club, these people carry the club through difficult moments. These people are the club. So, obviously we had a really good time together, nine years, nearly a decade. It was absolutely crazy. Kids who today were in the stadium, kids of the staff who were today in the stadium and I saw after the game, they don’t know another manager of Liverpool FC. That’s how it is — they just think I was always there and will always be there and now I’m gone”.
“I expected… I was a bit afraid of a breakdown. I had one or two moments during the week where it was not great and during the game the last few minutes were tricky, but the general feeling today was it felt more like a start than an end because I know the goodbye is about me but in general it is about the team and I saw a wonderful team and I saw a wonderful team on the way. I saw a team who is ahead of schedule in their development. It’s a tough league and you never know where you start again but I saw just a good football team, and I saw all the young players who saved our backside a couple of times this year and none of them besides Conor and Jarell — Jarell played and Conor was on the bench and the others were all not involved today. They are there as well and that’s what gave me the feeling of, ‘OK, job done.’”
“I love you all, I love all and everything about the club but it’s time for me to go. But look, it’s not burning behind me and that gives me a good feeling. It’s not that you think, ‘Come on, get out of here!’ So, I know I can come back and I will come back and how I said after the game, from today, from three hours ago when the game finished, I’m a Liverpool supporter and I love that”.
On how the last week has impacted him…
“Everything impacted me. It was fantastic. How I said, the boys showed class. It’s difficult to deal with these kind of things. I could not use the exit of the AXA Training Centre, I cannot go out there, I would still stand there and sign autographs. The people show me so much love, that’s fine. You cannot come to my house and stuff like this. It’s really difficult to take. It’s so positive and I wish it would be for somebody else and I would be his best friend. That would be great — my best friend gets all this attention. But I get all the attention, that’s really tricky to take, to be honest. I just try to get through this and there will be a moment when nobody asks me anymore, nobody looks at me anymore and I just go down for a few hours or days, I don’t know, we will see that. But for the moment I have to function and I have to keep going and do that”.
“But today it was wonderful. I want to thank everybody. I love how we said goodbye to the staff, how the players said goodbye to the staff. For the public, it’s Jürgen Klopp, Jürgen Klopp, Jürgen Klopp, Jürgen Klopp. But Jürgen Klopp is Pep Lijnders, Jürgen Klopp is Peter Krawietz, Jürgen Klopp is Vitor Matos, Jürgen Klopp is John Achterberg, Jack Robinson, Claudio Taffarel, Jürgen Klopp is Andreas Kornmayer, Andreas Schlumberger. Jürgen Klopp is so much more than Jürgen Klopp. I alone would have done absolutely nothing. It’s really nice how the people did that today because everybody felt really appreciated. I don’t have a lack of appreciation, obviously, everybody shows me in the first moments and tell me they will miss me. I’m happy that all the other guys got their attention as well”.
“It was an absolutely incredible and wonderful time. I love it. My family was on the pitch, which was nice, really nice. Now we will have a party and then we will come back next for another event. And I will come back occasionally just, how I said, as a supporter now, and I’m fine with that, honestly. Maybe not for the first game of the season — that’s early, wow! Maybe after the second international break or something like this. What can I say? There must be a difference if the things go bad, always worse, worse, worse or if the things go well and go. I’m really happy that we could have done it like that — that we did it that way. Third, that’s alright”.
On what he’ll do on his first day not being Liverpool manager…
“I have no clue. Packing probably, I think so but I don’t know. I have enough things to do. A private life must be planned and I didn’t plan anything yet because I was here. Probably Ulla will update me where we go and stuff like this but I follow happily. But I have no clue what’s coming. I know we have a party tonight — that’s what I know”.
On the future…
“I don’t know exactly why nobody believes I probably will not be a manager again, but I understand because obviously it seems to be a drug, looks like because everybody comes back and everyone works until they are 70-something. I always had the idea that I will not do that that long. Look, other people are smarter, other people can do it in different ways. I have to be all-in, I have to be the spark, I have to be the energy, I have to be all these kind of things and I’m empty. That’s it. My biggest worry today was John Achterberg was coughing all the time next to me and I thought I would wake up tomorrow morning and I’m ill because he did his coughing in my direction. I have to start with the rest now and then we will see. But it’s not now that I feel now already and think about maybe the next opportunity. You only have to look outside which clubs are obviously available and stuff like this. There will be opportunities but I don’t sit here and think, ‘Maybe in a year’s time I take that.’ In this moment, see you later”.
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.