Vielen Dank für die Erinnerungen, Jürgen
or more simply, Danke Boss.
I’m pleased and more than a little proud to announce that my article entitled “Vielen Dank für die Erinnerungen, Jürgen” (thanks for the memories, Jürgen) made the cut for Liverpool’s longest running and now only remaining independently produced and published fanzine “Red All Over The Land” for Issue 303 and a special, full colour iteration of a cherished magazine now in its 28th year of publication.
I made the cut again and my silly words of appreciation for the man with the most magnificent of beards from Stuttgart in Germany will now be read not only by Reds in Liverpool and a wider England, but around the world too. So you can see why I’m more than a tad full of self-regarding nonsense.
Here’s a link to the original article (penned and published on 10th April 2024), a self-published book I’m immensely proud of and the article itself reproduced in full.
I hope you enjoy.
Jürgen Klopp — Danke, Boss - original article
"Chasing the Impossible and a Sword of Damocles" - available via Amazon
“Vielen Dank für die Erinnerungen, Jürgen”
Between the long ago months of January and April 2023, Jürgen’s “boys” and the Mighty Reds of Liverpool weren’t so mighty after all. 16 games were played in all competitions between a humbling and Jamie Carragher described “shambles” of a defeat away at Brentford on 2nd January before almost exactly three months later the Reds were pasted and played off the park 4–1 by an unbeatable looking treble chasing Manchester City. From the 14 games in between came a draw with Wolves in the FA Cup and a replay win before the ignominy of not one but two away defeats at Brighton and “Sussex by the Sea”, a limp Premier League defeat at Wolves sent the Reds to mid-table and after a masterclass from Real Madrid dumped the Reds from the Champions League they bounced back to demolish Manchester United 7–0 and 6 days later, another limp and humbling defeat on the south coast, this time to the “Cherries” of Bournemouth, and the team swatted aside 9–0 at the beginning of a season I termed at the very outset as a “Sword of Damocles” season. After the heroics of almost winning everything in sight the previous season Damocles’ sword could be seen lowering with each and every passing game, however during this run of games (P 16, W 5, D 3 L 8) Jürgen stated one simple word that I immediately noted down for future use as well as within my first book on the great man:
“Evolution”
Through the wind and the rain and the storms of destabilising defeats Jürgen preached patience and evolution and way before losing the engine of his midfield to the lure of far away oil money, and following the Reds dreadful 3–0 defeat away at Wolves on 4th February 2023, I ended my match report of the game thus:
“One day Klopp will naturally leave Liverpool Football Club and when he does, he’ll join Shankly, Paisley, Dalglish, Houllier and Benítez on the honours roll of all-time.
I just hope that day is in a long faraway footballing future”
(“Chasing the Impossible and a Sword of Damocles” — Available on Amazon)
Being the thoughtful writer that I am (stop laughing!) I gave Jürgen and the boys that have through necessity become the even younger branded “kids” a pass this season. If I saw seasons 2021–2022 as chasing the impossible and 2022–2023 a Sword of Damocles affair, then this season was certainly a free-hit for an evolving team even before the injuries that have ravaged the squad and a team of kids who played the “Billion Pound Bottle Jobs” off the park in extra-time at Wembley, a brilliantly improving Darwin Núñez in attack, a midfield now marshalled by the holder of my Red heart Wataru Endō and elder statesman among the kids and boys surrounding him (Harvey Elliott and Ryan Gravenberch 21, Curtis Jones and Dominik Szoboszlai 23 and Alexis Mac Allister 25). New skipper Virgil van Dijk is back to his pre-injury majesty and he’s guided a rotating cast of defensive heroes in Red, old and young, veteran to debut maker, and all whilst emergency left-back, centre-back and now water carrying central midfielder Joe Gomez comes closer with each passing game to finally scoring his first goal after nearly a decade of trying, the Reds last line of defence has often been another kid, and a 25 year old Irishman deputising for the greatest goalkeeper in the world and who just, and only just, but oh so beautifully so, beats his own boss for the widest and joyous of Cup Final winning smiles.
Following the Reds routine 5–1 demolition of Toulouse on 26th October 2023, Jürgen was particularly bullish in his immediate post-match press conference as he declared:
“I think I’ve said before, I think it’s really easy to fall in love with this team because it has so much excitement in it. We have to make massive steps, we have to grow, we have to get more stable, we have to do a lot of things but a lot of signs are really promising. That’s true as well. How the team interacts with each other is really nice because when you talk about the rebuild of a team then it is all about the things you see on the pitch, obviously, but to see that there must be a rebuild off the pitch as well — and that’s going really well”.
He didn’t state “evolution” or rather he did, but far more eloquently.
Not 3 months later came the bombshell of his departure as well as an admission that he notified FSG of his desire to leave in early November, mere days after the above match, and I was as heart broken as I was as a 19 year old in 1991 when The King left the club we all adore with tears in his eyes. I couldn’t see anyone else as manager of Liverpool Football Club in 1991 other than my boyhood hero and all these years later I still fail to see anyone else as boss come the Summer. Writing this on 10th April 2024 and before Thursday’s Europa League Quarter-Final with Atalanta I have zero desire to debate or enter into discussions as to who will be Jürgen’s successor and as I see it, we all have a minimum of 9 games (hopefully 12) in which to luxuriate in the assurance of Jürgen Klopp being Liverpool manager and the making of memories that will be a mountain of a hill to climb for whomever takes over.
Following the first of Jürgen’s goodbyes and the 5–2 win against Norwich City in the FA Cup I ended my match report by stating ”it’s just a crying shame Jürgen won’t be here to see what heights his boys climb to in the coming seasons” and here’s hoping whomever takes over makes good on the immense promise he leaves. As I’ve already no doubt exceeded the word count required from the editor of this esteemed publication for this article I’ll leave you with the memories of the boss asleep and cradling the FA Cup on the plane back to Liverpool, the breaking of his glasses in the 5–4 madness of an away win at Norwich City, giving Sadio Mané a piggy-back as he and the team ripped Arsenal a new one at The Emirates, the breaking of Red hearts around the known footballing world as he tearfully hugged captain Jordan Henderson before lifting “Big Ears” once again, and of Ulla Sandrock, bouncing and screaming on the streets of a city that has not only taken her husband to their hearts but bestowed the freedom of the city upon him, as he paraded yet more silverware to the people who are way more than merely glad that her husband is a Red.
Here’s to the greatest of all silver linings in the coming weeks for the “normal one” from Stuttgart.
Vielen Dank für die Erinnerungen, Boss.
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.