On the 8th of October 2015, a simple German with a less-than-stellar smile was announced as the new manager of Liverpool Football Club. Jürgen Norbert Klopp, the eternally charismatic two-time Bundesliga Champion with Borussia Dortmund, was seen as a breath of fresh air on the Red side of Merseyside. A section of the English football landscape so accustomed to success but made to go without over the past decade and then some (to that point, Liverpool’s most recent trophy win was the League Cup in 2011). Jürgen understood the magnitude of the task before him. Not just the (admittedly daunting) challenge of taking over a team who’d finished 6th the season prior and had won just three of their first eight games before his appointment, but also the challenge of convincing the fans that Liverpool Football Club belonged at the Big Boys Table once again. In his first press conference after being announced, he acknowledged this responsibility and told supporters that we would have to “turn from doubter to believer”.
It wouldn’t be easy, but then again, nothing worth doing ever is. But this statement, along with his declaration of himself as “the normal one”, highlighted more than the type of manager he was going to be. They showed the type of man he was. A man concerned not just with footballing matters on the pitch, but with the community that is offers and affords. The special bond between a club and their fans. A bond harmed and hawed at by incompetent ownership and below-par managers. A bond he now sought to mend and strengthen. But it would have to start, as most football matters do, on the pitch.
Games came and went, and with every passing Premier League weekend, the brilliance of the boisterous German continued to show. Masterminding back-to-back away victories over Chelsea and Manchester City, a pulsating 5–4 win away to Norwich (where he broke his glasses after Lallana’s late winner), and marching a team consisting of Christian Benteke, Mamadou Sakho and Simon Mignolet to a League Cup final in his first season, losing on penalties to Manchester City. But it wasn’t domestically that his star shone brightest that first glorious year.
The true tale of the first year of the Jürgen can only be told through the lens of European football. Liverpool are a club used to midweek success under the lights, having hoisted ol’ Big Ears 5 times, and its Little Brother 3 times. They were by far, the most storied English club on the Continent. But much like with everything else, there has been a famine. Their last final was in 2007, their last Champions League knockout games in 2009 (knockout games because the pop in and out that occurred in 2014/15 will not be spoken of). Even the Europa League, the Thursday Night™ affair, hadn’t been seen on Merseyside since a languid Last-32 exit in 2013. The club, and supporters, that feasted on European nights were starving. And along comes Chef Jürgen with a deluxe, full-course meal.
After a reasonably uneventful group stage and Last-32 (handled with some wins and a not-inconsiderable number of draws), the football gods saw fit to spit out a derby for the Round of 16 tie. And not just any derby. Here was a match between England’s two powerhouse clubs. The most decorated clubs in the history of that tiny island nation going at it in the second tier of European competition, a sign of how far both had fallen. But a European night is a European night, and so the football must be played. A reasonably comfortable 2–0 home win put Jürgen’s Tricky Reds in the driver’s seat for the trip up the M62. A Martial penalty set the nerves jangling, before Phillipe Coutinho executed the most audacious chip you’d ever seen to set the Reds on their way. 3–1 on aggregate.
But of course, a meal contains more than one dish, and the biggest of the lot was about to hit the plate. Jürgen Klopp, a day shy of six months into his new job, was handed an unexpected homecoming. Borussia Dortmund. The place he’d called home for seven years. The place where he’d defied the eternally irrepressible machinery of Pep Guardiola (remember this name) and Bayern Munich to win the Bundesliga, twice. A place where his name was still sung, and his face still flew over the Yellow Wall. Now he had to take his new boys to through this emotional maelstrom. The first leg was altogether unremarkable. Divock Origi (remember this name too) grabbed a crucial away goal (remember those?) before Mats Hummels found an equalizer. 1–1. Perfectly poised on a knife’s edge as Jürgen welcomed his former charges into his new home. Within 10 minutes of kickoff, Dortmund had erased the away goal advantage and given themselves a nice two-goal cushion. Origi hit back three minutes after the halftime break, but the two-goal hole was soon re-established. Then it happened. In the 66th minute, Coutinho found a gap and fired away. Goal. Running back, he urged the Anfield crowd on in a moment reminiscent of Steven Gerrard in Istanbul.
12 minutes later, Mamadou Sakho find the back of the net. Tie game. But a tie would not do. Liverpool needed a winner. Cometh the hour (or the 91st minute), cometh the man. After working a free kick wide, James Milner, the eternal veteran, stands up a cross to the back post. A ball floated up so perfectly it was practically begging to be smacked into the back of the net. And of all the bodies waiting in front of an expectant and excited Kop, one man rose highest. Dejan, the Big Dog, Lovren. Bang. Game.
Here was Jürgen in microcosm. A dogged refusal to be beaten, a rip-roaring, fantastically in-your-face style of play, and a belief that began with him, dripped into the players and every single person for whom their hearts beat Red. We were not going to lose this game.
A 3–1 aggregate win over Villareal in the semis seem tame after that affair, but what it meant was that Jürgen was going to stand on the touchline in a European final for the second time in his career. In all honesty, the less said about that final, the better (curse you, Moreno).
And so ended the first year (seven months) of The Jürgen. Two places (and two points) worse off than the year before, but with two cup finals and a memorable European comeback under his belt. Not bad considering he occasionally had to use Steven Caulker as an emergency center forward. The man had a plan. He just needed the right tools.
The 2016/17 season, what would be Klopp’s first full season in charge, started as well as could be expected. Outside Anfield, changes were being made up the M62. Pep Guardiola (remember him) had decided to end his sabbatical from football to sign on to Manchester City’s sportswashing project. Not that this concerned Jürgen, far from it. His immediate aim was to get Liverpool back to the Big Time. The UEFA Champions League. The fiery crucible in which the only true heroes are forged. This time there was no “distraction” of midweek European football. All eyes were on the League. And those eyes saw wonders. Matchday 1 saw Liverpool entertain with a 4–3 away win at Arsenal that saw new boy Sadio Mané fire in a spectacular effort and jump on the back of his new manager in celebration. Fueled by his trademark gegenpressing, what the media would dub “heavy metal football” was unleashed upon the English footballing world. For better (5–1 win vs Hull, 6–1 vs Watford) and sometimes for worse (4–3 loss to Bournemouth, 3–1 loss to Leicester), Jürgen’s brand of ball was intense, exacting, and entertaining. But also, incomplete.
After the final whistle blew on a thoroughly thrilling 3–0 win on the final day of the season, Liverpool had done it. Jürgen had successfully guided his team back to the European elite. Now he would be playing Big Boy Ball. This continued a theme of accomplishment followed by expectation. 2017/18 would be his biggest challenge yet. And for the fans, the wildest ride of their lives.
At this point renowned for punching above his weight financially (just check the net spend numbers), Jürgen was going to have to navigate another league campaign that carried expectations, and the Champions League. Not only was there the question of whether he could maintain league form while competing in Europe (he kinda sold the league to make the Europa League Final in 2016), but he also had to deal with an expectant Kop. The Europa League is all well and good, but this is where the history has been made. Five European Cups, more than anyone else in England. Legendary tales of comebacks and crushing dominance. The first campaign since 2014/15, and a certain level of performance was expected, if not demanded. The League campaign did as the league campaign does. A 2nd 4th-place finish in a row along with some memorable outings, like a 4–3 (I like to think of it as 4–1) victory that stopped the seemingly invincible Manchester City’s 22-game unbeaten start to the season. But yet again, it was in Europe that Jürgen did what Jürgen does.
Armed with a shiny new forward named Mo Salah, a spindly teenager who’d scored a crucial free kick in the playoffs, and a metric ton of gumption, Jurgen set out to bring Heavy Metal Football to Europe’s best. And boy did he ever. Mo Salah, along with Mané and Roberto Firmino, devoured all in their path. An unstoppable force of sheer attacking prowess led to historic scorelines (7–0s and 5–0s galore), before another testing knockout game.
Manchester City. Quarter-final. Many a fan (me included) would not have begrudged Jürgen exiting at this stage. After all, this was our first time here since the late 2000s, coming up against a Man City team that was devouring all in their path in the Premier League on the way to a historic 100-point season. It didn’t matter that we’d beaten them before. This wasn’t a random League game in January. This was Champions League football, under the lights. But did that matter to the bespectacled man charged with drawing up the plans? Fuck no. League, Champions League, or anywhere else, Jürgen’s boys would not be held back. A 30-minute blitz in the first half saw the eventual Centurions down 3–0 on aggregate going back to Manchester. Gabriel Jesus hit early in the second leg to send the nerves jangling once again, but the Reds held on till halftime. Then in the 56th minute, a Mané drive sees the ball bobble into the path of the man who could not miss. Mo Salah. Bang. Game over.
Pandemonium in the stands. Pandemonium for miles and miles around the world. And after Bobby found a second to ice the game, every single one of us had the same thought: Are we actually going to do it? Much like Neo, we had all begun to believe in impossible things. That this team, with certain uncertain shot stoppers, could actually crash the party and make off with Big Ears. And damn it, they almost did. But, two years after heartbreak in Basel, it was heartbreak in Kyiv. But for more than one glorious moment, we reached out and dared to touch the heavens, unafraid to dream.
Most managers, hell most people would be off in a hole somewhere mourning the loss and the circumstances of it. I was inconsolable for at least a week after. Where was the self-styled Normal One? Singing and drinking with fans in a bar. He had just lost the biggest game of his career (again), and here he was, partying with fans who’d made the trip to Ukraine. If ever there was a manager in tune with his people, it was Jürgen. Why not party? All of Europe had just been put on notice. Jürgen’s boys were here, and they were not going anywhere. To lose Coutinho, a vital player (and one of my favorites) and still make the Champions League final wasn’t just an achievement. It was a statement of intent. Liverpool, with their charismatic, fist-pumping manager, was the club to be at. World class talent would turn down other offers to make the switch to Merseyside. First Alisson, the mercurial Brazilian shot stopper; then Fabinho, at the time regarded as one of the best holding midfielders in Europe. With the addition of Virgil Van Dijk in the winter of 2018, Jürgen finally had a spine to support his relentless, nigh-unstoppable, almost manic style of play.
2018/19 came not with hope and tempered expectations, but with demand and desire. Liverpool were one of Europe’s best, and they were gonna show it. Domestically, the job was simple enough: There was one team to beat, and we’d already shown that we could beat them. Arguably the best team in Europe and they lost three times to an as-yet incomplete Liverpool side running on fist-pumps and vocal push. This was not that team. Yes, the heavy metal remained, but now they could do more than blow you away offensively. They could, and very often did, keep you out of their goal. 21 clean sheets and 22 goals conceded in the League made for the best defense and 89 goals scored was second only to Manchester City’s almost inhuman 95. They lost just once the entire season, keeping pace with the monstrous mechanical precision of Pep Guardiola (remember him?) and Man City. Stride for stride, week by week, only to come short on the final day by a solitary point. The 2018/19 season was truly one for the ages. 97 points and it does not even begin to tell the tale. How does one encapsulate a 96th minute winner against cross-town rivals that sent my manager running onto the pitch, or a 3–1 humbling of an old foe that cost a manager his job, or a 3–2 win in the penultimate week to keep the title race alive? Such things defy numbers. Such things have to be experienced to be believed, and even then, it feels like a dream.
While there were stings at home, nothing would stop Jürgen’s Tricky Reds on the continent. Not a group containing such names as Paris Saint-Germain and Napoli, which featured its fair share of late winners and heroic stands. Not a Round of 16 draw that spat out Bayern Munich, a team featuring one of the greatest goal scorers of his generation in Robert Lewandowski.
Not even the most daunting task in Jürgen’s four years so far. Champions League semi-final. 1st May 2019. Lionel Messi and a Barcelona team containing a few familiar faces. A tumultuous first leg has the Reds down 3–0 on aggregate. Six days later, the gates of Anfield open to yet another mountain to climb. Overcoming a 3–0 deficit against one of the best sides in Europe (as they tend to be in the semis) with arguably the best player in the history of the game. Without two of a forward line much feared around Europe, Jürgen had to do again. And he had one simple ask of us. If we were going to fail, let us fail in the most spectacular way. We might be 3–0 in the hole, but if it could happen anywhere, it can happen at Anfield, with these boys, and this manager, being cheered on by these fans.
The game starts, and it is everything. Liverpool score after seven minutes and you can already tell. One team wants this. One team needs this. One team is going to get this. Barca manage to get to halftime only 1–0 down on the night. Maybe they think they can escape with just one goal. They can’t. Gini Wijnaldum comes on as a halftime sub and by the 56th minute, Liverpool are 3–0 up. They’ve done the impossible. Anfield roars as the third goes in. All even. All to play for again.
Except it’s not all to play for. You’re in my house, and the game will be played on my terms. Barca players look all at sea, overwhelmed by the pressure of the moment, the pressure of the players, and the pressure of 50 thousand people screaming and cheering and roaring at the top of their lungs. 11 minutes of normal time to play. Corner to Liverpool.
While Barca players gather themselves and argue with the ref, the 20-year-old right back who’d burst onto the scene last season surveys the moment. He spots a weakness. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Liverpool 4 Barcelona 0. We dreamed it, we willed it, and he took his boys out there and they fucking did it. A formality of a final followed (featuring another Divock goal) and this time, finally, an itch far too long in the making would finally be scratched. Liverpool Football Club were Champions of Europe once more.
The trophy parade was a sight to behold. Over 750 thousand people filled the streets of the city to see the team and the man who made their dreams a reality.
Jürgen’s Red Men had talent, and tactical nous, and guile, and strength, and will. But more than that, they had belief. The belief of their boss and the belief he gave to a city of football mad people.
2019/20 came, and with it came the hunger for that one elusive piece of silverware. Our White Whale. 30 years since Those Scouse Lads called themselves Champions of England. We wanted it bad. And we knew we could get it. Coming one point short and winning a European Cup tends to have that effect. There were other things that transpired in this, Jürgen’s fourth full season. A Super Cup won on penalties. A thrilling Club World Cup excursion that featured two Bobby game winners.
But it was the League that took center stage. A club starved of domestic success, a manager poised to end that long drought, and the wonders seen along the way.
Every Liverpool fan has a different moment when they knew we would win the league. For most, it was after the 2–0 home win over Man United in January. Chants of “Now you’ve gotta believe us” ringing around a boisterous Anfield.
For others, it was the 4–0 away dismantling of Leicester on Boxing Day. Barely five days removed from a grueling Club World Cup outing (to call two games a campaign feels weird), they would have been forgiven a dip. But no such dip was to be found. A possibly challenging game won at a canter.
For me, it was on November 10. Manchester City at home. Time to lay down a marker. And lay down a marker they did. An emphatic 3–1 win over the reigning champions. Played them off the park. It was in that moment, watching Fabinho and Salah and Mané rip into them, that I realized/decided, “we’re winning this fucking thing.”
November 10. Still six months of the dogfight that is top-flight football to be played, and I knew. As surely as I knew my own name, I knew. Nothing could stop it. Not City, with their questionably attained billions, superstar manager and star-studded players. Not unfortunate injuries to a key player. Not even a global pandemic that pushed pause on the world. Liverpool would rule the roost once again. If I was sure of anything, I was sure of that. The trophy that eluded Souness and Houlier and Rafa. The title that made Captain Ahab out of our greatest ever player. The 30-year wait would finally be ended.
2020/21 was a tale of triumph over adversity. No fans in attendance (because of the aforementioned global pandemic), and the worst injury crisis in Premier League history. It all seemed to be falling apart around Klopp’s ears. After all, what’s a man to do when he loses all his senior centrebacks, and the auxiliary players chosen to play there? What’s a man to do when the fans, the 12th man that have provided so much impetus for him and his team, are not there?
For Jürgen, the answer is simple. Get a ramshackle backline consisting of Nat Phillips, Rhys Williams, and Ozan Kabak, and make magic happen.
It meant hoping for a miracle during a torrid run and finding heroes in unexpected places. Like a pair of close-to-forgotten academy players. Or a Portuguese finisher from the Black Country. Or a goalkeeper coming forward when his team needed a winner and providing the most improbably important touch in a season where those have been more precious than rare jewels.
Here was a team having a season that would have been granted a pass by many in the media (if not by rival fans). But there again was that staunch belief, that unwavering faith in the manager and his plans (however strange they may seem), that refusal to go gentle into that good night. Jürgen’s “mentality monsters” were not to be ignored, even when they seemed down for the count.
Then came 2021/22, and with the benefit of hindsight, I’m going to call this “the beginning of the end.” Birds sung, fans sung, and injured players returned. Another title charge was demanded, but our humble steward saw fit to provide more. We wouldn’t get just a title race but, as the boys rounded the bases on a League Cup victory in late February, a hunt for something never before attempted in the storied history of English football.
We were going to win the lot. And for three months we dreamed, and we believed, and we sang, and we urged. For three great and glorious months, we were sure that Jürgen and his charges would make the impossible happen. League game after league game, every grueling round of knockout football. An FA Cup final win only served to further solidify the belief. It was going to happen. It had to happen.
It didn’t happen. League and Champions League heartbreak. Two seasons worth condensed into a six-day spell. That’s enough to make anyone question their devotion to anything. But Jürgen asks, nay, demands that a parade be had for the trophies won. It seems mental. You’ve just seen your team lose the league by a point (again) and been denied European glory by Spaniards in white (again). The last thing you want to do is have a party. But Jürgen knew, and even better, he understood. Wins must be celebrated for they don’t always come around. And wins must be celebrated even in the face of excruciating losses, for if nothing else, it eases the pain.
He asked us to show up. And we did. We did it for him and for them. And we did it for us. Flares smoking, and a song blaring from speakers that played on that first improbable trip to the precipice of immortality.
One kiss is all it takes…
The season after this can best be classed as a ten-month hangover. Chasing history and coming just short would take a toll on the best of us. But even in this most subdued of years, there were still moments to take your breath away. An astonishing 9–0 home win vs Bournemouth, and especially the masterful 7–0 dismantling of Man United. Ultimately, a bad year is a bad year. And when you have a bad year, questions are asked.
Was he washed? Could he no longer work his magic? Had the dreaded “seven-year curse” that ended his time at Dortmund reared its head again? Tune in next season to find out.
2023/24 might not have been classic Jürgen, but it was vintage Jürgen. He was back. The energy that seemed gone last season was back, and it was the same on the pitch. All they needed was new blood and time. Now it was time to cook. A surprisingly impressive start to the season (surprising because of the number of new players that had to be settled) had people whispering that sacred and dreaded “Q” word again. Perhaps not as lofty because it would have been a Europa League and not Big Ears but nonetheless. As the games ticked by, imaginary late Spring plans were being made. Then on a sunny January morning, the bombshell dropped.
This would be his last season. The reasons given were reasonable enough, but an amputation still hurts even if it’s medically necessary. All of a sudden, the impressive start and the plans for May suddenly took on a new dimension. This was to be the sendoff. A fairytale ending to match anything Walt Disney can concoct. We would win the quadruple, and we would say goodbye. And we believed it. Without his urging, despite him telling us not to sing his song during games. We believed it through magnificent refereeing incompetence. We believed it as players seemingly dropped like flies and were replaced by children. We believed it as those children, buoyed by that very belief (the kind that has 40,000+ break out into song at random in extra time in a cup final) and a manager who trusts them, guided us to the first of what was supposed to be a haul. But a haul it would not be. Life rarely plays out as a fairytale. Dreams of Dublin and a second Premier League title to ride out into the sunset with would be cruelly crushed in early Spring.
The legacy of Jürgen Klopp is not one that can be captured by such things as games won or trophies amassed, even though he has done quite a bit there. His 297 wins are behind only Bob Paisley, Tom Watson, and Bill Shankly. His 61% win rate clears everyone else in Liverpool history. His trophy haul is only bettered by Dalglish, Shanks, and Paisley. From a purely footballing standpoint, he has cemented his legacy as one of the club’s greatest ever. A living legend.
But it’s what he’s done beyond the bounds of a touchline that truly elevate him to a level never before seen. His commitment not just to the present, but the future of the club. Being a visible face for the revamping of the training grounds. The trust placed in the players. Not just established senior pros, but teenagers still finding their balance. A trust that would pay dividends in this, his final season. Clark, Danns, Quansah, Bradley, Koumas. Little lads in Red who played bigger than themselves because he wanted them to. Because he knew they could.
His seemingly otherworldly ability to create legends and folk heroes out of regular players. Kostas, Divock, Darwin, Robbo, Trent, Mo, Bobby, Sadio. An almost Rumpelstiltskin-like ability to spin gold out of straw. You need only look at the net spend compared to other teams to see this. He was as close to a footballing magician as most people have ever seen.
It’s him responding to a child who happens to be a Man United fan asking him not to win the league. It’s him taking time out of his day to meet Dáire. It’s his ever-sensible stances on various issues that swirl around on this big blue rock we call a home. It’s him crying on live television after just delivering the biggest title yet, waxing lyrical not about himself or his tactical prowess (as he would have been well within his rights to do), but about the heroes that came before. About Kenny and Stevie. And about us. The fans who so cruelly could not participate in this most momentous of occasions. The bristling against lunchtime kickoffs. The numerous soapboxes upon which he hollered and howled about player welfare. The clashes with bald men in varying aspects of the beautiful game. Like the man said,
Football is the most important of the unimportant things.
But, most of all, it’s the sense of belief that he managed to infuse in an entire city, and upon the millions beyond who consider it an honor to call themselves Scousers. A belief so strong that down 3–0 going away to Atalanta, there were those who still thought, “If anyone can, he can.” A belief born in Dortmund, and Barcelona, and West Bromwich. A belief that seemed gone nine years ago. Here was a man who loved us as much as we loved him. A man who only demanded from us that which he would demand from himself. Not perfection, but effort. Drive. Will. Belief.
When the final whistle sounds on May 19, the English game will be worse off for having lost a brilliant tactical mind and a perennially entertaining figure. But the City of Liverpool will know a greater loss. Not of a great man, but of a good man. A man who saw himself as among, not above. As taking part, not just overseeing. As close to having one of us standing in the dugout at Anfield as we may ever get, in this lifetime or the next.
Auf wiedersehen, Jürgen. You made us believe.
