Jurgen Klopp Interview

[Uilleam 5,960]

From today's edition of The Times:

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/sport/klopp-i-do-the-one-thing-i-am-good-at-3vth9twl2 (Paywall)

 

Interesting stuff, although I am not sure if the Gerrard observations are more party line than personal view; I mean who would willingly risk having club legend, fans' favourite, England hero, media darling, etc., breathing down one's neck?

 

I should quite like to see this team, which Klopp suggests England fans & press expect, Italy’s defensive organisation, Spain’s midfield and the attack of Holland 20 years ago,

although for me the model for international football remains Brazil 70.

 

HENRY WINTER MEETS JÜRGEN KLOPP

Jürgen Klopp: I do the one thing I am good at

The Liverpool manager tells Henry Winter why he wants Gerrard to be next in line at Anfield

 

Henry Winter, Chief Football Writer

May 19 2017, 12:01am,

The Times

 

Jürgen Klopp’s love for Liverpool is focused on qualifying for the Champions League this weekend, strengthening a squad that he believes can compete in Europe, and nurturing Steven Gerrard as a future manager for the club.

 

In an interview at Anfield yesterday, Klopp spoke about his “privilege” in overseeing Liverpool’s footballing fortunes, and his sense of responsibility for his legacy.

 

“It’s perfect that we can involve Steven. What a guy, he’s fantastic,” Klopp said of the former captain, who is now under-18 coach. “He was one of the world’s best footballers ever. We had him last winter when he had a break in the USA [from LA Galaxy] and he had a few sessions with us, a few shooting sessions, and I thought what is that? His shooting. Unbelievable.

 

“I told him when I leave, or the club sack me, I don’t care of course who’ll be my successor, but I’d love that he’d be it. I’ll do everything I can to make sure he gets all the information he needs. Because when you join a club you have a big responsibility for the future, and the future of this club needs legends like Steven Gerrard in decisive positions. Kenny Dalglish was pretty much everything in this club, and the feeling he creates just by being around is unbelievable.

 

“[Gerrard] gave the club a lot and now we can give him the best education in this specific part he wants to work in, hopefully for the rest of his life. I’m privileged to be manager. I see all the pictures of Shankly, Paisley and so on. I felt from the first moment I came here it’s a big honour. I can’t stop thinking about it. Yes, there’s pressure but pressure is no problem. I came here because I can deal with pressure. We can imagine how many people started at the same point and I am here. Since I was 33 [when he stopped playing, and became coach at Mainz], I can do the only thing I’m really good at, and that’s a privilege.”

 

Klopp made his name as a coach at Mainz, performed miracles at Borussia Dortmund and then moved to Anfield in October 2015. “The respect is outstanding here,” he says. “When I came everybody calls me boss or gaffer. OK, nice, but I have a name. If somebody wants to say ‘Jürgen’, I know that’s quite a difficult name obviously, I have no problem. Because I don’t think respect is related to how people call me. I know I can lead groups because I’m interested in each member of the group. I’m close to my players. I don’t like to come into a room and people are quiet.”

 

He likes noise, vibrancy, unity. “At the highest level, you have no chance without tactics but the common desire, the togetherness makes a difference,” he says. For all the surfer look, laid-back air, and focus on the heart of his players, Klopp is incredibly organised. “I’m really strict in the things I have to be,” he says. He drills his players, improves them, making, for instance, Adam Lallana, the midfielder, far more effective. “When I came here I was really looking forward to working with him,” he says. “I couldn’t remember a bad game of his. I knew what a skilled boy he is.” Yet Lallana’s imposing his talent more consistently. “I’m sure he’d have done it anyway,” Klopp says.

 

Klopp wants players to push their own ability to the maximum. “It’s not about trying to find a player who has the same mindset as Cristiano Ronaldo, Messi, Ibrahimovic, or Lewandowski, because you won’t find them,” he says. “It’s about making the best of the skills you have.” He coaxed a strong performance from Daniel Sturridge against West Ham United on Sunday. “A fit Sturridge is an unbelievable player,” he says. “That’s a pity of the situation, not often enough but he’s now fit, spot on, trained two or three weeks.” So Sturridge has a future here? “Of course."

 

In entertaining, sparring mode, Klopp bristles at the suggestion that Liverpool’s back line is their weakness, arguing that defensive responsibilities have to be shared by all. “Somebody blocks a ball on the line, and you say ‘brilliant defending’ but it’s not; brilliant defending would have been if the guy couldn’t have had the shot,” he says. “Big heart, passionate moment, but the defending was s***. Defending is the team.

 

“The more offensive you are, the more space you give the other team. We conceded too many goals [42 in the league]. Most of them come from counterattacks and set pieces, so losing the ball in the wrong moment, don’t have the protection, it’s our fault. If our defending wasn’t good, do you think I’d keep them? We can finish fourth, we play brilliant football in a few games this year, so when our squad is fully fit it’s a Champions League squad already, especially the [starting] line-up.

 

“We have to be better next year and we will be. For this we need to bring in quality players. Believe me, it is not easy to find players who make us better. We are already good. We will find them because I love the combination of Liverpool [on offer to potential recruits]: the name, the size of the club, the support, the power, the money we can pay, stadium we have, the atmosphere we can create, I love it. It’s the biggest ever.”

 

Klopp understands the club’s culture, and the huge emotion Liverpool arouse around the world. “Liverpool stands for history, fantastic stories, fantastic people working here, and who worked here,” he says. “It’s about the fans. When I’m in a petrol station, people talk to me about Liverpool but it’s fine, it’s not photo, photo, photo. I go to the same restaurants, everything cools down and I can have kind of a normal life. I’ve met Liverpool fans around the world. It’s a really hard trip to Australia [for a friendly against Sydney FC next week] but I really look forward to showing these boys our Australian fans; I heard there was this one game [in Melbourne in 2013], and there were 90,000 Liverpool fans.”

 

The Hillsborough disaster, in which 96 fans died, features large in his thoughts. “When I came in, nobody had to tell me the story, I’d seen the [Jimmy McGovern] film. I knew about Hillsborough,” he says. “Now I know about how all the people are together, how the city is, and I really love how Everton is involved. We are really together, and that’s a wonderful thing. I talked to some of the families. The responsibility is big on the club for doing the right things and I like how the club do things the right way.”

 

Klopp has things in perspective. “Football is not the most important thing in the world,” he says. “But I love that we all think it a few hours of the day. Football is how life should be: keep the good things and improve the bad things.” He bridles at the mention of money, revealing a romantic view of the game, “It isn’t all about the money. Yes, maybe that sounds strange because we all earn unbelievable big money but in the middle of everything is the game.

 

“It’s a good moment to talk because yesterday I had this feeling that as long as things like Huddersfield winning the [Championship play-off] semi-final is possible almost everything’s possible. They have not the best players, and I love him [his friend David Wagner, who is head coach] but [he’s] not the world’s best manager, not Valery Lobanovskyi, but all together they can be the best. That’s so wonderful. The game’s not ruled by money. In England each club has money. So you have to make better decisions. As long as things like Leicester and Huddersfield are possible everything’s all right.”

 

Patience is required. “Let’s talk about Pep Guardiola,” he says. “That’s a good idea. I don’t know him well but when we see each other, he seems a nice guy, so we talk about everything. Yes, we both want to win, we can’t be best friends on the sidelines, that’s impossible, but after the game we are [gives a thumbs up]. Manchester City play outstanding football but people say, ‘[Guardiola’s had] no impact, disappointing’. To create something takes time. How I started in Germany as a coach I had exactly the same players as before. No signings. No transfers. We only changed the way of playing. That changed everything. But what would you [the media] say here when something didn’t work? You say to the manager ‘which players would you bring in?’. I’m differently educated. I want to work with the team.”

 

Yet Antonio Conte had an immediate impact on Chelsea. “I love Antonio,” he says. “What a fantastic guy. But I think even last year there was no doubt about the quality of Chelsea’s players. They had a punch, and then they come back. And Antonio has outstanding managing skills. He understands the game, so he saw what to do. Antonio’s really passionate and smart, and that’s a good combination, one you don’t have too often.”

 

Klopp believes that Arsène Wenger has earned the right for patience. “We’ve spent the whole season fighting for the Champions League, and how often was he in the Champions League?” Nineteen seasons in a row — though they look set to be pipped to the top four by Klopp’s side and City on Sunday. “Nineteen. Wow. That’s the outstanding job he’s done,” Klopp says. “And in his time developing players, like 50,000 names: Thierry Henry — what a player — Robert Pires, Robin van Persie. Unbelievable. He had an eye for them, bring them in and working with them. From the other side of the water, it was, ‘Oh my God, Arsène Wenger. Unbelievable.’

 

“Look, we’re good at what we’re doing, that’s why we earn the money but we’re not geniuses. Sometimes you can’t cope with the problems. Sometimes I have too many players injured. I come in and say to the press, ‘Tomorrow, it’s really difficult, I have no idea how to line up because he’s injured, he’s half injured, he’s not injured yet but the medical department tells me if he plays one more time then he’s down.’ And everybody says, ‘Why’s he not playing?’ I can’t tell the truth. Sometimes the problems are too big.”

 

Nobody had to tell me the story. I know how all the people are together, how the city is, and I really love how Everton is involved

Jürgen Klopp, on the Hillsborough disaster

Like fixture congestion and player exhaustion. “Everybody wants to talk about it but nobody wants to change anything,” he says. “When I got here, I cancelled two skiing holidays [which he would take in the winter break in Germany]. I love skiing.” Klopp thinks back to last year’s Europa League final, which Liverpool lost 3-1 to Seville. “The players were tired, 63 games, and then they had a [Euro 2016] tournament in the summer,” he says. So he has sympathy with José Mourinho’s critique of fixture pile-up and unsympathetic scheduling? “José had exactly one game more than we did because of the Community Shield,” he says. “But it’s Man United. Last year it was Liverpool, and nobody was really interested because we were eighth, we were three points behind the Europa League [places]. When the Germans have a winter break, we have ten games here but because of the money nobody cares about our problems, we have to sort them like this [clicks fingers].

 

“I talked to Michael Owen after the City game on December 31, and he said, ‘How are you going to line up at Sunderland [on January 2]?’ ‘No idea, but maybe you could give me some advice? How did you manage to do it two days later when you played?’ ‘I don’t know, I don’t think I played the second game.’ Funny. We had City, running like hell, trying to cope with them somehow and then go to Sunderland, playing against a wall, and they have every right to do it, we couldn’t cope with it, and it was 2-2.

 

“So it’s ten games in England or no games in Germany, two weeks’ rest, not only physically but also mentally, you get together with your family when the whole world is together with their family and watch English football. I love it. I came here on Boxing Days to watch football. It’s cool to watch. I’d never talk about [scrapping] Boxing Day because that’s OK.” But a break in January? “Maybe we will find time to have two weeks,” he says. “You have to find the people who want to make this decision. But it’s not a problem because it’s the same for all the teams. They’re tired, we’re tired, go.”

 

He remains positive about English clubs. “Second time an English club in a Europa League final in a row,” he says of United, who face Ajax in Stockholm on Wednesday. “You will see next year England will be in a good position in the Champions League, I’m 100 per cent sure about that. It is all in a good way if you have all these managers, and the money, and the players now in.” But what about the defending of Premier League clubs, which gets exposed in Europe? “[John] Stones [the City centre back] is a fantastic footballer, maybe he can improve defence, tactical wise, yes, that is clear, but 95 per cent of the time he is already brilliant” But where’s the English [Giorgio] Chiellini? “Chiellini and [Leonardo] Bonucci [of Juve] are Italian, ruthless, hard, not nice,” he says. Klopp chides the English dreamers: “You want to have the defensive organisation of Italy, the midfield fluency of Spain and the attacking of Holland 20 years ago.”

 

He returns to the impact of the season’s workload on the national team. “England go to the summer big tournament, and do you think the year they had has an influence on their [abject] performance?” Of course. “That’s logical. England has a fantastic league; with the national team you are not that confident but the players are fantastic.”

 

Are they really good enough? “What? Shall we go through them,” he says. “I will forget one or two but, look, left full back, Bertrand, Rose. Centre half, Stones, Smalling, Jones, Cahill, Keane. Right full back, Walker, Clyne. Fantastic. Goalkeeper. Butland, of course Joe Hart, next one is coming, Pickford. Good. Midfield? Six different players, first of all Jordan Henderson plays the role fantastically. Eric Dier, of course, he’s fantastic, whichever system you want to play. Lallana, Alli, all these guys, fantastic football players. Up front, more strikers than Germany. People say it’s not that good. Not so.

 

“What I heard about English players before I came here is the old stories about drinking, but I never believed it. The other thing I heard is that they cannot shoot penalties. And I think the English thought about the Germans, ‘Look at them, always busy, they’d rather come five minutes too early, rather than five minutes too late’. But I live here and we are so similar in everything. We all love English music. That’s a big advantage you have because the language is outstanding.”

 

Klopp loves the English obsession with sport. “You have the promotion [play-off] from non-League to League Two in Wembley. Tranmere played Forest Green. It’s cool. You can spend the whole day here watching different sports,” he says. “Commonwealth Games, nice kind of sports. I’ve still not got cricket, hopefully when I leave in five, six, seven years, I will understand the results in cricket. You love sport here. It’s unbelievable. I love it.”

Edited May 19, 2017 by Uilleam