LIVERPOOL, Jan 26 — Jurgen Klopp will leave Liverpool at the end of the season with legendary status having restored the Reds to a potent force in English and European football and built a lasting bond with the city and its people.
The shock and disappointment on Merseyside that greeted the German’s decision on Friday to announce he is stepping away is testament to a transformation that Liverpool had not seen since the days of Bill Shankly 50 years ago.
On Klopp’s first day in charge at Anfield in October 2015 he modestly declared himself as “a normal one”, in stark contrast to Jose Mourinho’s bombastic “special one” arrival as Chelsea manager a decade earlier.
Yet, Klopp would go on to achieve extraordinary feats as the only Liverpool manager to complete the clean sweep of winning the Premier League, Champions League, FA Cup, League Cup, Club World Cup and Community Shield.
Prior to arriving in England, Klopp had succeeded in overcoming the might of Bayern Munich to win back-to-back Bundesliga titles with Borussia Dortmund.
Yet, confidence was not high that he could repeat the trick after one of the world’s biggest clubs spent decades in the doldrums.
Klopp arrived with Liverpool 10th in the Premier League table.
His ways took time to be accepted. After a 2-2 draw at home to West Brom in December 2015, many questioned the wisdom of leading his players to join arm-in-arm in front of the Kop to celebrate a late equaliser.
Yet his force of personality, charisma and coaching nous soon began to enchant a highly emotive fanbase.
The club’s history has been marked by tragedy as much as triumph. The Hillsborough disaster, which killed 97 Liverpool fans in 1989, has left indelible scars.
“A great communicator, a showman and the leader of the pack,” said former Liverpool captain Graeme Souness on Klopp. “He is a great fit for Liverpool because he feels the emotion of the place.
“Liverpool is an extremely emotional football club, with its history, its tragedies. You get that emotion when you go to Anfield and hear ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’.”
In some ways it was fitting that the road to glory under Klopp was not a straightforward one.
‘The love grew’
Before the joy there was plenty of heartbreak along the way too. His first three finals in the League Cup, Europa League and Champions League were lost.
In 2018/19 a club-record 97 points was still not enough to beat Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City to the Premier League.
But within weeks, Liverpool responded by beating Tottenham in Madrid to win the Champions League.
To get to the final, Anfield enjoyed arguably its greatest ever European night as Lionel Messi’s Barcelona were humbled 4-0 despite holding a 3-0 first leg lead.
The three-decade wait to win a league title was ended in 2020 but still left a hollow feeling with the Premier League trophy lifted in an empty Anfield due to coronavirus restrictions.
The Covid period was especially tough on Klopp. He was unable to attend his own mother’s funeral due to travel restrictions and Liverpool suffered during a season with no fans in the stands during 2020/2021.
As normality resumed, so did the success of Klopp’s side as Liverpool won the League Cup and FA Cup in 2022 and narrowly missed out on completing an unprecedented quadruple as City again claimed the league by a single point and Real Madrid won the Champions League final 1-0.
Rumours about Klopp’s future circulated during a difficult 2022/23 campaign as Liverpool sank to fifth in the Premier League, but the news came as a surprise with the 56-year-old admitting he has just run out of energy.
However, with Liverpool five points clear at the top of the table, he is determined to go out on the biggest of highs by winning the league in front of a packed crowd for the first time.
“After the years we had together and after all the time we spent together and after all the things we went through together, the respect grew for you, the love grew for you and the least I owe you is the truth – and that is the truth,” said Klopp on announcing his decision to step away.
“We are Liverpool, we went through harder things together. And you went through harder things before me.
“Let’s make a strength of it. That would be really cool. Let’s squeeze everything out of this season and have another thing to smile about when we look back in the future.” — AFP
