Klopp Doesn't Suffer Fools, Reminds Press that Football is a Team Sport

Jürgen Klopp is many things, not least of which is an incredibly intelligent man with a very sharp football brain. It's a pity, then, that many in England's media insist on asking him deeply facile questions for their back pages rather than pressing him about actual interesting football ideas, which was the case when some poor sap at the post-Bournemouth press conference mistakenly chose to focus on Daniel Sturridge's admittedly quality performance on the day.

"Interesting!" Klopp said, clearly not finding questions about his star striker interesting in the slightest. "We have a football game and you want to talk about one player? That is not a role I like. He was very good. He's a brilliant player, but are you not interested in the game? He scored a goal, but was it from a cross or not? We live on different planets, I think, if you think one player can win a game.

"This is a game, where we have 11 players in different positions. And you are interested in only one player?!  Each player had influence today, so do you want to ask the same question of every player? I understand this as a team game. I enjoyed the game of Daniel Sturridge today, really. But to get a question like this, after a game like this, I don't really understand."

Though Sturridge did end up being voted TLO's man of the match for his performance, focusing solely on his efforts necessarily means overshadowing what was a good team performance by a rag tag band of fringe players assembled by Klopp. Things where a bit choppy in the beginning, but the team eventually gelled and it gives those players very little credit to heap all praise onto the striker.

None of this is to say that Sturridge himself shouldn't get kudos for an excellent display, far from it. But as Klopp reminded everyone in the room, football is a team effort. Sturridge's goal doesn't exist without that Jordon Ibe cross, and there's more to the game than just whose name ends up on the score sheet at the end of it.