Every Day at Liverpool is Enjoyable for John Achterberg

Dutch goalkeeping coach John Achterberg started working with the first team in 2010-11, and has since worked with four managers - Roy Hodgson, Kenny Dalglish, Brendan Rodgers and now Jürgen Klopp. The pinnacle of his success so far has undoubtedly been his time coaching Alisson Becker, Liverpool’s star goalie, who scored a sensational goal towards the end of last season to tip Liverpool over the Champions League qualification line.

Achterberg reflected on his decade at the club speaking to liverpoolfc.com:

On his longevity in his current position:

“You always know how it goes in football, if a new manager comes in and he brings his own goalie coach then sometimes you need to go to your new club and stuff like that. But the club was always happy.”

On coaching both senior and younger players:

“When you work with the No.1 obviously you try to improve and work on the things needed for him. Then you work the same with No.2, 3 and 4 where everyone has this period in the week where you have time as an individual for them to work on things.”

“I always watch all the clips from the U16s to the U23s of the goalies and what they do. You’re watching other goalies, too, because that’s part of your job to know what is around in the world, finding new talented goalies, trying to be up to date if we have an issue – so you can talk about and say what you’ve seen and what you know. In my opinion, that’s part of the job. That’s just my passion.”

His favourite moment at Liverpool:

“I won the League Cup with Kenny, of course, but winning the Champions League and then you see what that did to all the people, you can see the passion of the supporters. It just was unbelievable. We want to keep doing this.”