Klopp Talk: We Are on the Way to Becoming a Really Good Team

There’s not much that hasn’t been said about the current manager, so let’s put it simply: Liverpool are in the Champions League final and Jürgen Klopp is the man who got us there. That is, unless you ask him, in which case he’ll tell you it’s all about the players, the fans, the staff, and the collective.

“I’m immensely proud of what the boys have achieved”, Klopp told the official UEFA website. “We’ve scored seven goals twice and five goals twice, too. That’s really [crazy], because we aren’t Barcelona, we aren’t Real Madrid or Bayern München. We aren’t anyone else. We are Liverpool, on the way to becoming a really good team. And performing at such a high level is very cool”.

“It’s been a crazy ride, but we’ve earned our place here”.

Klopp spoke about how he works with the players, saying that he wanted “to have a close relationship with them, because I want to understand them”. Anyone who has seen the Liverpool manager on the touchline can understand that is the case. He makes the bold but accurate claim that there “are many teams at the same level as us, who earn as much or even more than our players, but they don’t perform as well” (looking at you, José).

“We’ll go all the way together: that’s the plan”.

He discusses his ideas about football, and more generally the need to have an idea about football (again, hi José) by stating “you have to play a certain style of football. It’s about developing a type of football for yourselves which mostly brings success. That’s what we’re doing – nothing else. The fact that it’s sometimes spectacular to watch is, for me, quite right”.

Jürgen Klopp is clearly an excellent coach and man manager. But there’s something more intangible to his success at Anfield: he “gets” Liverpool. It’s hard to explain without sounding ridiculous. It doesn’t always feel like there’s a clear rhyme and reason to it. But it’s there. Something about Liverpool and Jürgen Klopp just fits.

Long may it continue.