Liverpool Confirm Off-Season Plans with Pre-Season Return in Two Weeks

For Liverpool, the 2019-20 season is over. They’re English champions for the first time in three decades and added the Super Cup and Club World Cup to their trophy cabinet along with the 2019 Champions League trophy this group already won.

Now, manager Jürgen Klopp confirms the players will get two week to rest, recover, and perhaps even do a little vacationing—coronavirus limitations permitting, of course—before they start pre-season and prepare to defend their Premier League title.

“We will have two weeks off, the boys will be off completely,” Klopp said of the team’s plans for an abbreviated offseason. “The lockdown was for the boys really intense from a mental point of view. Now it’s two weeks off. Then the new season starts.”

It’s an unprecedented situation, with the 2019-20 season being delayed due to coronavirus and now the league in a hurry to begin the next. And while two weeks certainly seems like a short break, it comes after three months with no games played.

Players worked on their own to remain fit during that enforced break, and it was hardly a holiday for anyone, but for most of them it will have been the longest stretch they have gone without playing or taking part in team training in their careers.

That means that physically, perhaps, they should be fresh and have few problems with the quick restart. Mentally, on the other hand, there may be question marks—two weeks away from team and training, though, is probably all that’s possible.

The 2020-21 season is set to kick off on September 12th, in seven weeks, and for Liverpool there’s a Community Shield to be played on August 30th—just five weeks from now, three weeks after the players are set to return for their pre-season.

“We have to deal with the time that we have,” Klopp added. “A lot of teams are still playing with the Champions League and Europa League, which is really tough. We have got two weeks off now and we will use that.”