Jürgen Klopp may be at the peak of his powers, weeks away from perhaps his greatest achievements, but his thoughts on the eve of facing Manchester City briefly turned to his retirement. This season may yield an unprecedented quadruple but, however much silverware it delivers, it will produce memories. The Liverpool manager can picture himself in his dotage, his days in the dugout behind him, reminiscing about the past with Pep Guardiola.
“Maybe when we both finish our careers we might meet somewhere and sit together for hours and hours and hours and just speak about the different things we saw before in this game and that game,” he said. “It would be interesting. No doubt.”
In itself, that is instructive. Theirs is the defining managerial rivalry now but relations have never been toxic, as they were, say, between Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsène Wenger. The race for the Premier League instead doubles up as a mutual admiration society. “All I say about City I really mean,” Klopp said.
Perhaps Liverpool will kill City with kindness. They have certainly hunted them down with relentlessness: some 14 points behind in January, an 11th successive victory on Sunday would put them two ahead. “The 100% truth is that what we did was normal,” said Klopp, but what both sides have done over four seasons where they have taken 675 points between them is abnormal.
They have driven each other to new heights with sustained brilliance. Klopp drew a comparison between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, along with Novak Djokovic the male tennis players with the most grand slam titles. As Miguel Ángel Nadal, Rafael’s uncle, was a Barcelona teammate of Guardiola, it presumably makes the Liverpool manager the Federer of the duo.
Yet part of the paradox of Klopp, whose side once won 35 out of 36 league games, who has claimed a host of club records, is that it has never been all about the results. It is partly about the moments and matches to remember when he has traded baseball cap and tracksuit for pipe and slippers.
“I really think as a club we should enjoy the ride because it is so special,” he said. His message was that the pressure of every game should not obscure the bigger picture. “It is not easy always to really feel the joy, I can understand [that], but we should remind ourselves from time to time. I don’t need to remind myself; I could not be happier.”
For Klopp, the journey matters as much as the destination. His reign has been a white-knuckle ride at times, a cruise at others. Now it feels an obstacle course, populated by City, Benfica, City, Manchester United and Everton. The stakes are high in three competitions but Klopp added: “In these moments I really appreciate my job. It is exactly what I want to do.”
Perhaps his background makes him grateful. Guardiola may have been groomed for greatness but Klopp was not; his could have been a round trip from obscurity via anonymity. He was a second-division defender in Germany, parachuted into his first managerial role as Mainz sought a way to avoid relegation. If he has come a long way, so have Liverpool: they were 10th in the Premier League when Brendan Rodgers was sacked, mired in a Europa League group with Sion and Rubin Kazan. Now, as Klopp noted, they have won all five Champions League away games this season.
He harked back to his arrival, remembering when Pepijn Lijnders alerted him to a prodigy in the under-16s. “Pep started telling me about the boy,” he said. “Then this skinny kid came around the corner. You could see he was special.”
The slight teenager was called Trent Alexander-Arnold and has become a Kloppian success story: he trusted in talent, reluctant to buy while he waited for the future, then moulded unique tactics around an extraordinary crosser.
Some 215 senior appearances later, Alexander-Arnold is the revolutionary right-back, supplying assists in colossal quantities. “In the past people spoke of other full-backs who define the position,” Klopp said. “They did and for sure he did as well. Where it can end and where it will go to, I do not know, but we have some ideas.”
Few have harnessed ideas quite as well as Guardiola and him. Friday began with a look at his laptop, studying the footage from October’s 2-2 draw with City. “And then you realise they are a handful,” Klopp said. “But we are as well; that is what is constantly in my mind.”
No one has had more nuisance value over the years than Klopp. He has as many wins against Guardiola as Wenger, Thomas Tuchel, Manuel Pellegrini and Rafael Benítez have between them. His sides have been the great disruptors, assaulting Guardiola’s perfectionists with their energy.
His compliments are genuine but it suits him to style his side as underdogs. The season could yet end with Liverpool established as the game’s finest side. Until then, he prefers to bestow that title on City. “Pep is the best coach in the world, no problem with that, but I always wanted to be the coach of the team who can beat the best team in the world and actually I achieved that as well somehow.”
Now his 10th win against Guardiola would propel his team into the position of favourites and give the pair a further topic for conversation when they catch up in old age.
