There have been many tributes paid to Jürgen Klopp, the Liverpool manager, who on Friday announced he would be leaving the Premier League club at the end of the season. Fans have praised him, rivals have acknowledged his achievements and the Premier League has posted clips of his trademark fist pumps online. But no act of homage is likely to exceed the words of Margaret Aspinall, the Hillsborough campaigner. Klopp, she said, is not only a great manager, but “a great human being, a great personality and a great humanitarian”.
Aspinall was speaking on the evening Klopp was awarded the freedom of the city of Liverpool in 2022. With the right to drive sheep through the streets and a duty to defend the city’s honour, Klopp said at the time he was overwhelmed by the occasion. “We will not live forever here because at one point we will go back to Germany,” he said, “but we will take [the key to the city], we will take care of it, we will take it to everywhere we go because it’s just special.”
During an interview with the club to announce his departure, news that has undeniably shaken the customarily jaded world of football, Klopp restated that winning the freedom of Liverpool “is one of the most special moments of my whole entire life”. As the 56-year-old told supporters he was “running out of energy” and could not do the job “again and again and again and again”, it was clear a unique figure will be departing the English game.
Despite describing himself at his first press conference as “the normal one”, a joke playing on the bombastic stylings of the “Special One” José Mourinho, Klopp has proved himself to be anything but during his eight and a half years on Merseyside. He won the Champions League in 2019, the Premier League title the following year and claimed seven major trophies in all. He revitalised a club that had long fallen from its perch at the top of English football. He has, at the time of writing, the highest winning percentage of any Liverpool manager, greater than Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley or Sir Kenny Dalglish. But the reason his decision to leave Liverpool has shocked so many people extends beyond the football.
In an era when the Premier League has become one of the most popular entertainment products in the world, and when it has habitually boasted the best talent both on the field and in the manager’s dugout, Klopp has stood out. Perhaps it’s the frame; at 6ft 3in and broad shouldered, the German has the demeanour of a brown bear. Maybe it’s the teeth, perfect and gleaming, the result of expensive work by a celebrity dentist who also fixed the smiles of his players. There’s also the impassioned touchline behaviour and the celebrations (coordinating fist pumps with the cheers of the Kop end). But ultimately the qualities observed by Aspinall are those that marked out Klopp as different; he was not just an extraordinary coach but was seen to be a compassionate man who understood and articulated the values of human decency.
In 2017, two years after his arrival at Anfield and before he had been able to fully implement his ideals on the field of play, Klopp wrote a Christmas message to Liverpool supporters. He acknowledged the club “would like more wins” but argued that “in football, as in life, you can make a choice to be joyful and enjoy great moments and great times together”. It was a characteristic Klopp message, to live and play intensely and with a smile. Two paragraphs later and the German had condemned the growing need for foodbanks in the city. “For this to be the case in a country that has wealth and resources like this one, is simply beyond belief,” he said.
Klopp went on to speak out on a number of topics, often taking a stance contrary to the received wisdom of the time. In an interview with the Guardian, Klopp criticised the misinformation that characterised the Brexit campaign and called for a second referendum. “Let’s think about it again and let’s vote again with the right information,” he said. In 2020, Klopp was vocal in his support of football’s embrace of the Black Lives Matter movement. Calling racial prejudice “so unbelievably dumb”, he said it was “really hard for me to even understand a little bit how it can be like this. But it is like this and so we have to stand up, or we have to kneel – whatever we have to do, we will do.”
Klopp can be irascible, obsessive, and reluctant to let go of grievances (a long-running frustration with the referee Paul Tierney led him to receive a two-match ban last summer after he questioned the official’s integrity). In these aspects he is not unlike many other managers and is in keeping with the modern game. But Klopp’s candour, energy, and willingness to present himself as human being first, elite coach second, resonated with many people. Filling the gap that will be left by his departure is something that will be of concern to more than just Liverpool Football Club.
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