Jurgen Klopp will lock horns with one of his former players on Sunday as Liverpool welcome Tottenham Hotspur to Anfield on Sunday.
When you've worked in football as long as the German has, you're bound to come up against countless familiar faces long after they've stopped being colleagues. This was the case on Merseyside only last weekend as Klopp caught up with former player Neco Williams after the final whistle.
One of the best man-managers in modern football, his relationship with his playing squad one of the reasons why he has been such a success at Mainz, Borussia Dortmund and now Liverpool. Of course, there is far more to him than a beaming smile, booming laugh and trademark bear hug, but such relations aren’t only limited to his current employees.
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While Klopp won't be warm and welcoming on the pitch, inevitably focussed on the match as the Reds look to overcome Spurs and bolster their European hopes, he will no doubt make time for former Borussia Dortmund midfielder Ivan Perisic, who joined Tottenham on a free transfer from Inter Milan last summer, after the final whistle.
Enjoying a positive start to life in North London, Klopp publicly spoke positively of the Croatian last season ahead of locking horns in the Champions League.
“There’s Ivan Perisic, I worked together with him,” he said when reflecting on the Inter squad. “We were very successful, we won the double in Germany so I’m really looking forward to meeting Ivan.
“After, we met when he played for Wolfsburg. We (Dortmund) lost a cup final in Germany (in 2015). But since then, probably not anymore. I like Ivan Perisic a lot.”
However, relations between the duo didn’t used to be so positive after they fell out during their time together at Dortmund, with Klopp biting back after Perisic criticised him to the media before selling him to VfL Wolfsburg a few months later.
It was Klopp who signed Perisic for Dortmund in May 2011 as the Bundesliga outfit parted with €5m to sign the then 22-year-old from Club Brugge. As the Liverpool boss recalled, they did enjoy a successful period together on the pitch with the Croatian returning nine goals and six assists from 41 appearances during his first season with the club as they won the league and cup double.
However, only 11 of those appearances came from the start. And with such opportunities remaining limited the following year, with Perisic starting only eight of his 23 appearances during the first half of the season, he hit out at his manager in an interview back in his homeland, accusing him of favouritism and having a personal problem with the Croatian.
"I cannot be pleased with my situation at the club. I don't get a lot of time on the pitch, very much like last year,” he told NovaTV in November 2012. "The stats show it: When I play I score. But when I don't score in a game, I am not an option for the next two or three games.
“We (Klopp and Perisic) have no relationship. He is the best coach in Germany right now, the number one, everyone accepts the subordinate role. And rightly so, what we achieved in Dortmund over the past few years is unique.
“The atmosphere in the team is perfect, but it is as if he has something against me. He has three to four players with whom he discusses things, shares his opinions and his thoughts. The rest of us are pros, doing their job."
Perisic’s agent, Tonci Martic, would follow up such comments by saying his client was disillusioned at Dortmund and wanted to leave the club.
"We want to sit down with Klopp in the near future," Martic had told Croatian sports magazine Sportske Novosti. "Ivan wants to leave Borussia immediately.
“Ivan likes Dortmund and the fans, respects the club where he is on a 2016 contract. But when you don't play, you are not pleased. We should talk."
Borussia Dortmund general manager Michael Zorc reacted angrily to such claims from Martic, but refused to comment. "I don't want to react to every statement made by player agents outside of Germany," he told Ruhr Nachrichten. "I won't comment on it."
However, it was a different story for Dortmund CEO Aki Watzke as he debated whether Perisic’s own comments had been lost in translation.
"At first we want to find out if Perisic said what was quoted,” he said at the time. “If he did say it, it is not okay."
Klopp was inevitably swiftly quizzed about the Croatian’s comments when back on press conference duty. And while the German wasn’t surprised at a player being unhappy with a lack of game-time, he took a dim view on such dirty laundry being aired publicly.
“I heard a few statements and it's nothing dramatic,” he told reporters. “I already know Perisic is not happy, it would be strange if he was. That is a fact and perfectly normal.
“With players, it is a withdrawal of love if you don't put them on the field. It's not the first time this has happened and I know that, that's normal. But the timing of the statement is not okay.
“I heard they tried to talk with me. I'm not that far away so we could have discussed this issue earlier. Before you give an interview, not really because of Ivan because this has happened a few times, but in future if you think you can generate pressure with such statements you are wrong. That's nonsense, doing that will get you nowhere.
“Of course I will tell him that and get the chance to know what he has really said and then we will fix that. Furthermore, there is nothing to say. It's no big deal.”
He continued: “An old team-mate of mine once said: 'Nobody has ever talked his way into the team'. I have so far not been able to draw the great potential he has out of him and he has not been able to do so as well. It's my responsibility to help the boys to get their potential onto the pitch.
"A professional footballer is unhappy when he is not playing. But if he shuts his mouth afterwards his chances are good it will get better. Public whining belongs to kindergarten, not to the world of adults. You shouldn’t do that.
"If he doesn’t play, a football professional should shut his mouth, work hard and make the coach select him – not complain about it to the reporters. If he then keeps his mouth shut, it is better for him at the end. Complaining in public is childish."
An unused substitute against Augsburg on November 10 after his comments went public, Perisic would then feature in all nine of Dortmund's remaining fixtures before the winter break. However, only two of his appearances would be from the start as he remained limited to substitute action and didn’t score or assist for the club again.
Come January and the Croatian got his wish as he was sold to VfL Wolfsburg early in the month in an €8m deal. Meanwhile, he'd get 'revenge' on Klopp by scoring a brace in his first outing against his former club as they fought out a 3-3 draw in May 2013. Two years later he would set up a goal in Wolfsburg's 3-1 victory over Dortmund in the 2015 DFL-Pokal final to ensure his former manager’s seven-year reign with the club ended with a cup final defeat.
Joining Inter Milan in a €16m deal in August 2015, Perisic would go on to win the treble when on loan with Bayern Munich in 2019/20, before following it up with a Serie A title and Coppa Italia wins back at Inter in 2021 and 2022.
And while Klopp and Perisic might not have parted on the best of terms back in 2013, given their war of words at the time, relations have obviously been repaired in the years that have followed with the Croatian crediting his former manager for his recent success.
"I wasn’t ready for it," he told the Athletic in 2019. "I was not used to defending from the front. I didn’t even know that it was a two-way game.
"Jurgen taught me modern football. I have to say thank you to him for that. We won the double in the first year but when I saw that my situation didn’t change in the second season, I wanted to leave. I told him I wanted to be regular starter, and he said: 'I respect your decision, we will find a solution.‘"
A version of this story was first published on September 22, 2022.
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