When it was all getting a little too much for Jürgen Klopp at Mainz, when the defeats began to accumulate and the negative thoughts began to spiral, he would clear the schedule, jump in the car and take his squad on an adventure holiday. Long walks in the Hunsrück. Mountain biking in the Black Forest. Two or three days spent knocking back beers, sleeping in tiny huts, having the sort of honest conversations you couldn’t really have in an office. This was Klopp’s terrain, the land where he grew up, and in times of crisis it also became his sanctuary.
For Klopp’s players, the occasional jolting change of scenery became not simply invigorating but desperately necessary. The training drills would frequently change, but the rasping cigarette-hardened voice delivering them never did. The limbs and the lungs would be worked to exhaustion from July until May. With every passing year you could feel yourself getting stronger, fitter, harder, tighter. The football was thrilling and relentless. The camaraderie was bracing and intense. Everything worked and worked and worked, right up until the moment it stopped working.
