Liverpool played every possible game of last season, winning the Carabao and FA Cups, finishing runners-up in the title race after a final day of Premier League drama, and making it to the Champions League final.
Jurgen Klopp’s assistant Pep Lijnders logged each high and low from pre-season training through to the Paris showcase.
In this serialisation of his brilliant new book ‘Intensity: Inside Liverpool FC - Our Identity’, Lijnders opens up messages he exchanged with Klopp the day after Wolves...
After the final Premier League game of the season against Wolves, we had come from behind to win the match, but had still lost the title to Manchester City by a point.
All the families joined us on the pitch directly after the game for the lap of appreciation.
We had won the match, but missed out on the title to Manchester City and it showed that the best remedy for adversity is family – all the faces changed immediately when we saw our loved ones.
My heart stopped for a second when I saw a new banner on the Kop: ‘WE WIN CUPS’. I could have painted that one myself, I was thinking. A new culture of winning installed in this beautiful club, a new era.
As I said, I get the feeling that our fans see the support not just as a passion but as their job.
The best thing that happened on this day is that we won our game. I think we would never have forgiven ourselves if we hadn’t.
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The other good thing was the words of Jürgen directly after the game: “What I learned about life is if you stay on track, when you keep going, you get the reward.
“Not today, the maximum reward. We would have deserved it as well. But we will get it. It’s up to us to keep going and that’s what we will do.
“Next week, next season. What I said so often, the five minutes after the game are more important than the five days leading up to the game.”
This couldn’t have been truer for us to prepare for the Champions League final.
Jürgen couldn’t have done better when speaking to the boys, in my opinion. The only way for a club to be successful is with pure leadership, from top to bottom. Because it’s like this: the only path to continuous improvement is to compete against yourself. I can’t praise the players enough; everything we achieve is because of their dedication.
Hendo is key in this. Why? Because he unlocked the belief in the other players even more. Hendo is the reason for the standards and the humility.
If you ever have a doubt in life, just ask yourself: what would Hendo do? And you get your answer.
Yes, we can look back now, where we missed points, but if you want to absorb and live completely the game of football you should never search for perfection. ‘Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today’, is probably the best saying. Doers have errors, doers move on.
We prefer the doers, it’s much more about the ones who have courage than the perfectionists.
The morning after, I woke up to a text from Jürgen: “What a season ♥”
I respond: “We took everything out of it ♥
"What a journey… so much happened but always improving, keeping them fit, focused and hungry for the whole decisive period.
"We played each game, how bizarre is that. Men on a mission we were!
“Important we won yesterday. I think we wouldn’t have forgiven ourselves… Honestly, just really proud here!
“Tomorrow will be great, staff together getting your prize. ♥ Enjoy the day off!!!”
I’m sure by this point you can guess what he wrote back… “OUR prize ♥."
Serialised from ' Pep Lijnders' 'Intensity: Inside Liverpool FC - Our Identity', published by Reach Sport, on sale August 4 from liverpoolfc.com/store and reachsportshop.com.
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