KLOPP: MY HEROES ARE ROCKY, BORIS AND ROBIN HOOD!
JURGEN KLOPP had an important conversation with wife Ulla as he prepared to leave Mainz for Borussia Dortmund after 18 years as player and manager in 2008.
Players, staff, management and fans cried when Klopp said his goodbyes and that, for him, could not happen again.
‘I told her we cannot be that close to another club,’ Klopp said. ‘It’s not normal. It’s nice but it was not what I was looking for.’
It took under a year at Dortmund to realise the same sort of feeling was resurfacing. He still has Dortmund players visiting him on holiday because some grew so close to his sons.
The bonds he creates are unavoidable and, during an absorbing 45-minute chat on Graham Hunter’s The Big Interview, Klopp revealed he can see similarities at Liverpool.
‘I don’t plan that, but it happens,’ he said. ‘You can ask everyone in the club, it’s a good atmosphere. If you love what you do, the people you work with need (to feel) the benefit of that. It’s not allowed that I’m the happiest person in the club because I have the biggest wages and this or that.’
Tomorrow evening will be emotional for Klopp and for the Kop. There have been big nights in his two-and-a-half years at Anfield, not least on the way to the 2016 Europa League final. But the visit of Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City in a Champions League quarter-final could top them.
These are the nights that can bring out the worst of the 50-year-old’s behaviour. He winces when he recalls flying into a rage at the fourth official at Napoli in 2013, but admits he will never change completely.
‘I’m not proud of that, I know it’s not OK, but I knew a second later it would never happen again,’ he said. ‘You learn from that mistake. Do I think longer about it? No.
‘In football you suffer and can shoot it out immediately. You can kill a mood.
‘I make a lot of commercials in Germany but I cannot act. I have one role and that’s being Jurgen Klopp. Take it or leave it.
‘I’ve developed as a person, thank God, because I was more emotional as a younger person. I’ve calmed down a little bit.
‘If something is important to me, I cannot hide my feelings. When I’m happy everyone can see and it’s the same when I’m angry. I’m not interested in public opinion. I care about what my family, friends and the club think.
‘If they think, “What an idiot,” then I’m not interested.
‘I’m inspired by Robin Hood, I read thousands of books, and Boris Becker — we’re the same age. He was 17 when he won Wimbledon and it shows something special is possible.
‘One of my best meetings I called was at Dortmund before we played Bayern Munich and I spoke about Rocky IV. Ivan Drago had everything with the technology and Rocky Balboa had the old-fashioned tools. The gym was a stable.
‘After three or four minutes (of the meeting) I was really on fire.’ Reality then started to hit Klopp. ‘Then I said, “Who knows Rocky?” and only two players put their hand up. All the rest were too young!’ Jurgen Klopp was talking on The Big Interview
with Graham Hunter, available at www.acast.com