Sport Klopp faces up to renascent Man United in ‘special’ rivalry

LIVERPOOL - Jurgen Klopp put the emphasis on the definite article. “It is the game against United,” he said. “Quite a big club as well and always when we face them it is massive.”

Klopp was 48 before he experienced Liverpool against Manchester United in the flesh, but his memories of the meetings of English football’s two biggest and most successful clubs dated back to his boyhood in Germany. It is a match that he feels defines the sport, that gives it some of the meaning football requires to offer escapism from the problems of dayto-day life.

“The whole world will watch it,” he said. “I will watch it. The moment when Liverpool vs United is not a special game anymore then something went really wrong. Liverpool vs Man Utd, who? That would be really difficult, that would be really sad.

“I love football, I love the fuss we make of it, most of the time at least, and then it is like, ‘Liverpool vs United, I want to see it’. It has to be like that otherwise football would have absolutely no right to exist anymore. Again? Really? And how are they doing?

“People want to know and need to know what both clubs are doing. That is why I have no problem with them, particularly. It is a big game and it always was in my life a big game; since I was allowed to watch it on television it always was. Thank God it is still one.”

The question of what each club is doing has produced very different answers last season and this; then Liverpool were beating United 5-0 and 4-0, finishing 34 points ahead of them, competing for four trophies and winning two. Now United are fighting on four fronts, with silverware already secured. They are 10 points ahead of Liverpool and, while they have been busy with their cup commitments, that lead has been trimmed from 14 in the

Ten Hag and Jurgen Klopp