Klopp spoke of turning “doubters into believers” at that first news conference and said there would be a title “within four years.” He proved to be one year out, though nobody was still counting by then. “The day Jurgen was appointed, I said, ‘Fasten your seatbelts,'” former Liverpool player and manager Kenny Dalglish said. “We’re off and running here.”
Dalglish’s perspective was quickly shared by the players. Liverpool had narrowly missed out on the title in 2013-14 — they finished second, with 84 points to Man City’s 86 despite Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge scoring 52 combined league goals — but manager Brendan Rodgers had lost his grip on the squad, and belief and morale was low by the time he was fired. Klopp immediately injected energy and optimism.
“When he [Klopp] came in in the early days, things started to change in training — buzzwords like ‘counter-press’ and all the players bought into it,” Sturridge told Sky Sports. “Then the first preseason was the one when you kind of realized, ‘Okay cool, this is very different.’
“The way in which we were preparing, how fit we got … And I think as time went on, the tactics and the mindset of the team changed and they were right on point with how he wanted us to be. We were going to run through a brick wall for this guy. He gave us a tenacity that we probably didn’t have as much of before. Throughout my time at Liverpool with him, never once did we go into a game thinking we couldn’t win or there was a negative mindset on the approach.”
Klopp’s attention to detail and demand for the highest standards was evident from the outset. In his first game in charge, against Tottenham at White Hart Lane, Klopp noticed how smart and imposing the Spurs players looked in their fitted training kit compared to Liverpool’s players warming up in baggy, ill-fitting red tops. “Our boys looked like Captain Picard [from Star Trek],” Klopp said. “It was all the wrong size, it didn’t fit and I wasn’t happy. How can you already be second best before the game has even started? So the next day I asked for meeting and changed it immediately. Those kind of things are important.”
He also hired the world champion high-wave surfer, Sebastian Steudtner, to give a motivational talk to the players about taking on ever-more daunting challenges. Klopp was laying the foundations, though his team was still miles from competing for the title and would finish his first season in eighth position, losing the Europa League final against Sevilla. It didn’t matter; he was making his mark.
“Jurgen started to introduce training sessions in the early evening and a lot of players didn’t like it,” a Liverpool source told ESPN. “A couple of the senior players went to see him and said some of the lads weren’t happy and wanted a rethink. Jurgen said, ‘Fine, tell those players to come and see me and we’ll sort it out.’
“The message went back to the dressing room and not one player took him up on the offer. He’d made his point: he was the boss.”
‘He really is the best of us’
For some supporters, Klopp’s achievement in restoring Liverpool to football’s elite in England and Europe will be his legacy.
Liverpool hadn’t won the English title since 1990 until Klopp delivered it in 2020, but the club had also won just one trophy, the Carabao Cup, in the nine years prior to his arrival. Some of the team’s best players — Steve McManaman, Michael Owen, Fernando Torres, Xabi Alonso, Luis Suarez — had left Anfield because they could not envisage their ambitions being realised at Liverpool. Klopp changed all of that. “He puts us back on our perch,” Rotheram said.
Morgan, a lifelong Liverpool supporter, believes that Klopp did all of the above but also gave a new generation of fans their day in the sun. “Until Jurgen arrived, a lot of fans were ready to give up,” Morgan said. “We’d all heard stories from our fathers and grandfathers about the success they had seen, the European Cups and league titles, but this generation had only really seen failure and had been starved of those great stories.
“But Jurgen arriving was like alchemy at the perfect time. We had had so many false starts and nearly dawns, but Jurgen’s greatest gift has been to deliver on the promise he made when arrived, to bring success again. The only regret is that we didn’t get to watch the culmination of the title-winning season because of the pandemic. But we have had an unbelievable time under Jurgen Klopp. All eyes were on us and it’s been amazing.”
When he sat down and gave his first statement as Liverpool manager, Klopp made one viewpoint clear. “It’s not so important what people think when you come in,” he said. “It’s what people think when you leave.”
When he walks off Anfield for the final time Sunday, Klopp will be in no doubt as to what they think of him in Liverpool.
