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Moved Klopp: “Liverpool was for me No. 1 choice for reasons that cannot be explained”

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An interview with all the material was given by Jurgen Klopp in the “Guardian”, just a few days before giving his last game on her bench Liverpool. The German spoke about what he experienced during the 9 years he has been on the club’s bench and moved with his words, about the end of an “era”.

For me [η Λίβερπουλ] was the No.1 choice, for whatever reason, cannot be explained. I just thought it’s what I want. What we did, together with the people, was to restore faith and togetherness. People enjoy winning of course, but fighting for it, especially. It’s part of our story here, that we really get hit hard, get punched hard, and get back up. People probably enjoy it a bit too, it’s just different. We take punches better than others and keep going again. It wasn’t a plan, but that’s how people are here. I’m not a socialist, but that’s where I come from. This is how I understand life. I fit in so well. I didn’t have to change at all, that was the biggest blessing. We have the same outlook on life and I don’t have to pretend to be someone else. I can just speak my mind, the rest of the world doesn’t like it, but Liverpool probably do, so we agree on most things. This is how things are», Klopp initially said.

To the question about what he had left for the last eight and a half years:It’s so rare in this industry to be able to create that kind of relationship with a club and with a city because, at first, what did we know? It’s not like we can lie. In the 15 years before I arrived I watched a lot of football, but did I watch a lot of Liverpool? No. So to come here and live the life I’ve lived, devoting everything to this, something I’ve had to do for people, it’s really special. As people in England see it, you either love Liverpool or you hate Liverpool. Obviously it was very easy for me to fall in love with the club and the people. It is a very special story. Could she be more successful? Yes. With me; I do not know. We did everything. I’m very self-critical, but I don’t think about it in a critical way. We had very good times with super football moments, real growth, difficult times, overcoming them all. OK, maybe not always on time, but I look back with a smile».

For what he had stated in his first press conference, asking the fans to turn from doubters to believers:

This went very well in Switzerland! I’m sure people think I planned to say these things. I just wanted to survive the press conference. My English wasn’t that good. I had talked to people about why they changed from Brendan [Ρότζερς] to me, what happened that they didn’t become champions in 2014 and what it meant to be so close. I realized that everyone was questioning what Liverpool were doing and no one liked the team. The team didn’t even like the team. The players were not comfortable in their own skin. The comment about the four years was, not to buy time, but I know how football works. If you don’t get where people want to go early enough, then it won’t happen. What I really meant was not that I should train in Switzerland, but it would take a coach from Switzerland, you should try with someone else. Anyway, they were m@l@kies! People had lost enough of their patience and wanted to see something they could believe in again. It was a good team but not for the grand prix and we had to change it step by step.

I could tell now [στον ιδιοκτήτη, Fenway Sports Group]: “You didn’t support me enough and I could be more successful,” but I never saw it that way. We had discussions about it, but I would never make them public. I didn’t want to give the outside world feelings that we weren’t united. If we had a disagreement, then we had it internally, but externally we said: “This is our way, this is how we do it”. If it would help to invite the public into discussions, I’d be the first to do it, but it doesn’t help. I really understood how we do it and for us it’s the Liverpool way. We do it the right way. We don’t overspend, we always spent what we earned on the team or a stand or a training ground. This is a healthy club. To be a healthy club at the moment and to be at our level… you can say Barcelona are not a healthy club but they are still up there but I don’t think that would be anywhere near Liverpool’s mentality .

“Other clubs have huge money and are trying very hard. We have to do it this way because that’s what people really believe. This has been proven historically. Lefties, trained by Bill [Σάνκλι].Most of us don’t know him. We didn’t even live in that time, but it’s always around us. You can’t just switch now to the other side. The younger lineup might be like that, but who cares? For us older and probably 30-somethings, they want to have it the right way and I thought we’ve always done that.

We were unlucky or maybe at times we weren’t good enough to win three Premier League titles and three Champions Leagues. We all know that with a little more luck or a better decision it could have been different. We were so close that minutes and millimeters decided things for us. I know it would make a huge difference to the world if I won more. If I win three [τίτλους στην Premier League] I am definitely a successful coach. If I win one in nine years, people can argue about that.

But I couldn’t care less about it. In those 90-point seasons we had 364 really enjoyable days and we were almost there, and then one moment it’s awful, horrible. The blocking at City, Rodri’s hand, the match against Real Madrid, o [Σέρχιο] Ramos – was it a red card? I’m not sure, but it was tough. From time to time, I see Vinny’s scream [Κομπανί] and I think: Are you working with me?. Seconds before that goal I was thinking: Come on, Brendan, take Maddison off, he’s tired. He was five meters away and had to move to block the shot. I was laying on my couch with my hands in my pockets and a second later I felt like I had a stroke. What can you do when this happens?»



You can beat Barcelona in the Champions League semi-final the very next night… :
“My favorite. People always want to talk to me about leadership. I’ve never read a book about it, so how can I talk about it? But if my career hasn’t taught me how to deal with setbacks, then there’s no career for it. And that goes for all of us. There are obviously more important things in life than football, but where do you really learn at an advanced age how to deal with things? Why are people talking – and it’s a big story – that we don’t win the league in 2019 by one point? Why didn’t we win the Champions League in 2018 and the way we lost that game? To win it next year, not to win the league by a point, but to win it the year after. This period is a full return. A comeback in 70-something games, which is absolutely insane.”

Source: Sport Fm

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