THE TRIVELA EFFECT
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp is set to leave the Reds at the end of the 2023/24 season, ending a nearly 10-year tenure at Anfield that will go down as one of the greatest managerial reigns in the history of the entire Premier League.
Klopp took one of European football’s most historic sides from the threat of the mid-table doldrums back to the Champions League crown, winning an elusive Premier League title from the clutches of the Manchester City juggernaut in 2019/20.
Along the way, Klopp won over hearts in Liverpool and completely changed the style of football at Anfield, turning Liverpool into one of the most exciting attacking sides in the world while sacrificing nothing in defense.
Klopp recently gave his final interview to Liverpool and delivered some beautiful, thought-provoking quotes in the way Klopp, a uniquely gifted man-manager, can.
Marathons and silver medals
“It’s like you run a marathon and you don’t win it and you think, ‘It killed me at the 12th, I had one mis-step and it cost me the race.’ It didn’t. You could have caught up 12 times after that, it depends how you deal with it. And we dealt with all the setbacks really well and some of them were not in our hands, we had nothing to do with that. We played three Champions League finals, which is absolutely insane. Before that, we didn’t qualify for a while. So, I know all that. But then arriving at the final and not getting silver medals in football – you get a silver medal actually but it’s not great.”
Liverpool won the Premier League, FA Cup, Champions League, and Club World Cup under Jurgen Klopp. Twice, they lost in the Champions League Final and even lost a Europa League Final.
There were triumphs and setbacks, but what’s amazing is how Liverpool bounced back from them. In 2019/20, they won the Premier League. In 2020/21, they almost didn’t even qualify for the Champions League.
In 2021/22, they were one of the best teams in Europe and at least won the FA Cup despite falling just short in the Premier League and Champions League.
Building the juggernaut
“So many things that we had to put together, in the end we created a specific way of football. Did we invent the false nine? I don’t know. Probably Bobby Firmino invented it! But did we invent being a striker with Sadio and Mo? I’m not sure. But we used it in a very special way. We created the most offensive full-backs. We played an incredible high line. Rightly so, which leads then always to if you concede a goal then the line is too high from your colleagues [pundits]. Love that! You create that and it leads to the midfield doesn’t score often enough and you just think, ‘Oh my God.’ Yeah, they were right, midfield doesn’t score often enough. Absolutely right.
But step by step, piece by piece we put a team together who became a machine. My idea always was [that] I want to be the coach who can beat the best. In moments I like to be the best team but actually that’s a moment. I want to always be ready to beat the best. That’s the team I want. I want to be the coach of a team who nobody wants to play against. For the reason that we go for them… in a real fair way. I don’t want to kill them. I don’t want to jump into them… I want to be all over them for winning the ball and not for giving free-kicks away and we were that team for a pretty long time.”
