Manchester City coach Pep Guardiola said Friday that Jürgen Klopp was the “best rival” he encountered in his coaching life, on the day the German announced that he will leave Liverpool at the end of the season.
“He was the best rival I had in my life as a coach. The Premier League will miss him, his charismatic personality and the way his team plays. I wish him the best. Football needs coaches and personalities like him” , said Pep Guardiola, after the victory over Tottenham (1-0), in the FA Cup.
The Spanish coach faced Klopp in England, but also in Germany, when he was coach of Bayern Munich and Klopp was coaching Borussia Dortmund.
“Of course I’ll miss him. I was shocked by the news, like everyone else. But I’ll sleep better knowing I won’t face him,” Guardiola joked.
Jürgen Klopp will leave Liverpool’s coaching command at the end of this season, after nine seasons at the English Football League club, the coach himself announced in a video posted on the Reds’ official website.
“I will leave the club at the end of the season”, Klopp began by saying in the interview published by Liverpool, admitting that it could be “a shock for many people” the decision to abandon the Anfield Road club, to which he is contractually linked until 2026, after arriving in England in 2015.
Despite revealing his “love” for the club, the city, the fans, the team, the staff, the ‘eccentric’ German coach, aged 56, confessed that he is “running out of energy” to continue in his role.
“I’m running out of energy. Obviously I don’t have any problems at the moment and I knew that one day I would have to make this announcement, but I’m perfectly fine at the moment. I just know that I can’t keep doing this job year after year, after year, after year, consecutively”, he said.
Klopp revealed that this decision was communicated to Liverpool’s owners in November last year: “When we sat down thinking about next season, discussing possible signings, the location of the training camp, I thought to myself at that moment ‘I’m not sure if I’ll be here at that time’ and I was surprised at myself. And I started thinking about that possibility.”
Recalling that “last season was extremely difficult”, with Liverpool finishing fifth in the Premier League and being left out of the Champions League, Klopp praised the behavior of the club’s directors, who could “have preferred to end the relationship at that time “, but they kept him ahead of the Reds.
“It’s not what I want to do, but I believe it’s the right decision to make,” said the coach, refusing to think about farewells at the moment, taking into account that the team in which Portuguese Diogo Jota plays is still involved in the fight for several trophies, including the Premier League, in which it occupies the lead.
The coach also added that he will take at least a sabbatical year, noting that in England he will not coach any team other than the ‘Reds’.
“What I know is that I will never coach a different club in England, that is not possible. I believe I will find something to do, but I will not coach a team or a selection for at least a year”, he highlighted.
Jürgen Klopp is in his ninth season in charge of Liverpool, after arriving at Anfield Road in October 2015, at the time to replace Northern Irishman Brendan Rodgers, having in this period won an English League, an FA Cup, a English League Cup, an English Super Cup, a Champions League, a Club World Cup and a European Super Cup.
He is the fourth manager with the most games played in Liverpool’s history, with 466, only surpassed by ‘legends’ Bill Shankly (783), Tom Watson (742) and Bob Paisley (535).
Furthermore, in his 23-year career as a coach, Klopp only visited three clubs, starting on the Mainz bench, where he had ‘hung up his boots’ in 2001, spending seven years there, the same period of time he managed Borussia Dortmund, from 2008 to 2015.
In Dortmund, he experienced his first successes, winning the Bundesliga twice in a row and interrupting Bayern Munich’s hegemony (in 2010/11 and 2011/12).
With Borussia, he also won three German Super Cups and a German Cup, in addition to reaching the Champions League final in 2012/13 – in which he lost precisely to the Bavarians -, leading a team in which players such as Mats Hummels, Sebastien Kehl, Sven Bender, Ilkay Gündogan, Nuri Sahin, Ivan Perisic, Kevin Grosskreutz, Marco Reus and the ‘inevitable’ Robert Lewandowski.
With less than five months to go until the end of this season, Liverpool leads the Premier League, five points ahead of second-placed Manchester City, will play in the English League Cup final with Chelsea in February, and is in the round of 16 of the Europa League, as well as in the round of 32 of the FA Cup.