Jürgen Klopp is on the Westfalenstadion pitch, the awesomely vast Südtribüne terrace soaring to his left, trying to articulate the uniqueness of the Borussia Dortmund match-day experience. In a way that only he could. Er, by comparing it to childbirth.
“You come out of this tunnel,” he says, pointing and sounding as excited as a big kid. “It’s very narrow. I told the players it’s a little bit like when you are born and your mother is ...” At this point, he screws up his face, doing his best mum-in-labour impression.
“Then you come out. And see the best of the world! Every two weeks, we see this. It’s very dark inside and we come out and it’s really great. It’s loud and shining. It’s everything. Like the sun goes up!
“I’m 1.94 metres [6ft 4in] so I have to bend like this inside and so when we come out, it’s like ‘boom!’ You get out in this stadium and want to run for your life to fight for each centimetre of grass.”
Player created by Inbound Now - YouTube Call To Action.
Klopp is hopelessly in love with the deafening din of 80,000 every match at the world’s best-attended club and it is easy to see why they remain hopelessly in love with him, not just the coolest, most fashionable coach in the game but a scruffy, charismatic embodiment of their devotion to Dortmund.
On Wednesday, Arsenal face the Südtribüne music against the man seen by wishful thinkers as the perfect long-term successor to Arsène Wenger, with the pair’s penchant for pursuing footballing nirvana without breaking the bank.
Klopp adores Wenger. “He is really something. I love him. He is Sir. Sir Arsène Wenger for me,” he says, miming a meeting where he greets Wenger with a handshake and a bow.
Oh, but they are very different. “I think he likes having the ball, playing football, passes, it’s like an orchestra. But it’s a silent song, yeah? And I like heavy metal more. I always want it loud! I want to have this ‘booooom!’” Wonderfully, he makes it sound like Axl Rose versus André Previn.
Klopp says it is a “big compliment” to be mentioned as a potential Arsenal manager, but as he talks animatedly of their “nearly perfect football for 10 years”, you understand glossy football is not what turns him on.
Because while to some, the game is all about the winning and to others the glory, to Klopp it is all about the work, the fight and the passion. “To enjoy football, you have to do this,” he says, before throwing himself around comically in his seat.
“He can win! Then he can win! Post! Goalkeeper! Save! That is what I love. If the Barcelona of the last four years were the first team I saw playing when I was four years old – this serenity, they win 5-0, 6-0 – I would have played tennis. Sorry, that is not enough for me. “Not serenity football but fighting football, that is what I like. What we call in German ‘English’. Rainy day, heavy pitch, everybody dirty in the face and goes home and can’t play football for the next four weeks.”
Klopp demands his teams play in the right, attractive way “and then still run 10km more than the opponents” as the stats for their victory at Arsenal demonstrated. “Watch me during the game, I celebrate when we press the ball, win a throw-in and I say ‘Yesssss!’” He presumes Wenger does not get quite so excited by that.
There is a winning element of barminess in this urbane, charming man who can become Mr Hyde on match day as the hapless fourth official in the Napoli game found as a 6ft 4in frothing monster, visage contorted, bore down on him in one touchline confrontation.
Klopp says he could not recognise himself and was ashamed. “But I am a very emotional guy. I fight for justice,” he says. “Usually I am a really nice guy but if something pushes the red button, it can happen. And the next problem is my face!”
What, the unshaven, bespectacled face that has launched a thousand dreams in this pragmatic city of coal, steel and beer? Klopp is seen as a brilliant maverick who loves playing the underdog, rejecting the Croesus riches of Chelsea and Manchester City to keep building working-class dreams with innovation and hard labour. “You want to be the team that beats the team with more money,” he says.
Crouching in the tunnel, he remembers the false start to the adventure here five years ago. He was the bright new boss, the star World Cup TV pundit, now 3-0 down at home at half-time to Schalke in his first Ruhr derby, fearing his reign was over before it had even begun as wife Ulla told him drily: “I’ve got the suitcase. OK, let’s go ”
But Dortmund battled back to 3-3, the start of such a romantic climb to last season’s Champions League final that when the club announced this week that Klopp had signed a contract extension to 2018, it felt a genuine coup.
For couldn’t Klopp have had the money-no-object team of his dreams courtesy of the billions of a sheikh or Russian oligarch?
“No, I’ve never thought about my dream team. The dream team was the Harlem Globetrotters. For show, it’s OK but I don’t want those problems. Like when you have 25 super, super, super, super superstars and each morning you hope one is ill ‘Atish-oo!’, so you can tell them, ‘Sorry you cannot play at the weekend’.”
Not that he wouldn’t mind working with the odd super, super, super, super, superstar, you understand. “I wouldn’t have any problem working with Ibrahimovic. We’d get on well. Crazy players love me. I don’t know why ...” What though would an old school manager like Sir Alex Ferguson make of his dishevelled bohemianism? “Does he like the way I look?” laughs Klopp. “I don’t think he has a chapter in his book about it. Chapter one: How Is Klopp Looking?”
But you are worlds apart, aren’t you? “I’m sorry, but he is British. You drink tea at four o’clock in the afternoon and nobody knows why in the rest of the world. You drive on the wrong side of the road. Yes, we are different. But I’m sure I can have two days and two nights together with Sir Alex – he drinks red wine? OK, he can have his red wine and I’ll have beer – and I’m sure we can have a great time together.”
Of course. Everyone enjoys being around Klopp. What’s his secret? “I cannot do so many things in life,” he sighs. “If I have to build a table, we can wait for 30, 40 years and there is still no table because I have more than two left hands. The only thing I know is something about football and I like working with a group of guys who love playing football like me. And for this I have some talent.”
He does not think he will stay long enough to create a Ferguson-style dynasty at Dortmund. “I have an interest in the whole world and it is not typical for my personality to spend 10 years in Dortmund because I can live anywhere. So can my wife [a children’s book author]. We can grab the dog and go to the next city.”
One day, England may be lucky enough to nab him. Yet could he see that the football world was falling for the man with the cap bearing the legend Pöhler – the name Germans give to someone who loves playing the game for the joy of it. And his team?
“I can only see you have fun when you come to Dortmund. Maybe it’s because of the beer!” he says, knowing how a thousand Brits now come to watch Borussia every home game. “But I think this club is worth falling in love with because this is pure football. It’s not like a big play like Romeo and Juliet or something. It’s always pure.”
Klopp adores Wenger. “He is really something. I love him. He is Sir. Sir Arsène Wenger for me,” he says, miming a meeting where he greets Wenger with a handshake and a bow.
Oh, but they are very different. “I think he likes having the ball, playing football, passes, it’s like an orchestra. But it’s a silent song, yeah? And I like heavy metal more. I always want it loud! I want to have this ‘booooom!’” Wonderfully, he makes it sound like Axl Rose versus André Previn.
Klopp says it is a “big compliment” to be mentioned as a potential Arsenal manager, but as he talks animatedly of their “nearly perfect football for 10 years”, you understand glossy football is not what turns him on.
Because while to some, the game is all about the winning and to others the glory, to Klopp it is all about the work, the fight and the passion. “To enjoy football, you have to do this,” he says, before throwing himself around comically in his seat.
“He can win! Then he can win! Post! Goalkeeper! Save! That is what I love. If the Barcelona of the last four years were the first team I saw playing when I was four years old – this serenity, they win 5-0, 6-0 – I would have played tennis. Sorry, that is not enough for me. “Not serenity football but fighting football, that is what I like. What we call in German ‘English’. Rainy day, heavy pitch, everybody dirty in the face and goes home and can’t play football for the next four weeks.”
Klopp demands his teams play in the right, attractive way “and then still run 10km more than the opponents” as the stats for their victory at Arsenal demonstrated. “Watch me during the game, I celebrate when we press the ball, win a throw-in and I say ‘Yesssss!’” He presumes Wenger does not get quite so excited by that.
There is a winning element of barminess in this urbane, charming man who can become Mr Hyde on match day as the hapless fourth official in the Napoli game found as a 6ft 4in frothing monster, visage contorted, bore down on him in one touchline confrontation.
Klopp says he could not recognise himself and was ashamed. “But I am a very emotional guy. I fight for justice,” he says. “Usually I am a really nice guy but if something pushes the red button, it can happen. And the next problem is my face!”
What, the unshaven, bespectacled face that has launched a thousand dreams in this pragmatic city of coal, steel and beer? Klopp is seen as a brilliant maverick who loves playing the underdog, rejecting the Croesus riches of Chelsea and Manchester City to keep building working-class dreams with innovation and hard labour. “You want to be the team that beats the team with more money,” he says.
Crouching in the tunnel, he remembers the false start to the adventure here five years ago. He was the bright new boss, the star World Cup TV pundit, now 3-0 down at home at half-time to Schalke in his first Ruhr derby, fearing his reign was over before it had even begun as wife Ulla told him drily: “I’ve got the suitcase. OK, let’s go ”
But Dortmund battled back to 3-3, the start of such a romantic climb to last season’s Champions League final that when the club announced this week that Klopp had signed a contract extension to 2018, it felt a genuine coup.
For couldn’t Klopp have had the money-no-object team of his dreams courtesy of the billions of a sheikh or Russian oligarch?
“No, I’ve never thought about my dream team. The dream team was the Harlem Globetrotters. For show, it’s OK but I don’t want those problems. Like when you have 25 super, super, super, super superstars and each morning you hope one is ill ‘Atish-oo!’, so you can tell them, ‘Sorry you cannot play at the weekend’.”
Not that he wouldn’t mind working with the odd super, super, super, super, superstar, you understand. “I wouldn’t have any problem working with Ibrahimovic. We’d get on well. Crazy players love me. I don’t know why ...” What though would an old school manager like Sir Alex Ferguson make of his dishevelled bohemianism? “Does he like the way I look?” laughs Klopp. “I don’t think he has a chapter in his book about it. Chapter one: How Is Klopp Looking?”
But you are worlds apart, aren’t you? “I’m sorry, but he is British. You drink tea at four o’clock in the afternoon and nobody knows why in the rest of the world. You drive on the wrong side of the road. Yes, we are different. But I’m sure I can have two days and two nights together with Sir Alex – he drinks red wine? OK, he can have his red wine and I’ll have beer – and I’m sure we can have a great time together.”
Of course. Everyone enjoys being around Klopp. What’s his secret? “I cannot do so many things in life,” he sighs. “If I have to build a table, we can wait for 30, 40 years and there is still no table because I have more than two left hands. The only thing I know is something about football and I like working with a group of guys who love playing football like me. And for this I have some talent.”
He does not think he will stay long enough to create a Ferguson-style dynasty at Dortmund. “I have an interest in the whole world and it is not typical for my personality to spend 10 years in Dortmund because I can live anywhere. So can my wife [a children’s book author]. We can grab the dog and go to the next city.”
One day, England may be lucky enough to nab him. Yet could he see that the football world was falling for the man with the cap bearing the legend Pöhler – the name Germans give to someone who loves playing the game for the joy of it. And his team?
“I can only see you have fun when you come to Dortmund. Maybe it’s because of the beer!” he says, knowing how a thousand Brits now come to watch Borussia every home game. “But I think this club is worth falling in love with because this is pure football. It’s not like a big play like Romeo and Juliet or something. It’s always pure.”
No comments:
Post a Comment