If it wasn’t clear before Liverpool’s Champions League exit this week, then it certainly was afterwards. Jürgen Klopp is not a good loser.
The Liverpool boss was open about it in his post-match press conference, admitting his comments about Atlético Madrid’s style of play were someway down to his inability to be magnanimous in defeat.
It’s something we’ve seen before from the German, who, like the rest of us, can swing wildly between emotions when it comes to football.
Naturally, Klopp’s detractors have used him being a sore loser against him on more than one occasion, with rival fans quick to criticise it this week and in the past also.
His comments about Atlético mostly went unnoticed in Spain, with them more caught up in another excellent victory for Diego Simeone’s side than anything else.
Marca change that today, though, with a piece about Simeone and how he has now managed to add Klopp to a growing list of top coaches the Argentine has bettered.
They look back and remember how, when the draw was made, Klopp joked that “I don’t think Simeone is running around his living room happily” and this hubris came back to slap him in the face.
Why? Because the ‘triumphal’ Liverpool manager did ‘not contemplate’ the power of Simeone, a man who has beaten the best before now.
The win at Anfield was not the first shock victory of his Atlético reign, he’s done it before ‘against opponents with better players’.
In fact, he revels in such situations, say the newspaper, pointing out that ‘when everything seems to be against them, the coach’s figure grows.’
Klopp, who at the time was in a ‘spectacular moment’ with Liverpool didn’t consider this and, as a result, became the latest in a long line of managers who have ‘belittled’ Atlético and Simeone to suffer as a result.
