Winning the Champions League last season in his fourth season with Liverpool, Jürgen Klopp brought success to a football club that had sat in limbo for too long prior to his arrival.
The German revitalised a dormant giant, whose last trophy had been a League Cup in 2012, and has since reawakened the belief the club can finally win their first Premier League title, well on their way to doing so this year with seven wins from their first seven games.
It took some time, however, as Liverpool finished eighth in his first season, before two fourth placed spots the two following years led to challenging for the league in 2018-19 against Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City.
However, according to Alexander Manninger, whom Klopp brought to Liverpool for one season in 2016-17, the German manager knew he was heading in the right direction almost immediately, which he explained to the goalkeeper when trying to recruit him.
Speaking to Krone in Austria, he said: “Klopp told me something was happening, he needed people with energy. I said okay, I couldn’t be on the pitch every week, but I would help. We did excellent work the first year with a Champions League qualification. The rest is history, an even more successful story.”
The player was then asked what made Anfield such a fascinating place for players and fans alike.
He said: “Liverpool has just under one million inhabitants, where there are 900,000 football fans. There’s the divide between Everton and Liverpool. People have been waiting for something happen in football again. A euphoria, a dynamic that can be felt throughout the city. The stadium, together with the glorious history and tradition, is the icing on the cake”.
Only staying a year with Klopp at Anfield until he retired in 2017, the goalkeeper, who never made an appearance for the club, has no regrets about his stint in the north of England.
He explained: “I lived emotions I will never forget. Goosebumps at every home game. Had I not had an injury to my left hand at the end, maybe I would have played in a competitive match. I’m not sad. I’m proud of that year”.
He never did play, explaining he ‘often went to the stands after warming up’ to sit down next to Kenny Dalglish, Michael Owen and Steven Gerrard, but always felt like he was ‘part of this great family’.
In the end, when he decided to retire, Manninger explains he could have potentially stayed as a goalkeeping coach, but decided enough was enough.
He is now ‘catching up on a lot of things’ he didn’t get to do during his career, and few can blame him.
