Photo copyrightPA Media
January 26, 2024
Liverpool FC head coach Jurgen Klopp has decided to leave the club at the end of the season, the club’s management announced. He worked at Liverpool for eight seasons and is rightfully considered one of the team’s most successful coaches in its history.
Assistant coaches Pepijn Lijnders and Peter Kravitz are also leaving the club.
According to Jurgen Klopp, he informed the club management of his intention to leave back in November last year.
“The thing is, I’m, how shall I put it, running out of energy,” Klopp, 56, told Liverpool’s website. “I can understand that it’s a shock to a lot of people at this point when you hear it for the first time, but I can explain it—or at least try to explain it.”
“I like absolutely everything regarding this club, I like everything regarding the city, I like everything regarding our fans, I like the team, I like the staff… I like everything. But the fact that I still make this decision means that I am convinced that I will have to accept it,” writes Jurgen Klopp.
According to him, Klopp has long understood that sooner or later he will have to make such a decision, and therefore this step did not become a big problem for him. “I know I can’t do this job over and over and over once more,” he admitted.
“This is not what I want, but it is 100% right.”
“I told the club back in November… Perhaps from the outside people see my work this way: I’m on the touchline, in training and stuff like that, but most of it is around that. This means the season starts and you are already pretty much planning for the next season,” said Jurgen Klopp.
“As we sat there together and talked regarding potential contracts, the next summer camp and whether we might go somewhere, I had the thought, ‘I’m not sure I’ll be here anymore.’ I was surprised by it myself, but obviously I started thinking regarding it.”
The 2022-23 season was unsuccessful for Liverpool, the club barely finished the championship in fifth place and did not qualify for the next Champions League.
“Last season was super difficult in some ways and there were times when at other clubs the decision would probably have been: ‘Okay, thank you very much for everything, but we should probably call it quits.’ It is clear that this did not happen then.”
“It was very, very, very important to me that I might help get this team back to where it was. That was all I thought regarding. When I (this season) realized quite early on that it had happened, that this was a really good team with huge potential and at a great age, with super characters and all that, I was able to think regarding myself once more, and this is the result. It’s not what I want, it’s just what I think is 100 percent right.”
Jurgen Klopp joined Liverpool from Borussia Dortmund in October 2015 and under his leadership Liverpool won the Champions League, Premier League, Club World Cup, FA Cup, League Cup and Super Cup.
Jurgen Klopp brought to Liverpool a fast, attacking style that fans nicknamed “heavy metal” due to its intense pressing.
Liverpool are currently leading the English Premier League and have a chance to win it once more, although this year there has been a tense battle for the championship between Liverpool, Manchester City and London’s Arsenal.
Liverpool also reached the final of the English League Cup and continue to compete in the Europa League and FA Cup.
“This news is a big blow for the club whenever it comes,” said legendary former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher. “I thought we still had a few years.” What a coach, what a person! Jurgen, let’s end on a high note!
Under Jurgen Klopp, Dortmund won the Bundesliga title in 2011 and 2012 and reached the 2013 Champions League final, which they lost to Bayern Munich at Wembley.
Klopp is a legend not only of Liverpool, but of the entire Premier League
BBC correspondent and long-time Liverpool fan Andrey Kozenko
It was painful, but it was expected: one of the main charismatics of modern football worked for eight years in one of the brightest teams in the world, playing in one of the main stadiums in Europe.
Someone had to burn out, and it’s good that it’s Klopp and not the team.
Liverpool before him are wonderful losers, Liverpool with him is the strongest team that has been unlucky so often.
This clash of charisma yielded crazy results: a terrible defeat in the 2018 Champions League final, but also victory in it a year later.
The first championship in England since 1983, but also second place with 99 points in 2000, which would have been enough for victory in any other year.
Fans of the club have never swung on such a swing before.
For this alone, Klopp will become a legend not only of Liverpool, but of the entire Premier League.
Sign up for our email newsletter to receive the day’s top stories every evening, Monday through Friday, plus context to help you make sense of what’s happening.
