Head coach Jürgen Klopp will leave Liverpool at the end of the current 2023-2024 season, the English club announced on Friday on its official website.
The 56-year-old German professional joined the “Reds” bench in October 2015, which he managed in 464 matches so far, with which he collected an average of 2.07 points per match.
Jürgen Klopp won the Champions League with the team in the 2018-2019 season, and he also triumphed in the Premier League in the 2019-2020 campaign – Liverpool became champions for the first time since 1990 in the said season. The coach can also claim to be the Club World Champion (2019-2020), UEFA Super Cup (2019-2020), FA Cup and English League Cup winner (both from the 2021-2022 season).
Klopp was voted the best club coach in the world twice during his tenure at Liverpool (2018-2019 and 2019-2020).
“I understand that my decision may come as a shock to many people at first hearing, but of course I can explain it. I love everything regarding the club, the city, the fans, the team, everything… But the fact that I made up my mind shows that I am convinced that I had to do this. How can I say… I’m running out of energy. I don’t have a problem with this anymore, I knew a long time ago that I had to report it. I realize that I cannot do the work over and over once more. After all the years we’ve spent together and the things we’ve been through together, the respect for the club has grown and the least I owe is to tell the truth and that’s the truth.” – quotes Liverpool Klopp on its official website, who revealed that he had already communicated his decision to the club.
“I already told the management in November. From the outside, people might see that my job is to stand on the sidelines, conduct training sessions and do similar things, but the focus is not on those. This means that as soon as the season starts, you’re pretty much already planning the next one. When we sat down in the summer and talked regarding possible reinforcements and preparations, I already had the thought that “I’m not sure that I’ll still be here then”, and I was surprised by that myself. There were moments when at other clubs we would have ended up saying that here we should part ways, but at Liverpool it didn’t happen like that. It was important for me to help boost the team once more, that was all I might think regarding, then I might start thinking regarding my situation and this was the end result. I wanted to do what I thought was 100 percent right.”
The specialist believes that his team should draw strength from the last dance.
“We are Liverpool, we have been through more difficult things together. And they’ve been through harder things before me. You have to draw strength from that, that would be cool. We have to squeeze everything out of the season, have something else to smile regarding when we look back on it in the future.”
The team also confirmed that, in addition to Klopp, assistant coaches Pepijn Lijnders and Peter Krawietz, as well as coach responsible for development Vitor Matos, will also leave at the end of the 2023-2024 campaign.
Liverpool is currently leading the league table, has once once more reached the final of the League Cup and is still in contention for the FA Cup.
Jürgen Klopp has announced his decision to step down as #LFC manager at the end of the season, having informed the club’s ownership of his wish to leave his position in the summer.
— Liverpool FC (@LFC) January 26, 2024
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