Klopp made football fun again

As Jürgen Klopp moves on from Liverpool after nine years, he leaves behind an era that will forever be cherished and unlikely to be replicated.

Before Jürgen Klopp arrived at Liverpool, I was pretty certain that I would never see the club win a league title in my lifetime. Totally conditioned to being second best to Manchester United and then Chelsea and Manchester City, it felt like a thing that would never happen, a great hope that would never materialize.

Klopp changed that for me, and many other fans who were too young or not even born for the glory eras of the 70s and 80s, and spent much of their childhood looking on enviously as United won again and again and again.

Hope began to fade as the sport became less and less fun for me heading into the 2010s. Not just following Liverpool, but the sport as a whole started to become difficult to be too enamored with. As super clubs became a thing, it all started to feel a bit hollow, granted Liverpool didn’t help matters with how middling they had been. The post-Benitez era at Liverpool stumbled from one bad stage to the next. The shambolic ownership issue with Gillett and Hicks, the Roy Hodgson appointment, the Joe Coles and Christian Poulsens and signings that never delivered or never arrived.

Brendan Rodgers and mostly, let’s be honest, Luis Suarez helped to provide some buzz for a while, but the slip and Crystal Palace and all of that pulled the rug from underneath everyone. The Premier League title had never felt so close and so far away at the same time.

Then Klopp arrived, and it all started to change. Not because the players were beginning to get better or the team was starting to perform, but because of Klopp. A manager you could rally behind and think, do you know what? Things are starting to feel a bit different here. There was something so infectious about him from those early days that it almost instantly created a culture of belief, a sheer cult of personality. From the early cup final defeats in that first season to the progress seen in the league tables as the gap began to close on those at the top. That regardless of the results, we’re going to give it a good crack and see what happens.

Quickly, Klopp was making things interesting. He was making football fun again.

For all the humanity being stripped from modern football over the past ten years, Klopp brought some semblance of that back into the fold. He famously coined himself the “Normal One” in his introductory press conference in 2015 and that always seemed to ring true, even as his force of character became greater and greater. He was defiantly himself throughout his tenure. A passionate motivator, a man who knew how to rally and relate to the masses. Uniquely charismatic, with a rare ability to empathise with those around him. One of the true great leaders across any field.

The old phrase that he “got” the club and the city is often dismissed as cringe by rival fans, but from those within the bounds of Liverpool he was the north star. He said the right things, wore his heart on his sleeve and, on more than one occasion, was an immensely sore loser. Totally normal, totally human.

The interactions with Sean Cox, the Irishman whose life changed irrecoverably after being attacked before a game against Roma, to his time with Daire Gorman, he always felt like when all of the built-up energy was stripped away he was simply a good guy, trying to do good things.

His legacy is that first Premier League trophy and the club’s sixth Champions League title, but really it’s so much more than that. The memories and madness along the way, the stories that were threaded throughout each season as he sought to overcome the sometimes impossible and have some fun along the way with his heavy-metal brand of football. It felt like with Klopp on the touchline, anything was possible. The Barcelona second-leg, the moments against Everton, Alisson’s header, the jousts with Guardiola and City. It was chaos and it was poetry.

A not unsubstantial amount of contributions online make you want to care about net spend, about transfer gossip and xG. Then there were the 115 charges. But if you were truly enjoying the ride, because it wasn’t going to last forever, then frankly, who gives a shit about any of that. Shockingly, last February, Klopp announced his end date and enjoying the last remaining moments of this era quickly came into focus. It didn’t turn out as we had hoped, with dreams of quadruples and ending it all in Dublin at the Europa League final, but on Sunday he got the most fitting send-off from the fans and the football club.

I’ve seen plenty of rolling of eyes from commentary online that he only won one league title, that he underdelivered and that the return on investment doesn’t warrant such eulogizing, but in a weird way I don’t really care. He won one. And that’s one more than I ever imagined winning. Seeing the ghosts getting banished and the monkey lifting in a Covid-19 filled world, as they celebrated in an empty stadium and Klopp, Zooming into the Sky Sports studio on a fuzzy laptop camera, having to apologise as he becomes overcome with emotion. It was an immensely difficult time for many and in some ways, seeing Liverpool doing it when people needed the distraction the most may have been one of his greatest feats.

Now, he moves on having given his everything. The exertion has been immense and must have been exhausting for a man who had to unload so much passion and energy each and every week to keep the engine ticking over. Things won’t ever be the same again nor ever replicated.

Liverpool will win more games, have many more great moments, and hopefully deliver some more trophies. But the feeling of supporting a Jürgen Klopp team I don’t think can ever be replicated. Experiencing this era, the good and hard times, was just too fun, too exhilarating, and oftentimes too heartbreaking.

He will be missed. In his farewell speech, he passed the baton onto the incoming Arne Slot. Bill Shankly had Bob Paisley as his successor, a remarkably successful replacement. Slot may be that succession plan. But even as Klopp pleaded with the fans to give everything after he was gone, I think he and everyone in the stadium knew it just wouldn’t feel the same again.