Jurgen Klopp reveals why he’s decided to leave Liverpool
Jurgen Klopp has given detailed answers as to why he will step back from his role as Liverpool manager at the end of the season.
The German confirmed on Friday morning he will leave the club at the end of the season, much to the shock of football fans around the world.
Liverpool announced the news with a video on social media, with Klopp talking in depth about his decision to leave Anfield after nine years.
When asked if he would like to share a message to Liverpool fans, Klopp replied: „Yes, I have to. I will leave the club at the end of the season.
„I can understand that that’s a shock for a lot of people in this moment, when you hear it for the first time, but obviously I can explain it – or at least try to explain it. I love absolutely everything about this club, I love everything about the city, I love everything about our supporters, I love the team, I love the staff. I love everything.
„But that I still take this decision shows you that I am convinced it is the one I have to take. It is that I am, how can I say it, running out of energy. I have no problem now, obviously, I knew it already for longer that I will have to announce it at one point, but I am absolutely fine now. I know that I cannot do the job again and again and again and again. After the years we had together and after all the time we spent together and after all the things we went through together, the respect grew for you, the love grew for you and the least I owe you is the truth – and that is the truth. That’s it, pretty much.“
It was put to Klopp that fans could be concerned at his wellbeing due to this sudden news, but he moved to alleviate any fears in the health department.
„I am OK. I am healthy, as much as you can [be] at my age,“ he continued. „Little bits and bobs, stuff like that, but nothing anybody has to be concerned about, so that’s absolutely fine. I told the club already in November.
„I have to explain a little bit that maybe the job I do people see from the outside, I’m on the touchline and in training sessions and stuff like this, but the majority of all the things happen around these kind of things. That means a season starts and you plan pretty much the next season already. When we sat there together talking about potential signings, the next summer camp and can we go wherever, the thought came up, ‚I am not sure I am here then anymore‘ and I was surprised myself by that.
„I obviously start thinking about it. It didn’t start [then], but of course last season was kind of a super-difficult season and there were moments when at other clubs probably the decision would have been, ‚Come on, thank you very much for everything but probably we should split here, or end it here.‘ That didn’t happen here, obviously.
„For me it was super, super, super-important that I can help to bring this team back onto the rails. It was all I was thinking about. When I realised pretty early that happened, it’s a really good team with massive potential and a super age group, super characters and all that, then I could start thinking about myself again and that was the outcome. It is not what I want to [do], it is just what I think is 100% right. That’s it.
„In an ideal world I wouldn’t have said anything to anybody until the end of the season, win everything and then say goodbye. That’s not possible. In the world we are living in, it’s not possible to keep things like this secret; it’s maybe a surprise that we could keep it [a secret] until now. There are so many things which are influenced by it, especially personal situations. People from my staff need to know early – and especially the club needs to know early and needs to plan. You cannot plan anything and you cannot really start. You can do a lot of stuff with knowing it but not making it public, but the decisive things, a lot of things, you cannot do. That means the club needs time.
„Over the years my role was a pretty dominant one. It was not intentional, but it happened. There were a lot of moments where I wished that I didn’t have to do that again [leave a club] – it is the third time I have to do something like that and I really don’t want that. But in the end I have to because one thing I am really convinced of [is] if you have to make a decision like that, it is better you do it slightly early than slightly too late. Too late would have been absolutely the worst thing to happen [if], I don’t know, next season in September I realised, ‚Oh my God, that’s it – I cannot do it anymore’ and then we are in the middle of a season and everything.
„This club, everything we built in the last years, is a wonderful platform, a wonderful basis for the future and the only thing that could disturb that now is pretty much that you cannot make the right decisions because you are running out of time, and that’s what was very important to me: that I really inform everybody as early as somehow possible.“
WILL THE JANUARY TRANSFER WINDOW DELIVER?
Liverpool reached the final of the Carabao Cup this week and they sit top of the Premier League table, while they are still going strong in the FA Cup and Europa League. Klopp does not believe this announcement will negatively impact the team’s chances of winning silverware, however.
„I understand the question 100%, [but] that’s up to us, I would say,“ he added. „I had a similar situation at Dortmund. The circumstances are completely different but it is a similar situation, you cannot deny that. It is up to us. After this announcement we will have a press conference and stuff like that. After that, I am 100% in this season.
„We can go through it, I think in an ideal world we have kind of 30 games coming up or something like that. That is, in other countries, a full season. There are so many things to play for and there might be some ideas from the outside to disturb what we are doing, but it is all about us. The way we grew together in the last few years is absolutely exceptional. Absolutely exceptional.
„I always said it, and especially now it is still true, nothing has to happen because of me. Nobody has to make the games now about me – please don’t, if I can ask for that it would be really nice – and we just support each other. I am fully here – I don’t think anybody realised any difference in the last few months. If [they did] then maybe a positive change because I have to say when I made the decision, as hard as it is, it was a relief as well. It was like, ‚OK, there is a finishing line‘ and not for not being here anymore. If I could stay here in that role I would be over the moon, I just can’t. That’s it.
„I really want to perform on the highest level and we only get disturbed if we let it happen as a club. I really hope that it will not happen, with the team I am sure that they will be fine. With the crowd I am sure they will be fine, but the world out there is bigger, the social media and all these kind of things, but I think it is worth [it] that we do what we always did. We live in the moment, we push each other as much as we can and we go for absolutely everything. The rest is next season, there is no difference really for that season, to be 100% honest.
„Everything what happened in the last few years it was always my name but obviously plenty of people are working on everything and they are still working on that and still doing that. My role will change, a lot of other things will stay the same, so the club is in good hands and the future is bright – and even brighter when I don’t have to do it anymore with not exactly the same energy level as before.
„If you look at my career, this career is actually not possible, I would say, because where I am coming from, ending up as the manager of Liverpool FC is a fairy tale and a very difficult to thing to plan. Impossible to plan and difficult to reach, but it is only possible if you are very busy and 100,000% committed to everything you do and you dedicate your whole life to it. That’s what I did. I came here, and I said it on the first day, as a normal guy. I am still a normal guy, I just don’t live a normal life for too long now. I don’t want to wait until I am too old for having a normal life. I need to at least give it a try at one point to see how it is and will I miss it.
„As I said, I never really had this before so I need to give it a try and it is the right moment for me and I think it is the right moment for the club because I can’t do the job from next year on anymore as I did it before, and then I am not the right one anymore.“