September 2018: Jurgen Klopp takes a seat next to Shinji Kagawa. Klopp has been invited back to Dortmund to manage one of the teams in a testimonial match for goalkeeper Roman Weidenfeller, the only Borussia Dortmund player ever to be granted a testimonial by the club.



The match was a fun distraction from the pressure of the Bundesliga. Borussia had started 2018-19 superbly, and would win 15 of their opening 19 games, before Bayern Munich would go on to do what Bayern Munich do — catch up and win the title. Kagawa wasn’t in the side then, although he too was idolised by fans for his role in Klopp’s title win of 2011 and the 2012 double.



Kagawa soon found out what was on his ex-coach’s mind. “Klopp said he was worried about me,” he tells The Athletic in the garden of his rented house in Zaragoza, Spain. It’s late February but sufficiently warm and sunny to sit outside for an hour’s chat during which he smiles,...