It is a secret story which, over time, has become anything but secret. The tale of Jurgen Klopp, that night in the Basel Novotel, and his speech and song to the crestfallen Liverpool squad before him.

This might sound familiar: defeated by Sevilla in the Europa League final, players looked glumly into their drinks. An evening which started so well, with Daniel Sturridge dancing and all at Anfield believing, ended with heads in knees and the prospect of a year without European adventures. Eager to lift the mood, Klopp stood in the centre of the room, chanted 'We are Liverpool' before telling his audience: “This is just the start for us.”

This fine display of quintessential Klopp man-management soon leaked into the wider media, as will happen with so many witnesses. The week before the Champions League final in Kyiv last year, Jordan Henderson went on the record to confirm what happened. “He felt it was the start of something, something he could take forward,” he said. “He was still proud of the players that we got to the final, and how much we had improved since he came.”

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There is a story so secret, it has not been told. It hasn't even been seen. It is a tale which involves Klopp standing on the sideline of the Emirates Stadium with his hands on his hips, muttering in his native tongue to Zeljko Buvac. Liverpool are level at 1-1 with Arsenal on the opening day of the 2016/17 campaign, after Alexis Sanchez equalises from Philippe Coutinho's opener.

At left back for Liverpool, Ben Chilwell is putting in an assured display on his senior top-flight debut. It is necessary. Klopp watches on as his midfield is overrun, with new deep-lying midfielder Mahmoud Dahoud struggling to cover ground sufficiently enough to track Aaron Ramsey. Ahead of him, another Bundesliga convert, Mario Gotze, is toiling; he drops deep, encroaching on the space Coutinho, Roberto Firmino and Adam Lallana are supposed to be operating within. The build-up play is laboured, pedestrian; slow, disjointed.

Liverpool lose 3-1. The manager's back remains untouched.

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Much has been made of that night in Switzerland in the immediacy of Liverpool's defeat to Sevilla. Hindsight has assigned this as the night the mentality monsters were created, when Klopp demonstrated there was little wrong in setbacks providing they were learned from. Three years later, they would be champions of Europe, and it was on the banks of the river Rhine where the first streams of that movement first flowed.

There is some truth in this. The German has always espoused the importance of the collective; win together, lose together. Against West Bromwich Albion in December 2015, it was draw together, as his side linked arms and thanked the Kop for their efforts in helping Divock Origi scored his late equaliser against Tony Pulis' hard-tackling brick-and-mortar side.

This Swiss show of solidarity fed into that idea, and formed part of the launchpad for what was to follow in the following three years, culminating in their sixth European Cup with a win over Tottenham in Madrid. Yet there was a far firmer foundation to success that summer, and it was not built overseas, but rather, at Melwood and Anfield.

Liverpool's transfer activity in the summer of 2016 offers a real 'sliding doors' moment; the reality, and alternate reality, as to how Klopp's squad could have been shaped. Losing to Sevilla was not just an opportunity squandered at another European trophy, but also ensured the Reds would be without Champions League football – or any continental action, given they finished eighth domestically – the following season. It would impact upon the players who were interested in a move to Merseyside, something Klopp himself was aware of.

(Image: Dennis Grombkowski/Getty Images)

Speaking six weeks prior to the loss in Basel, he said: “If I would speak to a player now and he would tell me: ‘If you were playing in the Champions League next year then I would be really interested,’ I would put the phone down from my side.

“I always tell players if, when you are 35 or 36, you look back on your career and think about the one year you didn’t play Champions League, then you are really a poor boy. There are so many things you can do and reach if you go together with the team. You can qualify for the Champions League, play Champions League, maybe win it or whatever. That is a much more satisfying thing than all the rest. That is what I would say to players: ‘It is about pushing the train, not jumping on a running train.’ That is what we need here.

“If somebody says: ‘But you don’t play Champions League next year’, then goodbye and thank you, have fun next year wherever you will be. We will find players or we have players already that will go our way. That is not my way, that is the normal way for a club not playing in the Champions League.”

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To put Liverpool's lack of Champions League qualification in 2016 as the sole reason for missing out on their preferred options would be unfair on the players who missed their Anfield opportunity. Most of them, anyway. Leicester City were unwavering in their desire to keep left back Chilwell; a similar story emerged with Dahoud and Borussia Monchengladbach, with the Bundesliga club refusing to lose both he and Granit Xhaka in one summer. Piotr Zielinski, a boyhood Liverpool fan who posed in the club's home shirt that same summer, was gobbled up by Serie A politics and became part of a triangle between AC Milan, Udinese and eventual new club Napoli. Whether Liverpool, armed with increased revenue from the Champions League, could have persuaded them with increased offers is an unknown.

The perceived wisdom about Gotze, meanwhile, was the Champions League served as a deal-breaker; in Klopp parlance, he was a jumper, not a pusher. Despite the close relationship between coach and player, the German international still wanted that guarantee of playing at Europe's highest level; he would opt for his former club, Borussia Dortmund, rather than his former manager.

These were players Liverpool were interested in. There were a whole host the club could have pursued to strengthen their squad, but either did not envision that happening at Anfield, or knew the absence of European football would be to their detriment. In the summer of 2016, top four clubs signed players such as Xhaka, Shkodran Mustafi, Victor Wanyama, Moussa Sissoko, Ilkay Gundogan and Leroy Sane. Chelsea and Manchester United, still benefiting from years of UEFA financial windfall and the reputational boost along with it, signed players such as Michy Batshuayi, Marcos Alonso, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Paul Pogba.

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Now, the reality. A blistering summer's day in North London, and a blistering run down the right-hand side by Sadio Mane. Cutting inside the full back, he arrows a left-footed strike into the top corner, the sort of shot which travels at such velocity the net serves as a lifesaver to the supporters behind. Bedlam. Jubilation. Liverpool lead 4-1 at the Emirates, and Liverpool's new Senegalese star is perched upon Klopp's back. Amidst the huddle, Georginio Wijnaldum, a few weeks before he would become familiar enough to those at Liverpool to be called Gini. Mane, formerly of Southampton, had been chief tormentor; Wijnaldum, Newcastle United previously, had patrolled the engine room in a midfield role few had seen the Dutchman play.

It would be too simplistic to equate Liverpool's acquisition of the duo, and their subsequent successes, to failure in the Europa League final three years ago. On the surface, it is true: once Gotze became unlikely, Mane was the alternative, while it is hard to foresee a midfield containing all three of Dahoud, Zielinski and Wijnaldum. Luck, circumstance, design: whichever it was, if not all three, then it worked for Liverpool. Mane's arrival transformed Liverpool's attack, bringing pace into what had once been too pedestrian; it gave Klopp's side an outlet on the counter-attack, an obvious long ball to relieve pressure, and a genuine goalscoring threat. Wijnaldum offered versatility, control and stability in a midfield which had lacked all three qualities at times in Klopp's first campaign.

They represented more, however. This was Mane, a player who had been benched by Ronald Koeman at Southampton at times in the previous season, and a winger considered inconsistent, too inconsistent to be top level. This was Wijnaldum, relegated with Newcastle, and despite his 11 league goals, was considered an underwhelming signing. Despite those asterisks next to their names, Klopp, his backroom staff and recruitment team all saw potential; what's more, the Liverpool boss saw players wanting to push the train. It has not stopped moving ever since.

This was Klopp's first summer in charge, and the arrivals of Mane and Wijnaldum aside, it demonstrated his thinking in terms of improving the squad. Joel Matip would arrive on a free from Schalke, while Ragnar Klavan would be another arrival from the Bundesliga in a cut-price deal; Loris Karius would be the third, with the club activating a release clause to sign him from Mainz in a £4.2million deal. Matip would start the Champions League final of 2019, Karius would endure the worst of all in 2018, with Klavan a solid, reliable hand for two seasons; a mixed return, but there was a clear indication of Klopp's desire to improve the defence. He would get there eventually, spending nearly 20 times as much as the £8.2million outlay on Klavan and Karius, bringing Virgil van Dijk and Alisson Becker to Anfield.

Mane and Wijnaldum, however, forged the path, pushed the train. Mane, in particular, was the catalyst for the club's Champions League qualification, joint top scoring with Coutinho, and transforming the team's style of play. He would provide an on-field template for Mohamed Salah upon his arrival the summer after, and also highlighted Klopp's ability to extract potential, both unseen and obvious, from players. Wijnaldum showed the value of willingness, as well as demonstrating how relegation did not need to taint the talent of some, something Andy Robertson and Xherdan Shaqiri have both benefited from.

There are also the true intangibles of the summer of 2016, and what followed. Chilwell remaining at Leicester meant Robertson would arrive 12 months later, and has become an Anfield hero; Gotze's decision to move to Dortmund saw Klopp rearrange his options, and convert Roberto Firmino into a full-time no.9.

Between them, Mane and Wijnaldum have played 262 times for Liverpool; Gotze and Dahoud have managed 180 in that same time, with that duo having nowhere near the same influence and impact as Mane and Wijnaldum, both on and off the field. Last season, Liverpool became a locomotive under Klopp; some of the first to set it on its way, back in the summer of 2016, should not be forgotten. Nor should the circumstances around it, and how the club made the very best of a bad situation in Basel to be crowned European champions for the sixth time.