Raphael Honigstein on the making of Jurgen Klopp – and how he can still transform Liverpool As a player Jurgen Klopp simply survived, but as a manager he has thrived. Raphael Honigstein spoke to Joel Sked […]

As a player Jurgen Klopp simply survived, but as a manager he has thrived. Raphael Honigstein spoke to Joel Sked about the making of the ‘Menschenfänger’

Glory isn’t simply about lifting league titles, winning cups or last minute goals. Sometimes glory can simply be surviving.

Surviving the drop. Surviving one game to the next. Surviving in the most pressurised environments.

Jurgen Klopp knows all about survival. Before he became Jurgen Klopp the manager, when the cult of ‘Kloppo’ was born, there was Jurgen Klopp the player. ‘Kloppo’ the survivalist.

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A fight for survival

The Liverpool manager combined a series of part-time jobs with part-time football before he was recruited by unfashionable Mainz 05 in 1989. He would stay there for more than a decade, playing almost exclusively in 2. Bundesliga, Germany’s second tier.

Admitting he possessed fifth division skills but a first division brain, Klopp’s tough upbringing, where he was constantly challenged by his father Norbert, helped him develop a strong mentality. One that helped him survive.

“The fact that the team constantly played against relegation and were always on the brink of losing their livelihoods instilled a special character and mentality,” Raphael Honigstein, journalist and author of ‘Klopp: Bring the Noise’, tells i.

“For him it wasn’t about winning games, it was being able to support his family. It was almost a fight for survival.

“He very soon realised that his limitations as a player meant the only thing he could really do was commit himself 100 per cent to the team, try as hard as possible, and squeeze every last ounce of effort out of his own body.”

While he clung on to his status as a professional footballer, Klopp, who had originally wanted to become a doctor, undertook qualifications for coaching, making sure he had a post-playing plan.

Yet his break into management with Mainz was serendipitous, even if the local media thought it was a joke.

“You don’t get to where he is by just hugging people. There is much more to it.”

With the club bottom of the second tier in February 2001, the head coach was sacked and Klopp, injured at the time, was chosen to lead the team, at the age of 33.

“Mainz were at the end of their wits, having had so many different managers with no success at all,” Honigstein explains.

“Once again they were down in the relegation zone and Christian Heidel the sporting director could not find anyone who was suitable any more, so in the end his idea was, ‘if I can’t find anyone to coach this team, maybe the team should coach itself’.

“He put one guy on the bench who would be the figurehead and be smart enough to turn back the clock and bring back the tactics that used to be successful under Wolfgang Frank – the only manager to have any kind of success at Mainz before Klopp.

“They won their first game and they had a great series of results and stayed up. The rest is history.”

They became competitive and respected, narrowly missing out on promotion twice before reaching the Bundesliga for the first time in their history.

Overcoming constraints is Klopp’s speciality

Klopp’s ethos began to take shape. He formed the ideas on and off the field which would captivate and convince fans, players and senior management, to this day.

He is more than simply the motivating caricature he is sometimes portrayed, according to Honigstein.

“The experience taught him the importance of having a system that was smarter than the opposition, having more effort and commitment than the opposition – things which should be natural but aren’t always there.

“He was very aware of the constraints he was working under and trying to get the best out of the players given to him, trying to maximise their potential rather than always thinking about the players he could have.”

“You can only judge people on their appearance in the public eye,” Honigstein adds. “You see him on television, on the touchline, but you don’t see the actual work on the training ground or behind the scenes.

“That was something that came across very clearly when speaking to people who worked with him for years and years. They all said to me that people mistake him as this motivator or big charmer but there is this whole different dimension to him that gets overlooked, that doesn’t quite get appreciated.

“But you don’t get to where he is by just hugging people. There is much more to it.”

His love of ‘English’ football

At a time when England are searching for their own identity, Klopp describes the football he likes, the type he tries to transmit on to the pitch, as “English”:

“Fighting football, not serenity football, that is what I like. What we call in German ‘English’ — rainy day, heavy pitch, 5-5, everybody is dirty in the face and goes home and cannot play for weeks after.”

There are two reasons why Klopp favours this style. Firstly, it is not a romantic ideal, but an approach which Klopp believes is best to achieve success.

Secondly, it appeals to the fans. It makes them feel as if they are part of the action, part of the team.

“It is important for him to create this common bond, almost electricity, to see the crowd getting involved and players getting inspired by the crowd,” says Honigstein.

“History at Mainz and Dortmund has told him that that is worth a few points every single season. It is something you cannot buy.”

Nowhere was that more obvious than at Signal Iduna Park, where Klopp helped Borussia Dortmund overcome Bayern Munich’s “bazooka” with a “bow and arrow” to win two league titles and a German cup, while also leading the team to the Champions League final.

As the Robin Hood character he helped the fallen giants become relevant once more.

“He saved the club from getting lost in mediocrity and anonymity,” Honigstein says. “The football had become quite dull.

“They were going nowhere but needed a coach to transform them, and he absolutely had that transformative effect on everyone inside the club, and the fans.

“The full extent of his work only became clear to me once I talked to people behind the scenes. They all testified to his extraordinary ability to connect with people and to make them unite behind him and follow him.

“He is a guy that really captivates people, makes them believe in a certain idea, project – and themselves as well.”

The Menschenfänger

He is the ultimate Menschenfänger. Translated, it means ‘man catcher’, and it talks to Klopp’s ability to inspire players to reach new levels, beyond their previous abilities.

“They feel he really could be that manager to take Liverpool to a whole new level again.”

And he does this through warmth and honesty, rather than prevarication and obfuscation.

“A lot of players are used to being lied to, used to only getting half the story from coaches. He doesn’t play games,” says Honigstein.

“It was very, very hard to find anyone who had anything bad to say about him. Even the players who didn’t like his football or didn’t have that much of a playing career under him all came out of this experience saying they really liked the guy.”

Klopp is now in the midst of trying to use his transformative powers once more; to take Liverpool back to the promised land. This time the dream is winning their first league title since 1990.

His powers of survival, persuasion, inspiration and coaching acumen are required now more than ever.

“Jurgen’s ability to make things happen without necessarily the recourse of millions of pounds, certainly from the German perspective, a lot of people felt this was really the perfect fit for Liverpool,” says Honigstein.

“The fans might have expected more at this point, but I think within the club and in the dressing room they are impressed enough, and convinced enough in what he is doing, that they feel he really could be that manager to take the club to a whole new level again.

“Liverpool is a club with a lot of psychological challenges as well as financial ones – that is almost half the battle won.

“The bottom line is that they trust him to deliver.”