It has become a stock image: Jürgen Klopp in a wide stance, his hands in his pockets, with his back to Liverpool’s warm-ups while his eyes are transfixed on the opposition’s pre-match routine.

That period before the teams return to the dressing room to morph into battle mode offers the German rare time to do a tiny element of something he has always wanted to, but his schedule has never permitted in nearly two decades.

Watching how managers work - the translation of their ideas, the mechanics of their methodology - fascinated Klopp during his playing days and he wanted to explore it more extensively when he retired.

However, his immediate transition in 2001 from a Mainz defender to the main man in their dugout paused that plan before it was further shelved when he moved to the Borussia Dortmund helm seven years later.

In September 2015, during the closing stages of a four-month holiday after departing BVB, Klopp revisited his to-do list and plotted to strike an excursion through football management off it.

It would be a stretch of evolution for him, absorbing the intricacies of the position blanketed from the pressure, an outsider to the all-consuming process.

But while Klopp sketched his expedition, his agent, Marc Kosicke, fielded a phone call from someone purporting to be Ian Ayre.

Liverpool’s then chief executive enquired as to whether the luminary birthed in the Black Forest would be enthused by spearheading the revival of the Anfield side.

A Skype video chat was arranged by Kosicke to discuss further details, but moreover, to establish if it was actually Ayre on the other end of the line.

With his identity confirmed and the communication productive, a face-to-face meeting was arranged with Liverpool's owners.

On October 1, Fenway Sports Group's principle owner John Henry, chairman Tom Werner and president Mike Gordon waited in the New York law offices of Shearman & Sterling to meet the man their exhaustive research - a 60-page dossier breaking down his philosophy, training sessions, statistics, relationships with players and staff, interactions with the media and everything in-between - suggested was the perfect fit for Liverpool.

Klopp arrived with Kosicke and immediately enlivened the words in FSG’s file on him: his magnetism unmistakable, but his incisive thinking and ability to communicate a clear panorama of his ideology in relation to the club's ambitions marked as most impressive.

For everyone present during the dialogue at the high-rise building on Lexington Avenue, this was it.

Exactly a week later, Klopp sat in Hope Street Hotel’s Sixth Boardroom, surrounded by sweeping views of the city, as he signed his contract to become Liverpool manager.

“I wanted to have one-year sabbatical,” he recalls from the same spot - this time without having his journey tracked on social media and fans swarming the street to greet him - as he marks three years in charge of the club.

“The plan was to have four months of holiday, doing absolutely nothing, and then go to different places because when I became a manager, the day before that I was a player.

“Since then I’d worked constantly, so I never had the chance to travel around and look over the shoulder of any great managers in the world. I wanted to do that, but then again - new job and I couldn’t.”

Klopp, so tuned to what comes next, normally eschews rewinding.

Here though, the nostalgia of being in the room where his commitment to Liverpool was ratified, can't escape colouring his face.

He frequents the venue often - it is the hotel of choice ahead of all home games - but Klopp has never returned to this loft to retrace his steps.

“Special, special” he repeats before acknowledging that while he was thwarted in his original plan for expanding his football education, he was ultimately presented with a more formidable way of challenging himself.

“I really wanted a change after 14 years managing in Germany, where I knew everything, I knew each team,” Klopp says.

“If you would have asked me about a side in the fifth division, I could have told you the names of at least four of their players.

“Then I came to England and everything is new. Yes, I watched English football before, but I was busy in Germany with my league and with Champions League and stuff.

“Then, you come here, we play a team - let’s say Hull - and you don’t know one player.

“For the preparations you have pretty much three days so you watch their games completely differently because I had completely no idea of what they do. In Germany, meanwhile, I knew inside-out how every team played.

“The start at Liverpool was really busy because we had to learn a lot of things while also playing in the Europa League, but it was exactly what I wanted - a new challenge for myself.

“I wanted to get rid of some routines which were normal after spending such a long time in Germany as a manager and have kind of a new start.

“I really feel it’s a big privilege to have the chance to do so, because it’s like an energiser it gives you a real boost, which helps.

“I’m a much better manager now than I was three years ago.”