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Liverpool assistant manager Zeljko Buvac has ended a 17-year coaching relationship with Jurgen Klopp in the week of the club's crucial Champions League semi-final against AS Roma.

Buvac, frequently described as “the brain” behind the pair's 'Gegenpressing' tactical approach, is understood to have left the club following a dispute with his long-term colleague.

According to club sources, Liverpool players were informed earlier on Sunday that the Bosnian-Serb was leaving Klopp's coaching staff. The decision to terminate a working relationship that began when the pair represented German club Mainz 05 in the 1990s comes during a season in which Klopp had come into conflict with Buvac.

(Image: Getty)

It is understood that the two coaches had ceased talking to each other during games and that Buvac had been excluded from tactical meetings. “Klopp and Buvac had a big falling out,” a Liverpool source told Record Sport . “And Buvac has been left completely out of the loop of late.

“They stand apart in training, Buvac doesn't go to tactical meetings, and he is no longer involved in picking the team. In the past, he was the only one who had Klopp's ear. The relationship had broken down, and the players have been told Buvac is gone.”

Buvac has worked as a managerial partnership with Klopp since the German was placed in charge of Mainz in February 2001. During their seven years at the club the pair took Mainz into the Bundesliga and the UEFA Cup before being hired by Borussia Dortmund.

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Between 2010 and 2012, Klopp and Buvac led Dortmund to two German titles a DFB-Pokal victory. The following season the pair reached a Champions League Final, ultimately losing 2-1 at Wembley to Bayern Munich. When the out-of-work Klopp was approached to take charge of Liverpool two years later he insisted that Buvac- plus second assistant Peter Krawietz - be employed alongside him.

In a rare newspaper interview in 2016, Buvac explained his relationship with Klopp. “As players there was a direct connection straight away,” Buvac said. “Kloppo as a player was the same as he is as a manager. His character was the same, he wants to win, you cannot help but like him.

“Both of us were looking to become managers and we promised each other, ‘If I am the first manager, I will take you and if you are the first manager you will take me.’ He came first. It is a friendship. Before every training session and after every training session we talk together. Before every match and after every match we talk.

“In training I am observing and watching and if I have the feeling something needs to be changed I will speak to Kloppo. We discuss it, ‘Why should this be? Why that?’ But it is a decision we come to together. That is the way in training and that is the way in the match

“If it is necessary, I get up from the bench and that is okay. I don’t need to ask. Together with Peter we have six eyes. You see more than if only one man is looking.”