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Jürgen Klopp on Thomas Tuchel: “You cannot be in the Champions’ League only because of spending money.”

Liverpool boss Jürgen Klopp discusses PSG manager Thomas Tuchel and the importance of dialogue with players.

“A fantastic, fantastic manager. You can see really his influence, it has changed a lot their style of play, how they play, different formations and stuff like that. I know a lot of people who have worked with him, they all are full of respect for him. You cannot be in the Champions’ League only because of spending money, that is not how it is. You need to have on the pitch a good organisation, because all the others we are not blind. We do our job as well and you need to have the right tools in the right moments and Thomas has that.”

“It is not about being loved by your players, it is about they should believe they are the right decisions and the closer you are, the more they will think about it. We are not perfect, I am not perfect, Thomas is not perfect, nobody is perfect. It is easier if you like each other. The closer you are the more you have to explain. So if you are like a general in the army and you say do this, do that, the players are like okay I won’t ask any questions. We have this kind of conversations all the time: “Why are we doing this?” and I explain, because if you do that, then they open that space and then they can go through. If we play with 3 or 5 defenders, and they play with 5 defenders, then we positioning here. It is proper work. It is not only throw the ball in and let them play. It is still a wonderful game, you probably still play in the park from time to time still, without tactics, but for us it is really important.”