78 SPORTS ILLUSTRATED
“I was excited to meet him, so I just went right up
and got in there,” says Rapinoe, fresh off of winning
FIFA’s Women’s Player of the Year award herself.
“He’s so warm and genuine. I think everyone would
say that about Jürgen Klopp.”
That night, as Klopp accepted his own award as
the top men’s coach, he announced he was joining
Rapinoe, Morgan and 130other sports figures in
Common Goal, whose members donate 1% of their
incomes to charity. “I met [Rapinoe] for the first
time that night, and I loved her,” says Klopp. “It’s
very important that we have people like her to be a
bit chatty about important things. I share 100% her
opinion about Donald Trump [with whom Rapinoe
has publicly sparred]. That’s easy to
do, but you need to have balls to do
it in public, in these moments when
you win something. Megan and
Alex, they were brilliant company.”
The two American stars found
out in Milan what Merseyside deni-
zens have known for years, how it’s
hard not to feel connected to the
gregarious German. In Liverpool,
Klopp’s aura seeps into every cor-
ner of the fabled port city. Check
into a downtown hipster hotel and
the elevator door is plastered with
a giant caricature of the smiling
coach above the word boom! Step into a taxi
and ask for a ride to Melwood, the Reds’ training
ground, and the driver will inquire in wondrous
Scouse: “Going to see the German god?” Speak to
Dutch midfielder Georginio Wijnaldum and he’ll
tell you about the day he signed with Liverpool,
how he visited his new boss’s home that afternoon
and how Klopp barely spoke about soccer. “Most
people just go straight to the business,” Wijnaldum
says. “We spoke about our lives, basically. And
we still do.”
Klopp rarely idles his drive to forge human con-
nections. When 750,000 Liverpool fans turned out
for the parade celebrating the Champions League
triumph last June, Klopp swears he tried to hold eye
contact for at least a fraction of a second with each
person he saw from his perch atop the team bus.
“How much it meant to the people? I thought I
knew, but seeing it is completely different,” he says.
“You had 60-, 70-, 80-year-old men and women
punching their chests, screaming, ‘I! LOVE! YOU!’
Life is all about having that kind of relationship.”
That worldview is reflected on the field, where
the key to Klopp’s high-pressing style is to com-
bine the collective talents, desires and energies of
players from a wide range of nations into a unit
that is greater than the sum of its parts. OLI SCARFF/AFP/GETTY IM
AGES
L O V E A N D
MERSEYSIDE
At the Reds’
Champions
League parade,
Klopp aimed for
eye contact with
every Liverpudlian
he saw.
