80 SPORTS ILLUSTRATED
So explains Klopp, legs crossed on a white-
leather office couch, speaking between puffs on a
vape. He’s dressed a bit like a dad going to his kid’s
weekend soccer game: black sweatshirt, windpants,
white running shoes, no socks. But what stands
out above all else in person are his teeth. They’re
majestic, like a human Hoover Dam, and they can
express multitudes, whether it’s the pleasure of a
radiant smile or the “Let’s go!” urging of a sideline
gnash or the cackling cocksureness of the cartoon-
villain laugh he emits when his team concedes.
This is the morning after another Champions
League victory at Anfield, and Klopp can’t help
flashing those choppers as he reminisces about one
of the greatest comebacks in sporting history. Last
May, in the Champions League semifinals against
Barcelona, the Reds were staring down a 3–0 first-
leg defeat to mighty Messi & Co., which meant
their best chance of advancing was a follow-up 4–0
win at home... without two of their best players,
forwards Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah.
“I said two things to the boys,” Klopp recalls.
“One, it’s impossible—but because it’s you, we have
a chance. And: I want everybody to close your eyes
for 10 or 15 seconds. Imagine the best game you’ve
ever played. That’s exactly the game we have to
play tonight. And then the boys played that game.”
Liverpool had three goals by the 56th minute,
including two from Wijnaldum. Ultimately, Divock
Origi landed the decisive blow on a trick corner.
“It’s one of the most wonderful stories ever in
football,” says Klopp, whose team went on to beat
Tottenham Hotspur 2–0 in the final.
But while the Champions League hardware may
be the most coveted in club soccer, and while the
Reds (who face Atlético Madrid in this year’s Round
of 16) are well positioned to retain it, it’s also a
trophy Liverpool has now won twice in the last 15
seasons. There’s another one, a supposedly lesser
one, that supporters want even more. When the
team won the English league title in the spring of
1990, it was the club’s record 18thchampionship,
far surpassing archrival Manchester United’s seven.
But almost 30 years have passed, and in that time
United has won the league 13 times, Liverpool none.
If it seems inevitable that 2020 is the year the
Reds tip the scales back in the other direction, with
13 points (and a game in hand) between them and
second-place Leicester City entering the new year,
remember: These fans have been burned before.
Liverpool’s 97 points last season would have been
the second most ever by an English team, if not
for Manchester City’s 98. And don’t even mention
Steven Gerrard’s title-costing slip-up of ’09.
Neil Atkinson, host of the popular Anfield Wrap
podcast, enumerates the stakes. “I’m 38, so Liv-
erpool last won the league when I was nine,” he
says. “I’ve got an entire adult supporting life where
Liverpool haven’t won the title—and my father has
13 leagues. You’re in this situation where you want
one. Just one. That’s the Holy Grail.”
FLASH BACK TO
the 1980s, when Liverpool won the league seem-
ingly every other year. As a teenager in Milwaukee
back then, working concessions at Brewers games
for spending money, Mike Gordon never could have
imagined owning the storied European soccer club.
But there he was in 2001, by then a wildly success-
ful asset manager, joining a Red Sox ownership
group led by JohnW. Henry. Nine years later, that
organization (now called Fenway Sports Group)
bought LiverpoolFC, for which Gor-
don became FSG’s point man in ’12.
Today Gordon lives in Brookline,
Mass., a private-pathway walk from
Henry’s mansion. But he spends
plenty of time in Liverpool, where
the most powerful figure at the
world’s best soccer team happily
goes unrecognized in a black LFC
cap and jeans.
That’s by design. But as intensely
private as Gordon is—his interview
with SI marked only his second as
a soccer exec—he’s also deeply in-
volved. In 2015, after firing manager
Brendan Rodgers, he oversaw the
process, along with sporting direc-
tor Michael Edwards and director
of research Ian Graham, of finding
a replacement. It wasn’t long before
they lasered in on Klopp, who in his
seven years with Borussia Dortmund
had won two Bundesliga titles and
reached a Champions League final.
“Analytically, [Dortmund]
stacked up very well relative to
expected performance,” Gordon
says. “I called Jürgen. We had an
extraordinary conversation, and it was pretty clear
to me by the time I hung up that he was the right
person. We arranged a meeting in New York City,
had a lengthy discussion late one night and the
following day, and it was very straightforward.
This was the perfect choice.”
Eventually Klopp stepped out of that meeting
so his agent could negotiate terms. The coach, on
his first visit to New York, aimlessly walked the
streets, burned through a few smokes and then
jumped into a golf store to buy a hat. Foreign
tourists were starting to recognize him.
MARCO KO
HLM
EYER/PICTU
RE-ALLIAN
CE/DPA
RED DAWN
A Bundesliga
veteran of 11
years, with Mainz,
where he scored
52 goals as a
striker and right
back, Klopp came
to Liverpool in ’15.
JÜRGEN
KLOPP
