O
ne of the biggest reasons so many people love Jurgen Klopp is
his self-deprecating humour. In 2008, when he became
manager of Borussia Dortmund, a reporter asked him why he’d
never made it to the Bundesliga as a player. Klopp replied: “I had
fourth-division talent and a first-division head. That resulted in the
second division.”
He repeated the line four years later, after he’d led Dortmund to
a league title triumph, with a telling twist. He told a Berlin newspaper:
“I had fourth-division feet and a first-division head.” That same year,
when Mainz’s business manager Christian Heidel was honoured for
20 years’ service, Klopp remembered a match between Mainz and
Homburg in said second division. At one point, a Homburg player was
badly let down by his first touch. According to Klopp, Heidel quipped:
“Look, they have a Kloppo, too!”
Klopp wasn’t fishing for compliments, he was simply being honest.
According to Raphael Honigstein’s excellent biography about the
Liverpool boss, Bring the Noise, Klopp would tell his BVB players they
were better footballers than he had ever been, saying: “I have never
played at your level, therefore I’ll never pretend to you that I know
everything – but I will always try to help you.”
Klopp made a club-record 325 appearances for Mainz in the lower
leagues, something you can’t achieve without at least some decent
attributes in your locker. As Klopp has hinted, his head – meaning his
attitude and his intelligence – was one of them. He also possessed
the unusual combination of aerial prowess and pace, which explains
why Klopp was most commonly used upfront until his late twenties
before drifting back in the latter years of his career.
Legend has it that a 19-year-old Klopp repeatedly left the lightning
Thomas Berthold – a future World Cup winner – in his wake during
a friendly between Klopp’s provincial team and Eintracht Frankfurt in
the summer of ’86. It earned him a move to the Bundesliga club, but
he never progressed beyond the reserves.
Still, it’s tempting to think his experiences on the pitch taught him
that you can overcome problems – and mask limitations – with pace.
He is certainly fond of fleet-footed players. When a journalist asked
him if his tactics had been “decoded” in his final campaign with BVB,
he sarcastically replied, “Can you decode pace?”
Klopp’s greatest day as a player was August 13, 1991, when Mainz
won 5-0 away at Erfurt. He scored four goals – another club record
that would not be equalled for more than 20 years. After that game,
coach Robert Jung predicted: “Next year, Klopp won’t be here.” The
player felt the same, telling Kicker magazine that he was hoping for
a transfer to the Bundesliga. But it never happened. Klopp stayed at
Mainz for the rest of his career, often fighting relegation.
First he was remade into a midfielder, then switched to defence. In
a way Klopp had come full circle, because even as a striker he’d worn
the No.4 shirt to honour his favourite player – Stuttgart centre-back
Karlheinz Forster. Klopp once explained his obsession with Forster by
saying: “I have always been interested in attitude more than talent- his mentality was exceptional.” These lines could describe Klopp’s
own career, both as a player and a coach.
Another thing Klopp learned as a player – and would put to great
use as a manager – was the value of combining the correct attitude
with organisation and tactics. The man who taught him, and the
club, was Wolfgang Frank, who first became Mainz’s coach in 1995.
Frank, a devotee of Arrigo Sacchi, examined the player’s qualities
and then decided what he needed most was Klopp’s “head”. He
made Klopp the right-back in one of Germany’s first functioning
systems based on zonal marking, pressing and a flat-back four. In
the homeland of the sweeper, Frank’s 4-4-2 was revolutionary.
Using Frank’s innovative approach, Mainz excelled. In early 2001,
the club needed a new coach. Heidel was looking for someone who
would carry on in Frank’s tradition, who knew the system inside out.
He found him at right-back. Heidel asked Klopp to be player-manager.
The rest, as they say, is history.
“I HAD FOURTH-DIVISIOn TALEn T
A nD A FIRST-DIVISIOn HEAD. THAT
RESULTED In THE SECOn D DIVISIOn ”
JURGEn KLOPP
Words
Uli Hesse
Images
PA
96 The Managers FourFourTwo.comMAnAGERS
AS PLAYERS