ImageGetty Images“A few months after the shock
of Brexit, I came across two
stories that stayed with me.
The first was a series of photos
of Syrian children in Aleppo
using a bomb crater filled with
rain water as a swimming pool.
The second was drone footage
of kids playing football in
Aleppo’s dusty, desolate ruins.
Just two lads kicking a ball back
and forth, not a single other
person in view.
I wanted to find a way of
keeping the conversation going
about displaced people, and
came up with the idea of asking
famous football fans to meet
their heroes for a charity book
that raises money for refugees.
Between October 2017 and
May 2019, 12 fans met with
12 footballers. When my iPhone
wasn’t recording, the shy
and serious Steven Gerrard
chatted to David Morrissey
about playing golf and the
friends they had in common. Six
months before the Women’s
World Cup in France, Clare
Balding and Lucy Bronze had a
heated discussion about how
women’s football needed more
across-the-board support.
Omid Djalili rode his
motorbike to meet Frank
Lampard, while Rachel Riley
cycled to see Rio Ferdinand
and discuss the good old days
at Manchester United. Gary
Lineker, his flight back from
Munich delayed after watching
Bayern vs Liverpool, raced
across London to meet
former Syrian goalkeeper Fahd
Saleh, listening to his painful
story thoughtfully.
The fashion-conscious Hector
Bellerin got so carried away
while talking to Romesh
Ranganathan about veganism
that he didn’t have time to
change out of his tracksuit
before going to watch Ricky
Gervais live. Wretch 32 and Ian
Wright finished each other’s
sentences and the latter posted
a photo of them on Instagram.
Johnny Marr was thrilled
when Pep Guardiola asked him
to sign a copy of his latest
album. After their chat,
someone mentioned that I
was seeing Jurgen Klopp.
Pep took me by the arm and
said, ‘Give Jurgen a big hug
from me.’ I passed on Pep’s
message to Klopp, who replied,
‘OK, good. I’ll give him a hug
when I see him.’ Football
remains an alpha sport, but
this hugging business that
Klopp excels at is heartening.
David Lammy and Eric Dier
were the final pairing to meet.
A footballer asking a politician
about the minimum wage and
London riots was a fitting end.
Maybe I’m ridiculously
optimistic, but through the
prism of football, we might see
ourselves more as a global ‘us’
than an ‘us vs them’. As
Raheem Sterling writes in his
foreword, Britain is great
because ‘we are diverse and
cultured, but most importantly
we are one.’”WHEn RACHEL MET RIO, ROMESH MET
H ECTOR & WRETCH 32 MET WRIGHTY
can, especially for big games. They text me constantly. I’m just back
from six days in Dubai with my wife, my sons, their girlfriends. I
couldn’t be happier.
To be honest, I started enjoying my job as a manager the moment
I didn’t need to worry about money. That happened to me pretty
early because I don’t need money, really. It’s crazy what we earn in
football, but there is always the chance of losing your job and your
name being killed. If they – the press, the fans – decide to go for you,
you won’t work again. It’s happened a lot in Germany.
So for me, when it worked out at Mainz, I was completely free
because I knew I could do the job. I could be the national coach of the
Fiji Islands. I’d still enjoy that like hell and I’d be good at it. Until then,
the pressure is intense because you have to deliver.
I’m not as good at anything else as I am at football. Which means if
I’m not doing this, what else can I do? I’m sure it’s the same for you:
if you’re not a comedian, what would your second big skill be? We’re
lucky we’re doing the things we are good at and enjoy. You’re
probably in the same situation: the moment the money is sorted, you
start enjoying it.
BISHOP It’s funny with me. I went into stand-up comedy late in life
and all of a sudden I realised, ‘OK, I can be a comedian in an arena or
I can be a comedian in a pub, but I can always be a comedian’. The
money bit doesn’t matter, nothing else matters. Just knowing you can
do it matters.
KLOPP For me it was important that people realised I could do the
job. Then I thought, ‘OK, now I can do it as long as I want’ and that’s
exactly what I do at the moment.
BISHOP And you’re here until 2022, is that right?
KLOPP My contract is until 2022.
BISHOP So is this home? Or is the Black Forest home perhaps?
KLOPP I left the Black Forest at 19. Mainz is home. We’re building a
house there. One of our boys lives there, the other one is in Berlin.
BISHOP This is bad, but I don’t know where Mainz is.
KLOPP Oh, it’s directly next to Frankfurt, in the south-west of
Germany. There are 180,000 people living there, mainly students. It’s
built on the Rhine river and it’s a famous wine area. It’s really nice, I
have to say. The weather is much better than here or in Dortmund. [A
knock at the door] I’m sorry, but I have to go! Thank you for coming.
[Runs out of the office]A Game of Two Halves author Amy Raphael on what
it was like bringing together some of the most
famous figures in British football for a series of
extraordinary interviews
“I’M LIKE A RESERVE TAnK FOR THE BOYS – IF
THEIR EnERGY DROPS, I HAVE EnOUGH TO SHARE”
This Klopp extract
appears in A
Game of Two
Halves. The book
is published by
Allen & Unwin
and is out now.Above Klopp leads
the victory parade
after the Reds’ sixth
European Cup win118 The Managers FourFourTwo.com
JURGEn
KLOPP