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Jürgen Klopp and Liverpool: 'What more can we ask for?'

Matt Pearson Liverpool
January 28, 2024

Jürgen Klopp's first match since announcing he would leave Liverpool saw another win and an outpouring of emotion. DW talked to fans at Anfield who are in "shock" at the departure of "one of our own."

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Jürgen Klopp applauds during a match
Jürgen Klopp will take an indefinite break from football at the end of this seasonImage: Propaganda Photo Agency/IMAGO

"We just have to forget it," said Jürgen Klopp in the moments following his first match since announcing Friday he'd leave Liverpool. But for the fans who sang his name in the opening minute of a 5-2 FA Cup win over Norwich, despite his request not to, he'll be impossible to forget, let alone replace.

"I just can't believe it. I think the whole city's in shock. Everyone around the world is in shock. Even now, it's not sinking in," Beryl Mealand, a Liverpool local who has been going to Anfield for over 50 years, told DW ahead of the game. "I watched his interview, and all I did was sob. I just cried the whole way. But I believe everything he said. He's done everything for the club. What more can we ask for? He's got us back on top."

When Klopp arrived in northwest England in 2015, Liverpool had not won the Premier League (or First Division as it was previously known) since 1990, an unthinkable wait for one of England's most storied clubs. As well as ending that run in 2019-20, the former Borussia Dortmund coach has won just about everything else: a Champions League in 2019 and both domestic cups in 2022. There may well be more to come this season, but for many fans outside Anfield, it's about more than trophies.

"He's one of our own," local Liverpool fan Matt Haydock told DW. "He's taken to the city, and he's an honorary Scouser, as he says. And he's ours forever now."

'Honorary Scouser'

Midfielder Curtis Jones, born and raised in Liverpool, shared those sentiments, telling ESPN that Klopp is "the dad of the whole of the city."

It's clear from his words that Klopp feels similarly enamored. "Getting the key of the city is one of the most special moments of my whole entire life," he told the club's website on Friday. "It was so special, it was incredible. And made me an honorary Liverpudlian or Scouser."

Time and again, fans outside Anfield praised their coach's honesty, integrity, humanity and hard work. Liverpool sees in itself the same characteristics: fans take pride in standing their ground and bouncing back from setbacks.

There were few of those on the pitch on Sunday, as Liverpool swept aside a Norwich team coached by fellow German David Wagner, who chose Klopp to be best man at his wedding many years ago. Though Liverpool top the Premier League, is in the League Cup final and is still in the FA Cup and Europa League, there will be sterner tests in Klopp's last campaign before he takes an indefinite break from football. "In the games, we need to be warriors and not celebrate the old man on the sidelines," he told the BBC postmatch.

That's just about starting to be possible for Haydock. "It blew my day apart on Friday, if truth be told, but I'm coming to terms with it now. He owes us nothing, he's given us everything," he said, before adding that Klopp should be seen alongside Shankly and others who are immortalized around Anfield.

'Fitting tribute'

"There's statues, there's gates [for others], there's got to be something for Klopp in the next couple of years once he's gone. It would be a fitting tribute to him, and it would be lovely to see him back here in a couple of years' time when it gets unveiled."

Where Klopp will be over the next few years is unclear. As is the coaching future for Liverpool. Former Reds' midfielder Xabi Alonso was the name on everyone's lips, with his Bayer Leverkusen side sitting atop the Bundesliga. But the universal feeling was that the German is a near-impossible act to follow.

"It's a hard one to think about at the moment, though, because everyone wants to talk about Jürgen Klopp," added Haydock. That may not be the way Klopp professes to want it, but it is the legacy of his work and his character.

The real Jürgen Klopp

Edited by: Louis Oelofse