JURGEN KLOPP ADMITTED he has changed “everything” in Liverpool’s preparation for the Champions League final against Tottenham.
Klopp will be coaching his fourth European final, having made the Champions League final with Borussia Dortmund in 2013, as well as the 2016 Europa League decider and last year’s Champions League showpiece with Liverpool.
Unfortunately, Klopp has come away empty-handed in all those contests, which arguably represents the biggest blemish in a distinguished managerial career.
And in anticipation of this year’s final, Klopp says he has altered his squad’s actions in the build-up — a stark change from before.
“Everything, we changed everything,” Klopp said. “In all the finals I played so far we did the build-up similar.
This time we changed everything. It is completely different. The only thing we kept the same was the starting time.”
Klopp’s counterpart for the final, Mauricio Pochettino, has also dealt with questions over silverware despite being generally lauded for his work while overseeing Tottenham.
Pochettino claims that a manager should not just be judged on the number of trophies he’s won and while Klopp thinks that is true, he concedes the rest of the world may not agree.
“If I said that then it’s fair play!” Klopp said. “Look, I don’t care. I think he’s right but that’s not important.
“The thing is, you — the outside world — it is your right to judge us by what we win and what we don’t win.
“Look back in 20 years and nobody will talk about our brilliant season unless another team comes close to 97 points, or has more or less, then yes we maybe are mentioned again, but nobody will really speak about that.
“But for me, as a person, it will stay forever. I will probably have 20 or 30 years career as a manager and then it is easy to remember it.
“I can really respect that and that is probably what Poch is like as well. But the outside world is like this and we have to accept that.
“But to judge a coach by what he is winning is a silly thing because we all have different circumstances. We all have different teams, different clubs, we have to fight with or against different things, but nobody is interested in that.”
Klopp went on to praise Pep Guardiola as the best manager in the world, but emphasised that it is not the Manchester City boss’s impressive trophy cabinet that distinguishes him.
“Coaches, most of us, judge each other not on trophies,” Klopp continued. “And not because most of us don’t win, but because we know about the job.
We don’t say, ‘You are the best, you are the best’. I don’t say Pep Guardiola is the best — what I really think — because he constantly wins the league that he’s in. It’s the football they play, that’s how it is, the things he’s doing, that’s really good.
“With wonderful resources, absolutely, but then having this clear stamp on a team that makes him, for me, the best coach in the world.”
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Great piece Niall, but there are a couple of other points here.
If, for example, Kenny Egan was to travel to Baku, he could qualify for the Olympics, and would do so in the same weight division as Joe Ward. As a country can only enter one fighter in any weight class, as far as I’m aware, Ward could then not even compete in Istanbul and his Olympic dreams would be dashed, even though he is European Champion. This is the same for any of our ‘stars’ who miss out.
Also, if IABA were to send Ward and Moylette, the European champions would be seeded and thus get an easier draw. If they send other boxers in the same weight classes, that seeding is lost.
Thanks for the comments Gavin.
I see Kenny has declared that he’s stepping up to Heavyweight for this week’s competition, which was presumably decided in order to avoid the clash with Ward that you mentioned. It’ll be interesting to see how it all plays out over the next week.