Jurgen Klopp claims to like his Liverpool players “more than they like me”, with the Premier League title-winning coach aware that “hard decisions” are not going to be well received by everyone.
Keeping everybody happy all of the time is an impossible task, but Klopp has shown that he can find the right mix when it comes to establishing both success on the field and harmony off it.
“[Me and the players] created a really, really close relationship over the years,” Klopp told Liverpool’s official website on the back of an historic campaign for the Reds.
“The relationship is clear – I like them more than they like me! Because I have to make hard decisions, that’s how it is. There are things I don’t like to do, but I have to do – so for me, seeing them like this means absolutely everything. It is exactly why I do it.
“It is the same to see my family that happy. When I met my wife and my sons after the game, they lost it kind of! They were so happy. On the night Chelsea won against City, that night they were completely going nuts. The boys [players] went nuts here. That’s really something.
“These pictures which I have in my mind I will never forget, I know that. I have still the pictures of the Dortmund moments in my mind and it is very special. My coaches jumped in the pool – thank God I was not there!
“They are such nice pictures and it is my fuel if you want, my petrol, that I get over the years that I can keep for a long time.”
Klopp faced a number of challenges once again in 2019-20, with Liverpool having surged clear of the Premier League pack only to then see football locked down amid the coronavirus pandemic.
They have also picked up untimely injuries and suspensions at various intervals, but Klopp has always found a winning formula and kept his side focused on chasing down their ultimate goals.
“A season is not 365 days, I don’t know exactly how many days a season is but it is long and we spend a lot of time together,” he said. “On the pitch is only one-and-a-half or two hours a day; all the rest of the time we are more or less in this building [Melwood] together with these people.
“How can you have the energy for going again and again with all the setbacks you have – I don’t mean losing a final. Injured players is always a problem, but it’s always the wrong player on top of that.
It’s like if you have four players for one position, none of them are injured. If you have two for one, both are injured. How can you keep the energy? It only works because we all give energy to each other.”