Liverpool legend: How Klopp caught up with 'world's best coach' Guardiola

The symbolism will be strong on Thursday evening.

As Liverpool’s players take to the field at the Etihad Stadium, Manchester City’s will line up to welcome them – a round of applause and a show of respect for the newly crowned Premier League champions.

For Pep Guardiola, it will be a humbling moment. His sides are usually the ones receiving the 'guard of honour', after all.

“We are going to do it because they deserve it,” Guardiola said, graciously, when asked by reporters about the idea at the weekend.

Jurgen Klopp, his opposite number, will be greeted warmly too. There is a rivalry between the two managers, for sure, but it remains, for the most part, a healthy and respectful relationship.

Klopp insisted when asked by German publication Bild on Saturday that Guardiola remains, in his eyes, “the best coach in the world”.

He knows that City will regroup, refocus and return. He knows Liverpool will have to work harder than ever if they want to remain top dogs, though he insists there is no chance of any complacency creeping into his players’ minds.

“These boys cannot get lazy,” he told reporters this week. “It is just not in their nature. We will not stop.”

As for Guardiola, this is uncharted territory. Suddenly, the Catalan has to find solutions to questions he’s never been asked before. His supremacy is being challenged in ways that would have seemed unimaginable just a couple of years ago.

In the space of two seasons, Klopp and Liverpool have turned a 25-point deficit into a 23-point advantage. Guardiola’s side raised the bar, in terms of the consistency and level of performance needed to win a Premier League title, but the men from Anfield have risen to the challenge in quite remarkable fashion.

They have lost just two of their last 70 games in the league, and only five of their last 98 stretching back to October 2017. When City blinked, Liverpool carried on staring straight ahead; driven, relentless, winning.

The Red Machine, indeed.

That is what Klopp has created at Anfield. In less than five years, he has turned also-rans into front-runners. “Champions of Everything,” as the banner outside Anfield read.

Getty/Goal

How has he done it? By changing just about everything, improving just about everything that can be improved at a football club. He’s had plenty of praise over the last week, Klopp, but it is impossible to overstate the job he has done with this Liverpool side.

“From day one when he came through the door, he changed everything,” says captain Jordan Henderson. “We followed him and believed him. This wouldn’t be possible without him.”

Klopp had arrived in a blaze of publicity when replacing Brendan Rodgers in October 2015, but soon found that the task he’d inherited was bigger than he’d initially believed. Liverpool were a decent side with some good players, but it was clear from the off that there were big issues which needed sorting.

“We had to change the atmosphere at the club,” he told reporters this week. “That was the most important thing.”

Liverpool had gone close under Rodgers in 2013-14, but his reign had unravelled fairly significantly thereafter.

By the time Klopp arrived, they were in the middle of the table, defensively suspect and inhibited in an attacking sense. The scars of the past were still there, the weight of expectation there for everyone to see – not only on the pitch, but in the stands as well.

And so he set about changing things. He sought to connect the team with its supporters, to repair a relationship which had grown strained.

Could he do what he’d done at Borussia Dortmund; get the players playing and the fans singing? Anfield was a special place, he thought, so why shouldn’t it be a happy one?

“We had to bring the people onside,” Klopp says. “But don't forget, it's not that long since we played a back pass and the whole stadium was like 'oh my god'. It was not allowed!

“If we were only 1-0 up there will come a set-piece and it was clear it would either be a goal or a chance for the opponent!

“You cannot change it by saying something. We had to earn the trust and faith of the people. And we tried to do that with effort.

“You cannot get brilliant overnight but you can change the effort overnight. That's possible. That's what we tried and that's what we did.”

Getty/Goal

Surely, though, Liverpool’s players were working hard before Klopp arrived?

"Yes, but the reason for the work rate was different,” he continues. "The reason before was 'we had to do it; otherwise we would lose.' We changed it to 'We want to do it so we can win.'

“It is exactly the same amount of yards but one is much more positive and gives you a much better chance to achieve what you want."

Liverpool’s progress since has been steady. There has been clear development in each season. Bit by bit, they have edged forward until, suddenly, they were ready to attack.

The right players have been recruited; first, pace and dynamism in attack, then, strength throughout the spine of the side. In the space of two years, Liverpool signed Joel Matip, Sadio Mane, Gini Wijnaldum, Andy Robertson, Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk, Alisson Becker and Fabinho.

“Some clubs get one of those signings per decade,” one Premier League official laughs. “Liverpool’s record has been ridiculous.”

These are not only top players, but strong characters too. The harmony of the squad has been honed to perfection. A winning culture has been created within an enjoyable environment.

“Be ambitious every day,” Klopp had told his players in his first meeting as manager, and in the likes of Henderson, James Milner and the underrated Adam Lallana, he has had the perfect embodiments of that mentality.

Tactically, the team has evolved at a remarkable pace. First, they pressed, then, they learned how to become a devastating counterattacking force. Then, they added control and patience, and now they can do a bit of everything.

Want a fight? They’re happy to mix it. Want to sit deep and pack your penalty area? They’ll find a way through. And if you fancy opening up against them, then all the best.

Even Guardiola knows better than to go toe-to-toe these days. “They scare me,” he told his coaching staff in the All or Nothing documentary – and that was two years ago. City have never won at Anfield under him.

Goal

The fans love Klopp, and so do his players.

“I am lucky to be working with him for sure,” says Mane. “The maximum respect I can have for a person, I have for him,” adds Alisson. Virgil van Dijk calls him “the complete manager”, while Milner is happy to compare him to any of the greats he has worked under. “The way he goes about things is special,” the vice-captain told Goal earlier this month.

It is not all down to one man. Klopp was quick to name-check a number of his backroom staff when discussing Liverpool’s title triumph last week.

He knows the importance of roles played by the likes of Pep Lijnders and Peter Krawietz, his assistants, Andreas Kornmayer, his formidable fitness coach, Mona Nemmer, the hugely popular head of nutrition, and the long-serving goalkeeping coach John Achterberg. The use of Thomas Gronnemark as a specialist throw-in coach attracted derision in some quarters, but the results have been there for all to see.

“He doesn’t think he can do it all himself, and that’s a big strength of Jurgen,” says one Melwood source. “He’s happy to listen to those with more expertise, and he’ll trust them too. Not every manager can do that.”

Liverpool’s owners, certainly, know the value of what they have in the dugout. Fenway Sports Group had considered alternative options – current Everton boss Carlo Ancelotti among them – before hiring Klopp, but it took only one phonecall and one meeting to convince John Henry, Mike Gordon and Tom Werner that the man from Glatten was the right one for them.

“He’s just a special person,” Werner, the club chairman, told The Athletic recently. “I am honoured that he is our leader.”

He will, of course, remain their leader for some time still. In December, Klopp signed a contract which will keep him at Anfield until at least 2024. By that time, surely, he will have added to the club’s already-bulging trophy cabinet.

For now, though, he deserves the chance to enjoy the fruits of his labour. What he has created at Liverpool will be remembered forever.

The best manager in the world? He just might be – even if he’d never admit it himself.