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A coach’s football legacy is reduced to titles and trophies. At Liverpool, a beloved coach will live on in murals, music and shared memories.
By Rory Smith
Reporting from Liverpool, England
Jürgen Klopp’s week had been rich in farewells. The former Liverpool manager said goodbye to the club’s squad on Tuesday at Anfield, the stadium that chanted his call and thrilled his team for the past nine years. A few days later, and his players shared an excellent fried fish at Liverpool’s educational center.
In the meantime, he had signed T-shirts – “I don’t know how many, but now everyone has one,” he said – he had made countless appearances in the media, he had shaken hands endlessly, he had received thousands of messages from his followers. I had found it to be difficult, that is, intense. ” That’s a lot,” he says.
Throughout all this, the prospect of his last appearance at Anfield had cast a veil. Klopp knew he would have to deal with the crowd. He says goodbye to his people. I would have to make it happen.
During the match, a carefree and sunny victory over Wolves, he had feared what was to come. The crowd serenaded him incessantly. Fans waved dozens of flags bearing his name. Each of his players came to him to give him one of their emblematic hugs. ; Everything was delayed. He began to worry, he admitted, that he was “in pieces,” unable to speak.
He didn’t want to. When the time came, Klopp had Anfield in the palm of his hands, as he has for almost a decade: he greeted them and said goodbye. He asked fans to chant the call for his replacement. They obeyed. He told them to go “full steam ahead, from day one. “They roared. He told them that the long run was brilliant, that what would come next would be what had happened before.
“No one is telling you to stop believing,” he told the crowd. “I think, because we have you: the superpower of world football. “
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