Part 2 of that interview:
Exclusive Jürgen Klopp Q&A - Liverpool boss on final agony, hard toil in USA and getting off to a flyer
Part two of our special three-part conversation with the Reds manager as he speaks to James Pearce about his 2016
By James Pearce
Jürgen Klopp's first 12 months - May
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It was a devastating end to a thrilling European adventure.
After memorable wins over Manchester United, Borussia Dortmund and Villarreal, Sevilla proved a step too far for Liverpool.
Liverpool’s hopes of lifting a first European trophy for 11 years and securing the golden ticket to the Champions League lay in ruins.
Jürgen Klopp reflects on that night and much more in the second of James Pearce’s three-part exclusive interview with the Liverpool boss looking back on an eventful 2016. He also gives his verdict on Euro 2016, his first pre-season tour with Liverpool and the club’s flying start to the new Premier League campaign.
MAY
JK : We can speak about finals and say we lost, absolutely right.
The problem is we were much the better team in the first half. We scored a second goal which was disallowed for offside.
JP : There was a big penalty shout for handball too. Then things quickly unravelled in the second half...
JK : Yeah, no penalty, disallowed goal, all that stuff but still 1-0 up.
You don’t always have everything in your hands. You need to be lucky in a few moments. It’s not that you can play badly and still win.
We were really good in that first half but obviously the season was too intense for us to strike back in that second half.
When I think about it, it’s not an excuse for us or something.
Think about how many games we had. It doesn’t make sense that you play the most important game when you already have 500 games in your legs.
To think about it from a FIFA, UEFA or a FA perspective then it absolutely makes sense because we all love the game.
But when I think about 48 teams for a World Cup or a European Championships or whatever the plans are, they forget the players in these plans.
We conceded a goal too early in that second half from a little mistake.
Jürgen Klopp, manager of Liverpool walks after receiving the runners-up medal
Over the whole season many teams, us included, made bigger mistakes without the opponent scoring the goal.
Sevilla scored in that moment. It was 1-1 and for us it was a shock. You could see it. It was a shock for everybody.
We talk about atmosphere and if anybody in the stands tells me that in that moment they thought ‘and now we’ll come back’, it’s not true because nobody behaved like this.
It was the moment when someone pushed a button and this time the volume went down.
It wasn’t nice. We could have won the game in the first half, but we lost it in the second.
JP : Do you ever look back and think ‘if only I’d done that differently’ to change the outcome of events that night?
JK : For sure I did but only for one or two weeks after. Not any more. It would make no sense. It would be a waste of energy. You can’t change it any more. To make the same mistakes again that we made in that second half is not really likely.
JUNE
JP : England were humiliated by Iceland in the last 16, Germany made it to the semis before losing to France. What did you make of the Euros?
JK : I watched quite a few games, but I wasn’t that involved. I watched all the England games, but not all the Germany games because Emre (Can) didn’t play. I am really interested in how my players are doing, but when they aren’t involved then not so much.
JP : Do you have any aspirations in the future to manage Germany?
JK : It’s not something I think about. It’s not something you can plan one second for. If you have a job, like I’ve always had, then you cannot be an option. I don’t believe that you can do two jobs.
If you don’t have a job then maybe there’s a reason for that. You might not be very good any more! If that’s the case then the German national team probably won’t ask you.
I don’t think about it. I like the intensity of the week in, week out, challenges.
In this moment I would not be a good international manager because I’d have absolutely no idea what to do with all the time between the games. I don’t play golf so no idea.
For sure it wasn’t nice for Germany to go out like they did but in France, against France, it’s possible.
JP : By the time Germany went out, England had long since returned home. Who do England always fail at major tournaments? Is the lack of a winter break really that important?
JK : The problem with this is that only English people should actually talk about it. I know you want to hear what I say but if you discuss something just because I said it that’s wrong.
If English people decide that it’s a bit too intense then do something to change it, don’t ask me. I knew before I came here that it would be like this.
You can’t have everything in life. I want to work for 24 hours and have 10 hours sleep – that just doesn’t work.
You have to decide. You want to have football all year round and you want to be in the best shape for the summer when the tournaments come around. You have to think about whether that makes sense or not.
We have to deal with it and deliver. We are really well paid for it but that’s not the thing. The boys always want to play but the question should be whether they always can. That’s different.
JULY
JP : It was your first pre-season with the squad. How important was that time spent on the training field in the States?
JK : I loved it. It was a perfect camp. When I first came in, we didn’t even have training! We just played matches.
The whole pre-season was very important. We could train a lot. I enjoyed the first three weeks before we went to America with a young squad. All the players who were involved in the Euros weren’t here.
We had wonderful games, good performances and that gave us a lot of confidence and a good feeling with the squad before the other boys came back.
Then we started again. The camp was long but it was really perfect circumstances. Important games.
I am used to camps. Everyone had asked me: ‘what can we do on this tour?’ I said: ‘what tour?’
It was really a fight for me. I didn’t want anyone to think for one second that it was a tour, it was a camp. If you are in a camp you can make some tours but you go back to the camp.
That’s what we did. We could have done different things. We could have stayed in Pasadena for three or four days when we played there. But I didn’t want that. I wanted a base so we could leave some players in the camp so they could train. We really used that time.
The target of a camp is always that you go there in one shape and you come back in a better shape. You go there as a good team and you come back as a better team.
That’s why we do things like this. It wasn’t just because of the weather!
There are also a lot of Liverpool fans in the USA so it made sense that we went there. Like it makes sense next year that we will go to Asia. I have no problem with this.
JP : The players all talked about how tough the training regime was in the summer....
JK : The funny thing is we could have done so much more!
I don’t want to do what I can, it’s about doing what you think is right.
Of course we needed to be best prepared we could be for this long season, especially as we don’t have a second pre-season like they do in Germany for example with the winter break.
You have to create a base for a one year so how can it not be intensive?
It was not too intense for sure. Maybe for a few players of course it was because they came back late and then had no time to take it step by step.
It’s like those kind of days where you’ve got a real lot to do and you work really hard. The whole day you’ve been so busy and then when you go home you feel that sense of satisfaction. That’s how a camp should be.
You always think: ‘it’s too much, it’s too much’. But when you come home you think: ‘boy, that was so good’. That’s how it felt with that camp.
AUGUST
JP : That’s a great picture. Sadio Mane riding on your back after putting Liverpool 4-1 up on the opening weekend......
JK : Okay, at that point in the game it was the wrong sign! There was still a long time to play. But it was pretty much a good sign for the whole season.
It was what we felt after the pre-season. We felt we had a good team and we showed it at the Emirates. The half an hour we played after half-time was outstanding.
In the first half we didn’t know exactly where we were. Arsenal are a strong team, playing at home. We wanted to play differently but we couldn’t and they scored.
Then Phil (Coutinho) produced a genius free-kick to bring us back into the game. Then it was like: ‘okay, now we can actually start’.
The football we played at the start of the second half was outstanding. It gave us a lot of confidence and was a real boost for the rest of the season.
It’s not usual that players run towards the coach to celebrate after they’ve scored but with Sadio maybe it was different because he was new. For a new player, in the first few weeks the manager is a really important person. You open the door to everything.
I love how the boys are together in this moment. It’s really good to have that so early in the season. It was nice to see and a good game
Echo
