Berlin (AFP) – Two years after stepping down from Liverpool citing a lack of energy, Jurgen Klopp has returned to the dugout to oversee the mammoth task of restoring German football to its former glory.
Football's most decorated European nation, the once-formidable Germans have lurched from setback to disaster since winning the 2014 World Cup.In Klopp, the German FA (DFB) have a coach with a record of returning flagging giants to the top of the game. While the German media has rejoiced in the hope Klopp, 59, will construct a 'heavy metal' team similar to his best Liverpool and Borussia Dortmund sides, the manager's most pressing task is more fundamental.At his opening Liverpool press conference in 2015, Klopp said "if someone wants to help LFC, you have to change from doubter to believer." Now, with the four-time World Cup winners again at a low ebb, Klopp's first task is to heal the country's fractured self-belief. - The 'normal' one -
Jurgen Klopp won every possible title at Liverpool. © PETER POWELL / AFP/File
Klopp's unconventional back story has been told so often it has almost become a myth. As a player, the Stuttgart-born Klopp spent most of his career at second-tier Mainz. "I had the talent for the fifth division, and the mind for the Bundesliga. The result was a career in the second division," the former defender said of his playing career. Klopp took over as Mainz coach aged 33, beat relegation and then lifted the unheralded side to the top flight for the first time.In 2008, Klopp took over Dortmund, the 1997 Champions League winners who had fallen on tough times. Dortmund were reeling from near bankruptcy, having at one point borrowed two million euros ($2.3 million) from rivals Bayern Munich to pay their players, and had finished 13th the year before Klopp's arrival.Klopp took Dortmund to back-to-back Bundesliga titles and the 2013 Champions League final, where they lost narrowly to Bayern. After a short sabbatical, Klopp moved to Liverpool in 2015. At Anfield, the German was handed a similar task to that at Dortmund: revitalising a fallen football colossus, albeit this time on a global scale. In his opening press conference, Klopp showed a now familiar level of humour and self-awareness, declaring himself "the normal one", a reference to Jose Mourinho's "special one" characterisation. By casting himself as the anti-Mourinho, Klopp unveiled the everyman credentials which would endear him to supporters far beyond Merseyside.'Doubter to believer'
