Brendan Rodgers who bought Liverpool a very close title race
paid no heed to Champions League or European football, the legacy on which
Liverpool Football Club is built on. Liverpool failed to qualify for the
Knockouts of Champions League got beaten 6-1 by Stoke in what was club legends
Steven Gerrard’s last match featured a second-string side against Real Madrid
in a must-win group game and was unable to hold on to Luis Suarez and bought
the mercurial Mario Balletoli as his replacement.
Brendan Rodgers got sacked after a 1-1 draw with Everton 6
games into the new season.
I was on my way to Tirupati when I got this news from my
cousin who messaged Jurgen Klopp could be the replacement. I always wanted a
European manager for Liverpool because Liverpool is not English in terms of
European legacy and English managers are shite by and large and we hardly see
any world-class English Manager around.
Klopp won two back to back titles challenging the Supremacy
of Bayern Munich in the usually unchallenged Bundesliga where Bayern has been
dominating for a good part of the decade. One bad season and the management at
Borussia Dortmund felt Klopp has drained out and allowed him a sabbatical which
worked quite well for Liverpool.
His appointment was confirmed. He said he is the normal one
and he wanted to change Liverpool from doubters to believers. He said he wanted
some time before we start delivering results.
The glimpses were there to be seen, beating City in their
own backyard 4-1 and then Chelsea. The run into Europa League finals where he
almost won a trophy in the first season.
He united the Kop when Liverpool dramatically equalized
against WestBrom. He demanded that the fans should not leave the ground when
the team is having a poor match day. He said the fans did not have the right to
celebrate the club’s success when they can’t stand by them when enduring a dry
spell.
Klopp and Kop formed a connect right then. The media started
liking his candid interviews, Sir Alex Fergusson said he is uncomfortable when
he got to know Liverpool appointed Jurgen Klopp as his manager.
There seemed to be light at the end of the tunnel for
Liverpool and something special was being unfolded, the fans started to believe
again. In Season Two, the team put in a good fight and got Liverpool to 4th
position which qualified them for Champion League playoffs. Where it actually
belongs.
In Season three Liverpool reached the finals humbling Bayern
Munich in quarters and breezing past few other clubs. It was humbled by Real
Madrid after his best player was wrestled down in 30 minutes and had to be
replaced and his Goalkeeper made two howlers in the most important final for
Club football.
In season four thanks to the reinforcement of a world-class
center back and goalie, Liverpool’s misery in defense which was there for the
past decade was finally sorted. They started leaking fewer goals and getting
more solid in defense.
That also enabled them to be ahead in the ever-eluding
Premier League title race till matchday 37 before Pep tipped him to the post
with 98 points. Klopp’s Liverpool secured 97 points and still finished runner
up. There were years when League titles were won with a tally of 74-80 points
and such was the quality of English football that this was not enough.
The spirit of a lesser mortal would have been shredded to
pieces. Klopp rallied a miraculous semifinal comeback when against FC Barcelona
which had the likes of Messi and old sons Suarez and Coutinho.
They had to beat them 4-0 and they did. Karma took a U-turn
for Mohammed Salah and he scored a first-minute penalty in last years finals
while Divok Origi, the club legend, and big-game player scored the second goal
to lift the 6th trophy 2-0.
Two more titles followed to finish the unprecedented treble,
the UEFA Super cup, and Club World cup.
The Premier League that was still out of grasp after so many
close races took off at a different level boost. By January Liverpool was ahead
of its closest rival by 25 points. The final frontier seemed all but conquered.
We were winning games 1-0; Earlier the team had to score thrice or have a
two-goal cushion to reassure victory, it was not the case anymore.
But then nothing comes easy for a Liverpool fan without a
skip of heartbeat and COVID19 happened. Sanity prevailed, the league resumed,
and the formality was completed and 30 years later, Liverpool won the topflight
football league again taking their tally to 19 and overall titles tally to 48
with Manchester united standing at 45.
Overall Jurgen Klopp took some tough calls; he sidelined
Mohmadau Sakho when he had some discipline issues and never featured him even
when Liverpool was badly in need of a center back. He waited for the right buy
and bought Virgil Van Dijk. He gave enough rope to his goalies but when none of
them impressed, he bought Allison Becker for a then world-record fee.
As promised in his first-ever interview, at the turn of the year
Five, he had 4 titles all of them coming in the last 12 months.
Under Jurgen Klopp, Liverpool restored its European
supremacy after Rafa Benitez left & he won the much evading Premier League
after three decades & two generations.
The fans can’t thank the man enough. A chord was formed
between Klopp and the Kop (one side of the goal post which allegedly sucks the
ball in if it’s a Liverpool player and drifts it away if it’s an opponent).
Like the club legend, Steven Gerrard said, this man deserves
a statue while he is around.
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