Klopp Kopped.

[Iceman]

I'm walking around with a permanent jizz on. 

 

This shit is really happening isn't it? 

[an tha]

how was the atmosphere for city chelsea arsenal etc less than 2 years ago? Thousands lining the streets outside.

 

Its not gone its sleeping.

Singing when you're winning is easy.

 

Even half scarf whoppers can do that.

[Nightcat]

Given the hard-earned resources wasted, the trophy drought, the Academy failure, the lack of leadership (on and off the pitch), vision and identity, combined with the general paranoia (e.g. Oligarchs and third world dictators pouring money, "No to Racism - Yes to Sexism") of the Premier League, I hope Klopp realises the magnitude of the challenge he is signing up for. 

 

By the passing of years, the "Liverpool job" is becoming almost mission impossible and only the very best with tons of hard work could potentially turn things around. This job could easily swallow top managers in a season or two. 

 

Klopp is a World Class manager with an excellent record in developing players who favours attacking minded football, so it would be great to have him, especially considering the state of the Club right now. I still believe that Simeone (probably not available) and Ancelotti  could be more suitable for the challenge, but Klopp would be a wonderful appointment.  

[Hades]

I doubt the revolving door of that weeks whoppers would give a shite.

 

The ground is about 40-50% full each week of this weeks tourist (i mean football tourist not foreigners) who are attending their annual game with their half scarf, bag full of shite from liverworld, 20 programmes and their phone or hubble telescope like camera at the ready to snap away.

 

Our atmosohere is gone, forever.

 

Don't think there's anywhere near as many daytrippers as you claim. If it were 40-50% tourists we'd be raking in the matchday revenue.

 

 

Only takes a 1000 or so voices to get a chant going, even less if they're loud. Problem is the only ones that can afford it now are middle-class or middle-aged. On the rare occasion a young lad gets a seat he's miles away from anyone else willing to sing. 

[El Rojo]

Good points, 'Cat.

 

As exciting as Klopp's appointment will be, there's a jadedness with constant change and upheaval at the club at this stage.

 

It's likely that our current squad won't have the skill set or fitness levels at the moment to play his game, so he'll have to improvise initially. I reckon we'll see an immediate improvement in our form and then a dip and plateau as he works in his philosophy.

 

He'll need time and finances on this rainy island.

[G Richards]

Klopp will help spark it to life and the atmosphere will return. At first everyone will be united and filled with hope, willing him/us to do well. That will be a big improvement on the jaded resignation that swept the ground towards the end for Brendan.

 

Once we get a couple of results and can see what he is trying to do, it will grow and grow.

 

It's not fair to expect miracles from him, but I think if this appointment happens we are going to finish top four this season.

[an tha]

Don't think there's anywhere near as many daytrippers as you claim. If it were 40-50% tourists we'd be raking in the matchday revenue.

 

 

Only takes a 1000 or so voices to get a chant going, even less if they're loud. Problem is the only ones that can afford it now are middle-class or middle-aged. On the rare occasion a young lad gets a seat he's miles away from anyone else willing to sing.

It must be close to that.....i go a few games a season and because i only have a membership i end up in all parts of the ground. It is actually depressing when you see the state of our support - I remember the 4-0 battering of the bitters as an example, I was sat in the main stand near the back in a block close to the bitters, all around me was the half scarf and camera brigade who sat in silence whilst the bitters went through their full repertoire of "what times your aeroplane, fuck off to norway the citys all ours" etc.

 

At half time i moved down to where my mate was sitting in same block but much nearer the pitch as he had an empty seat next to him - it was worse down there, people on ipads, taking pic after pic...the bitters spent the entire second half taking the piss and there was barely a single scouse voice in reply from those around us.

 

I've been in the upper anny road surrounded by carrier bags - and the other week against Norwich in the lower kemlyn where it was like a united nations meeting.

 

The kop is split...there are a core of people in the 300's who try but even that is fractured and i get the impression that there is a split between the locals and out of towners up there as i have heard whilst sitting up there songs started by one group and those near me say fuck them and start up a different song - end result both fade away.

 

There is a real problem in our ground with people there to sample our famous atmosphere who spend their time taking pics and videos of it whilst not contributing to it and killing the thing they are filming.

 

At Norwich there was a fella sitting in front of me with a copy of the s*n in his rucksack....he had a replica shirt on with his name on the back and his about 10 year old lad with him - he was questioned about the paper and he said "whats the problem"....just fucking incredible.

[Russ Atmosphere]

Singing when you're winning is easy.

 

Even half scarf whoppers can do that.

 

The clubs with really good atmospheres usually are winning or at least outperforming expectation. Any exceptions?

[Dr. J]

Klopp will help spark it to life and the atmosphere will return. At first everyone will be united and filled with hope, willing him/us to do well. That will be a big improvement on the jaded resignation that swept the ground towards the end for Brendan.

 

Once we get a couple of results and can see what he is trying to do, it will grow and grow.

 

It's not fair to expect miracles from him, but I think if this appointment happens we are going to finish top four this season.

 

Agree with all this, especially the last bit. Partly because the league is poor but mainly due to the fact that at the very least Klopp will infuse some fighting spirit into the team. This season we looked ready to fold at the first sign of trouble and Rodgers never looked the sort to motivate. Sometimes you really do need to knock heads a bit.

[an tha]

The clubs with really good atmospheres usually are winning or at least outperforming expectation. Any exceptions?

The clubs with really good atmospheres generally in my view have a strong core of youngish local support who are congregated together.....they work together, drink together and go the match together - they share the same mannerisms/culture. They set the tone and the rest follow

 

Our lads of that ilk have been either priced out or are split to all four corners of the ground.

 

Stoke, Palace, Leicester, Norwich are examples in recent times of grounds i have been to where the atmosphere has impressed me.

[G Richards]

When it clicks for them, Man City play on a higher level than us at the moment e.g. When they piled on all those goals and ripped Newcastle apart in a short burst.

 

Arguably Arsenal can do similar, like when they just blew Man Utd away, although we went toe to toe with Arsenal and did OK against them.

 

Beyond that, I don't see anyone else this season. Will Chelsea get their act together? Surely they will at some point, but some of the aura has gone and teams know they can get something if they attack them.

 

Man Utd continue to frustrate me. All that money spent, but I don't really see a good team there. Arguably one could emerge, but Van Gaal's character flaws will hold it in check.

 

All this is to say if things start to click for us and Klopp gets them playing, top four, even this season, is definitely on the cards.

[Anubis]

.....i go a few games a season...

 

Fucking daytripper.

[Russ Atmosphere]

The clubs with really good atmospheres generally in my view have a strong core of youngish local support who are congregated together.....they work together, drink together and go the match together - they share the same mannerisms/culture. They set the tone and the rest follow

 

Our lads of that ilk have been either priced out or are split to all four corners of the ground.

 

Stoke, Palace, Leicester, Norwich are examples in recent times of grounds i have been to where the atmosphere has impressed me.

 

Those clubs are all doing well aren't they? What's it like at Newcastle and Sunderland?

 

Agree about the pricing out, the prices are shocking and it'll all fall back on it's arse one day and they'll be begging anyone to buy a ticket.  That said I can't say I ever really understand why anybody who's not a working class lad out on the ale is the subject of so much winging for spectating a sporting event.

[an tha]

Fucking daytripper.

Absolutely. Love filming us take a corner on me mobi....buy a half scarf every game and spend at least a ton in liverworld.

 

I save all my lfc scouse pie wrappers as well and show them my mates on monday.

[Tyler Durden]

He'll have to have money to spend in January although its a renowned shit time to buy. I think he'll go for Reus if not January then the summer

All our best recent business has been done in January, it's a myth good business can't be done then.

[an tha]

Those clubs are all doing well aren't they? What's it like at Newcastle and Sunderland?

 

Agree about the pricing out, the prices are shocking and it'll all fall back on it's arse one day and they'll be begging anyone to buy a ticket. That said I can't say I ever really understand why anybody who's not a working class lad out on the ale is the subject of so much winging for spectating a sporting event.

I think it is fair to say atmopsheres are poor in england generally - but i do honestly believe ours is one of the worst in the pl.

 

If people disagree fair do's, but i genuinely believe ours is that bad

[an tha]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/liverpool/11914842/What-Jurgen-Klopp-can-do-with-the-players-he-inherits-at-Liverpool.html

 

Decent read

[Paco]

It must be close to that.....i go a few games a season and because i only have a membership i end up in all parts of the ground. It is actually depressing when you see the state of our support - I remember the 4-0 battering of the bitters as an example, I was sat in the main stand near the back in a block close to the bitters, all around me was the half scarf and camera brigade who sat in silence whilst the bitters went through their full repertoire of "what times your aeroplane, fuck off to norway the citys all ours" etc.

 

At half time i moved down to where my mate was sitting in same block but much nearer the pitch as he had an empty seat next to him - it was worse down there, people on ipads, taking pic after pic...the bitters spent the entire second half taking the piss and there was barely a single scouse voice in reply from those around us.

 

I've been in the upper anny road surrounded by carrier bags - and the other week against Norwich in the lower kemlyn where it was like a united nations meeting.

 

The kop is split...there are a core of people in the 300's who try but even that is fractured and i get the impression that there is a split between the locals and out of towners up there as i have heard whilst sitting up there songs started by one group and those near me say fuck them and start up a different song - end result both fade away.

 

There is a real problem in our ground with people there to sample our famous atmosphere who spend their time taking pics and videos of it whilst not contributing to it and killing the thing they are filming.

 

At Norwich there was a fella sitting in front of me with a copy of the s*n in his rucksack....he had a replica shirt on with his name on the back and his about 10 year old lad with him - he was questioned about the paper and he said "whats the problem"....just fucking incredible.

I ve seen daytrippers at the airport with dont buy the sun tattoed on their necks. Norgies singing every word of scouser tommy.

 

the club should belong to the people of liverpool first and everyone else 2nd but its too big for that now when you ve got people flying from china for the weekend.

[an tha]

I ve seen daytrippers at the airport with dont buy the sun tattoed on their necks. Norgies singing every word of scouser tommy.

 

the club should belong to the people of liverpool first and everyone else 2nd but its too big for that now when you ve got people flying from china for the weekend.

I don't disagree with you as such and yes you are right about daytrippers - in the same way all scouse lads aren't sound.

 

For me the biggest problem is that it no longer really mixes properly - it is hard to articulate properly but what i mean is the diverse mix does not gel well and it isn't really any 'groups' fault as such but different demographics exist now to the extent that don't make for a togetherness.

 

A lad from Norris Green, a lad from Windsor, a couple from China, a cockney, a brummie, an american and a norwegian are all very different with different ideas about how you behave at the game, different cultures etc.

 

You see it at aways - the happy als mob look at the 'wools' with disdain and those 'wools' look at them the same. There is a division/are divisions in our support.

[Sugar Ape]

Been reading loads of stuff about him the last few days ( not alone there, I suspect ) but was interested in his tactics and what went wrong in his last season at Dortmund. Some decent articles out there:
 
http://wearehooligans.com/2014/12/15/analyzing-jurgen-klopps-tactics-borussia-dortmund/
 

Analyzing Jurgen Klopp's Tactics At Borussia Dortmund



With Arsene Wenger’s inability to return Arsenal to the glory days of ‘The Invincibles’, and Liverpool’s Brendan Rodgers failing, it was inevitable, that both clubs would show interest in the hottest (probably available) coaching property in world football, Jurgen Klopp.

Klopp has risen to become one of the best managers in football by leading an unheralded Borussia Dortmund side to the 2010-2011 Bundesliga title, the 2011-2012 German Domestic Double, and the 2012-2013 Champions League Final.

Klopp was tasked with rebuilding a club that had barely survived financial ruin, and did not have the money or will to compete for players in the transfer market. Thus, he was instructed to build a system around Dortmund’s youth academy graduates and cheaper experienced players.

He imported his preferred style of play which he used to bring FSV Mainz into the German first division for the first time in their history, and to the 2005/2006 UEFA Cup.

Klopp instructed his team to play a style of play known as gegenpressing. This was the perfect style of play for a club with limited financial resources, as its structure is built around the qualities of players that would not cause a player’s transfer value to escalate. Klopp demanded his players to play with maximum intensity and passion, always aggressively pressing their opposition, and always attempting to run their opposition off of the field.

Klopp favors a narrow and compact 4-2-3-1 formation which prefers to attack with a technical counter when the opposition is open and exposed. In defense, Dortmund attempts to limit the playing area that their opposition has to play through by playing a high defensive line, and compressing their wingers and fullbacks into central areas.

He prefers to press his opposition in their half to minimize the distance his team has to travel to get into scoring positions. When he is forced to press deeper from central midfield, Dortmund’s center forward drops deeper creating a defensive 4-4-2 formation with their opposition’s center backs unmarked.

When they regain possession of the ball, they look to push the ball forward as quickly as possible. This requires Dortmund’s center backs to have the technical ability to initiate attacks. Klopp’s most revered defender, Mats Hummels, started his career as a holding midfielder and was dropped deeper to to begin attacks.

With central midfield purposefully congested, Klopp’s fullbacks must attack aggressively as they are responsible for the transition from defense to attack.

He prefers fullbacks who are comfortable playing in advanced positions and relies on players such as Kevin Grosskreutz — who is primarily a winger — or Lukasz Piszczek and Erik Durm, who began their youth career as strikers. It is common for Klopp’s fullbacks to be Dortmund’s most advanced attackers and they are expected to act as scoring threats from deep.

To provide protection for the advanced runs of his fullbacks and to act as the axis of his press, Klopp has resisted the recent trend, started by Pep Guardiola at Barcelona, to fill his central midfield with ball players. Klopp prefers to play at least one midfield destroyer, Sven Bender or Sebastian Kehl, and is comfortable playing two in his double pivot.

He plays direct and athletic wingers, while allowing one the freedom to cut centrally and build play. Before Marco Reus was signed, Mario Gotze and Shinji Kagawa, rotated into this free wide position. The opposite winger has more rigid positioning, and looks to bring balance and stability to Dortmund’s midfield.

This position was played primarily by “Kuba” Blaszczykowski but due to his injury problems, it has been filled by Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Klopp is also comfortable playing two functional wingers together as he did during both of Dortmund’s Bundesliga championship seasons, when he was forced to adjust his starting lineups because of injuries to Gotze and Kagawa.

Dortmund’s front two partner each other either as one center forward and a central attacking midfielder who plays as a support striker, or two forwards who press and link play together in an attempt to create scoring opportunities.

Mario Gotze — Dortmund’s former central attacking midfielder — and Marco Reus played together during the 2012-2013 season and were given the freedom to interchange, linking play, with Gotze drifting wide to the left and Reus cutting centrally from the left wing.
“Klopp could potentially become available after a disastrous 2014-2015 Bundesliga season that has seen his blind spots and Dortmund’s flaws finally catch up…

Klopp could potentially become available after a disastrous 2014-2015 Bundesliga season that has seen his blind spots and Dortmund’s flaws finally catch up. Over the last two and a half seasons, Dortmund’s opposition has learned how to effectively counter the gegenpressing tactics by ceding possession and not opening themselves up to counter attacks.

Under Klopp, Dortmund has always struggled to play consistent possession football but was able to survive through the individual technical ability of their more creative players. Robert Lewandowski and Mario Gotze are no longer at the club, and Marco Reus has spent large periods of the first half of the season injured.

These players were replaced by more athletic players who fit into Klopp’s style of play but lacked the high-end technical ability of their predecessors. Right now, Dortmund — a club that had finished the last four seasons no worse than second place — now sit in 18th place at the bottom of the Bundesliga table.

Their inability to play possession football has led to a dearth of goals and their failure to defend while open, and not maintain their organized press, has led to countless defensive errors.

Arsenal and Liverpool, two clubs that have ambitions of competing at the highest levels of the Premier League and European football, do not have the financial resources to compete with Chelsea and Manchester City, or with the financial superpowers of the continent.

Klopp’s success at Dortmund, and his crafting of an entertaining side that won regularly while being constrained by meager resources and the selling of his best players, has attracted both these clubs, as they are affected by these market constraints; both see Klopp as a manager who can bring them the success they crave.

[Sugar Ape]

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/dec/23/borussia-dortmund-jurgen-klopp-bundesliga
 

Dortmund show signs that end of the Jürgen Klopp era might be in sight
 


Jürgen Klopp had to face the music on Saturday. And boy, did he not like it. “They are celebrating an non-relegation party in the changing room next door,” the Dortmund manager noted grumpily at the Weserstadion, “I wouldn’t write us off yet”. Werder’s sporting director Thomas Eichin, one of those neighbourly revellers, later clarified that the home side had simply cheered “a win over Dortmund”, knowing full well that “nothing” was won in regards to staving off the drop. The northerners are 16th going into the Christmas break on 17 points, two better off than Dortmund. Only one goal separates them from bottom-of-the-table Freiburg.

Werder’s jubilations – and Eichin’s explanation – showed that last year’s runners-up are still considered a tough opponent, one of the league’s genuine big scalps. But that reputation is waning. The 2-1 defeat on Saturday was the 10th loss of the current campaign. Enough to make everyone concerned look like “total idiots,” as Klopp conceded with brutal honesty afterwards. “We have played the worst half of the season imaginable,” added captain Mats Hummels, who was heavily involved in all three goals of the afternoon but unfortunately only credited for one. “The worries have been there for weeks. The way we have been playing, we deserve to be down there”.

There was a logic in this game’s particular outcome, at least. Dortmund were poor throughout, low on confidence and cutting edge, well below par in terms of individual performances. But in most matches, they haven’t played nearly as badly as they did in Bremen. The unprecedented slump from double winners and Champions League finalists to Bundesliga basement dwellers in the space of 30 months remains a mystery.

Media debates have homed in on the most readily-available numbers: the poor goal-scoring return despite creating a wealth of chances, and a series of defensive black-outs by seasoned pros at the other side of the pitch. But blaming the for and against columns as the causes for the malaise is a bit like blaming a fever on a patient’s high temperature. Those numbers are only the symptoms of a much more complex condition.

Klopp’s main attempt to explain the riddle has focussed on the lack of a proper pre-season due to the World Cup and many injuries in the squad. Once the batteries were “full again” in the new year, he promised, “it will be much more difficult to beat us.” In other words, there’s nothing wrong with the footballing idea as such, only with its insufficient implementation.

It’s a typical response from a dogmatic manager. Before the away game at Paderborn, he scalded a local reporter for suggesting that other teams might have “found out” his side and developed strategies for countering Borussia’s high-pressing style. “I’m not looking for a fight, so I will even answer the stupid questions,” he shot back acidly, before going on to claim that Dortmund’s plight was all down to their own failings. “If you say we’ve been ‘found out’, what does that say about the work of opposition coaches for the last few years?”, he added. “Were they unable to see what our game is?”

It’s a salient point. Done correctly, with pace and precision, Dortmund’s game can overpower the best of teams, as Real Madrid and Bayern can testify from recent experiences. But their troubles to play with the required intensity and to do the right things in both penalty boxes aside, Klopp’s side could also be the victims of their own success. Bayern haven’t been the only team to copy at least part of the Dortmund blueprint and blunt the original’s innovative effect in the process. Synchronised pressure against the ball and rapid transition has become the new orthodoxy in the league, the playing style almost everybody aspires to; from the superb Augsburg (sixth!) to the remarkably resilient new boys Paderborn (10th), Dortmund’s competitive tactical advantage has been partially eroded.

That’s not a new phenomenon, either. In 2011-12, they won the league with a (then) new points record of 81. Six of those points came from two wins over Bayern. The next year, they finished considerably worse, with a total of 66 points that included two draws against Bayern. At the time, Dortmund still had Robert Lewandowski and Mario Götze in their ranks, too. Last season, they picked up 71 points, with one win and one defeat against Pep Guardiola’s side. Take out the results against the Bundesliga’s southern overlords and you’ll get an average points return against the 16 others in the league that has markedly decreased from 2.34 (2011-12) to 2 (2012-13) and 2.1 (2013-14).

As early as that 2012-13 season, some observers wondered whether Klopp’s all-or-nothing approach needed to be modified. Dortmund haven’t been able to do that. They remain hell-bent on full-throttle-football. Ilkay Gundogan, the one man who can most effectively vary the side’s tempo , is only slowly coming back to full fitness, and he has been lacking like-minded team-mates.

Dortmund’s game is all about verticality and quick shots on goal. Prising deep teams open is, not surprisingly, very difficult for them. A ‘plan b’ is easy for journalists to suggest but Dortmund-based Freddie Röckenhaus, of Süddeutsche Zeitung, is surely right to question whether Klopp has neglected to develop different, more mature facets to their game. “It could be that they have failed to add a bit of coolness to the underdog style of the boom years,” he wrote. “Dortmund don’t seem to be able to cut open teams with a surgical knife, unlike other top teams. At times, one feels that BVB are caught up in eternal adolescence and power-sapping exuberance, and that a more grown-up football style is not even wanted”.

It’s worth remembering at this point that Klopp had vowed to employ even more aggressive tactics before the start of the season. He’d promised to create a “pressing machine”. To that extent, Dortmund have played a lot of 4-4-2 this season. It’s been football without a safety net, reliant on the individual class of his defenders to cope in situations with numerical parity or worse. Injuries and loss of form for just about every defender in the squad has led to failure. So what’s next?

A meeting between Klopp, sporting director Michael Zorc and CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke on Sunday resolved that no drastic changes would be made. The coach has the backing of the board, while players and supporters are still firmly behind him. On Monday evening, the club announced the signing of Salzburg’s playmaker Kevin Kampl. The 24-year-old should add creativity and poise in the middle of the field. Recent history is also on their side: they tend to have a good second half of the season under Klopp.

But there’s a second, deeper worry here, one that will render the next six weeks off perhaps even more restless for everyone at the club than a look at the table. Coaches who demand Klopp’s level of work and tactical discipline from their players don’t tend to last very long at any particular club. Think Guardiola, José Mourinho, Marcelo Bielsa, even Ralf Rangnick: wear and tear - physically, mentally and in terms of relationships - always become a problem before too long.

Klopp is in his seventh season at Borussia. In modern terms, that’s an eternity. But the young players who have followed his instructions so slavishly – so much so that one or two commentators compared BVB to a cult with Klopp as the spiritual leader – are now a little older, perhaps a little wiser but maybe a little slower as well. Almost as shocking as Dortmund’s ineptitude on Saturday was the tired emptiness Klopp radiated after the final whistle. 2014-15 won’t mark the end of BVB’s membership in the top-flight. But it could well be the beginning of the end of the Klopp era, with all the vagaries that go with it.

[Sugar Ape]

http://www.futwiz.com/en/news/article/end-of-an-era:-jurgen-klopp/193
 

End of an era: Jurgen Klopp
 


7 years ago many didn't know what they were in for when BVB appointed Jürgen Klopp as their new head coach after another season finishing in the second half of the table. Doll offered to step down and the manager of FSV Mainz, back then in 2. Bundesliga, was appointed as the club’s new manager. April 2015, he announced he would finally leave Dortmund after a very disappointing season.

Today, we're taking a closer look at Klopp's last season at Borussia Dortmund.

Pre-season and loss of another star player

After Bayern Munich winning the league again, Dortmund had their minds set on competing with the Bavarians again. Bringing in several new players in, them being Ciro Immobile, Adrian Ramos, Matthias Ginter but also old faces such as Shinji Kagawa and Nuri Sahin who signed a permanent deal after his loan spell. BVB also had to deal with losing another massive player to Bayern, this time Robert Lewandowski moved south on a free transfer.

The season started with the team spending their 2 training camps in Kitzbühel and Bad Ragaz, which have been their destinations for the past few years. Due to the World Cup in Brazil, Hummels, Ginter, Schmelzer, Weidenfeller and Bender missed the majority of pre season. With Reus also injured, it wasn't the ideal setup for what was going to be Klopp’s season at the club.

They went off to a good start, beating Bayern in a convincing 2-0 win in the German Super Cup, 3 days later strolling past Stuttgarter Kickers 4-1 in the first round of the DFB Pokal. Come the first fixture in the Bundesliga, things looked good but Leverkusen came out on top in what was a surprise 2-0 win for newly appointed Roger Schmidt and his side with Bellarabi scoring after 8 seconds, the fastest goal in Bundesliga history. Klopp's team went on to winning the two next games vs Augsburg and Freiburg. Unfortunately, Marco Reus picked up an injury which sidelined him for a little over a month, one of many he had during the season. In the following week BVB faced Arsenal at home in their Champions League opener, cruising to a 2-0 victory over the Gunners.

Start of a bad series in the league

And that's when things went wrong for Borussia Dortmund in the Bundesliga, in the following 7 games in the Bundesliga they only managed to grab 1 point, this being against Stuttgart with Immobile scoring one of his few goals in his short stint at the club. The team was stumbling their way through games until the winter break, finding themselves in 17th place after 17 games, but on the same points as last in the table Freiburg. In the DFB Pokal they faced no big challenge when they won against St. Pauli to advance to the round of sixteen. To make it even worse, Marco Reus got injured yet again after Paderborn's Bakalorz ferociously tackled the German international leaving him projected to be out for nearly 2 months. Awful news for the team and especially Dortmund's manager.

Press conferences weren't easy for him, as you'd expect. Media building up pressure with headlines that the club's officials are already looking for a possible replacement before the winter break. Dortmund's CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke immediately denied any of those rumours in an interview with 'SZ', stating: “There's no reason to doubt Jürgen Klopp's ability“. Fans, players and the management have shown the will to back their manager.

Oddly enough, in the Champions League Jürgen Klopp and his team didn't face overly big problems in their group finishing 1st just ahead of Arsenal with 13 points. Dortmund were then drawn against Italian giants Juventus Turin, who were having another splendid season under new manager Massimo Allegri.

Winter training camp and hopes of recovery

On the 9th of January, Borussia Dortmund were heading to „La Manga Club“, a sports resort in Cartagena, Spain for their winter training camp. Also good news for the club when players like Marco Reus and Sokratis returned to the pitch, giving Klopp a little bit more hope for the 2nd half of the season. Speaking of Reus, during the winter break he was heavily linked with Bayern. These rumours were then denied several times by Bayern München's sporting director Matthias Sammer and club's CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge.

The second half of the season awaited and Dortmund found themselves in 17th place, the team was raring to go and fix the precarious situation they were in. These hopes were put on hold after a draw against Leverkusen, followed by another loss to Augsburg with Dortmund hitting rock bottom. In the following week they faced Freiburg, 1 spot ahead of them at that point. Dortmund cruised to a very convincing 3-0 win with two goals by the growingly important Aubameyang and one contributed by Reus. This was probably the turning point in Dormund's Bundesliga campaign. It seemed as if Dortmund's high pressing with their trademark quick counter attacks clicked again and the likes of Sahin, Kagawa and Aubameyang picked up good form, helping the club to climb up the table.

Huge surprise news by Marco Reus

3 days later, Marco Reus made a huge announcement extending his contract until 2019. For many, including myself, a very surprising decision but an honorable one, dedicating his future to his hometown club. It definitely seemed to have made an impact on the whole atmosphere at Borussia Dortmund, especially on the pitch going on to win 5 out of their next 7 Bundesliga games and 2 draws. But of course, there was also the Champions League quarter final games against Juventus, where the Italians deservedly advanced to the semis with 5-1 on aggregate with an incredible Carlos Tévez banging in 3 goals and assisting another.

So we're in late March, Dortmund have jumped to 10th place in the Bundesliga with things looking slightly better for the Westphalians. They went on to win against Hoffenheim in extra time in the DFB Pokal to make it to the semifinals where they were up against the mighty FC Bayern. BVB had to play the ever so strong Bavarians twice in the next three weeks with Pep Guardiola’s team taking a hard fought win over Klopp's side in the Bundesliga but Dortmund winning on penalties in the DFB Pokal semi after Xabi Alonso and Philipp Lahm had hilariously missed their penalties by slipping.

Shock announcement for Borussia Dortmund

On the 15th of April, Dortmund called in an extraordinary press conference with Jürgen Klopp. Many speculations became reality when the manager announced that he would resign as BVB's head coach at the end of the season with also taking a sabbatical. Media immediately started to guess who would be his successor, making out Tuchel as the main candidate who was then announced as the new man in charge after the season. He has also coached Mainz before making his way to Signal-Iduna Park. Thomas Tuchel is certainly one of the best Germany has got to offer, a very complex and special tactical brain combined with a passion for fast attacking football.

Final stretch of the season

After the huge news, Klopp's team has managed to finish off their Bundesliga campaign with 4 wins out of the last 6 games which brought them up to 7th place. This has opened the possibility to play Europa League if Dortmund go through the qualification stage. In the DFB Pokal final they were up against Hecking's superb VfL Wolfsburg with the outstanding Kevin De Bruyne. Game went as planned as Aubameyang fired away the 1-0 lead in the 5th minute with Kagawa providing the assist. The Wolves responded quickly with Luiz Gustavo slotting home a rebound after a Naldo free kick. De Bruyne and Dost then sealed the win with their goals, all three scored within 16 minutes. As expected it was a very emotional goodbye after the game for Klopp and the fans.

Overall a disappointing end to Jürgen Klopp's time at the club he and sporting director Michael Zorc have transformed to an international powerhouse in 7 seasons full of ups and downs. In his time, Klopp has won 2 Bundesliga titles, one DFB Pokal and 2 German super cup trophies. If you like him or not, pretty much every Bundesliga fan will miss his intensity, funny press conferences and appreciate what he's brought to the league.

All the best for the future, Jürgen!

[Sugar Ape]

http://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/training-time-tactics-tweaks-and-enduring-love-how-klopp-averted-crisis#:MQEo6VDTWIfoxA
 

 
Training time, tactics tweaks and enduring love: How Klopp averted a crisis
 

In spring, as Dortmund tried to ease themselves away from the drop zone, Uli Hesse examined Jurgen Klopp’s approach to the club’s crisis – and the chances of a move to England...

It’s one of the many perplexing side issues in the mysterious tale of Dortmund’s fall from grace that even die-hard fans whose entire lives revolve around the club watched the decline with the serenity of Tibetan monks. Actually, it almost seemed as if the support grew more understanding and forgiving the worse the results became.

When their team dropped into the relegation zone by losing 1-0 at Hertha Berlin last December, the travelling Dortmund fans chanted “Borussia, Borussia!” until the players, their heads bowed, walked over to the curva. And then the entire away stand sang a popular terrace song which states that the club is everyone’s pride and joy. It gave even the neutrals at the ground goosebumps.

“I think there are three reasons why the fans were so patient,” says Dortmund fan Jan-Henrik Gruszecki. “The first is they haven’t forgotten that this very team has given them so much to celebrate. The second is the personality of the coach. He is still immensely popular. And the third is the skill of the coach. The fans knew that Klopp had been in many relegation fights with Mainz. So the feeling was that someone like Pep Guardiola might not be able to cope with a situation like this, but Klopp could.”

Truth be told, he didn’t always look the part. Klopp sometimes wore such a pained expression on his face during the first half of the season that his former player Patrick Owomoyela, now a pundit, remarked on television: “At the moment he comes across as quite helpless and defensive. I don’t think he would be above saying: ‘Well, maybe I’ve done all I could do here, and now somebody else must come and help.’”

Many supporters, however, interpreted Klopp’s distress differently. They’d always loved him for his emotions, for wearing his heart on his sleeve. When things went well, this meant he would be celebrating wildly and cheering the team, just like any regular fan. But of course it also meant that when things were going wrong, he would be visibly frustrated, just like the people in the stands.

And so it wasn’t until a home defeat in early February, by an Augsburg team reduced to 10 men, that the fans finally reached the end of their tether. For the first time, boos and catcalls rang around the ground so forcefully that after the final whistle the players kept a respectful distance to the Sudtribune terrace and sent their two captains, goalkeeper Roman Weidenfeller and defender Mats Hummels, over to the fence to discuss the team’s performance with the ultras.



Interestingly, this game marked the end of Borussia’s rough patch. Three days later the team scored three goals without reply at Freiburg. It was Dortmund’s first league victory in 64 days, and the starting point of a four-game winning streak highlighted by an impressive 3-0 derby triumph over fierce rivals Schalke.

An incredibly emotional afternoon was capped by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Marco Reus celebrating the first goal by donning Batman and Robin masks, prompting predictable headlines proclaiming the ‘Return of Dortmund’s Superheroes’.
 

Where did it all go wrong?

 

What is much harder to pinpoint, though, is when the rough patch began – and why. Gruszecki reckons Borussia started to unravel away at Mainz, on matchday four. With Dortmund a goal down, the visitors were awarded a penalty. In-form attacker Aubameyang was ready to take it, but Italian centre-forward Ciro Immobile, a new signing understandably eager to prove himself, grabbed the ball and placed it on the spot. His shot was saved and Dortmund went on to lose a game they should have never lost – for the first but certainly not the last time that season.

 

However, it wasn’t Dortmund’s first defeat of the campaign. And so there are others who say that the drama really began to unfold during the first eight seconds of the season. On opening day, Bayer Leverkusen travelled to Dortmund, scored the fastest goal in Bundesliga history and deservedly bagged three points against a Borussia side that never recovered from falling behind so quickly.

 

Some claim the seeds of struggle were in fact sown way back in summer 2014. Dr Jeannine Ohlert, a sports psychologist, told Sky Austria that things went wrong as early as the pre-season preparations, when “some players came back from the World Cup exhausted and struggling to find motivation”. 

 

 

The second bit may sound improbable, but it’s not a far-fetched theory. Over the previous four seasons, Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich had become so dominant in Germany that most observers considered the top of the league table a foregone conclusion. And if one of the two giants should slip up really badly then the worst that could happen to them, many fans felt, was that they dropped to third or fourth place. Bearing this in mind, it’s not inconceivable that the players themselves subconsciously felt they might get by with giving only 95% on a few occasions.
 

Not that you should ever dare to mention this theory in Klopp’s presence, though. In October he told a reporter: “If this was our problem, I’d be the first to give the players a kick up the backside each day of the week.” Then he angrily added: “Whoever says that this team has motivational problems suffers from Alzheimer’s disease.”

 

But it was a tempting argument. How else could you explain the discrepancy between Dortmund’s league form and their Champions League performances? In mid-September, Klopp’s side played Arsenal off the park in a commanding manner. Four days later, they lost at Mainz and then didn’t win another Bundesliga game until November.

 

At the press conference following the home defeat against Hamburg, Klopp was asked to give his own explanation for the striking difference between the fine results in Europe and the poor showings in the Bundesliga. Wearing his usual Borussia hoodie and looking as if he’d aged five years over the previous five months, the coach furrowed his brow. 

 

“Form, that’s all,” he said. “We have players who can summon their form on some days, but on some others they cannot do this.” He went on to explain that there were several reasons for this but that the most important one was an almost absurd number of injuries. 

 

“We have players who are coming off lengthy lay-offs but who can’t be eased into the side now – they immediately have to be on top of their game,” he said, meaning someone like Ilkay Gundogan, who had been sidelined for no fewer than 430 days with back problems. Klopp added: “We also have players who had only a very short pre-season preparation but need to play in every game now.” He was referring to players like Hummels, who had come back from the World Cup with a nagging injury.

 

So it takes just a few injuries and some rotten luck to turn one of the best teams in Europe into a bunch of donkeys? In January, with Bayern in first place, Dortmund in last and 29 points separating the two pre-season favourites, Pep Guardiola said: “What happened to Dortmund can happen to us, too. In football, you can never relax. At any given moment, anything can happen.”

 

What happened to Borussia was that a simple run of bad results slowly but surely turned into a self-fulfilling prophesy. If you ever wondered how important the mental aspect of the game is and how quickly a player can lose confidence, all you had to do was watch Henrikh Mkhitaryan. The Armenian playmaker, one of the most naturally gifted footballers in the whole of Europe, gradually became so consumed by fear – fear of another stray pass, another wasted chance, another defeat – that Klopp finally had to bench him.

 

Because make no mistake, even if the fans were totally behind the team and trusted their beloved coach with finding a way out of this mess, he had to do something – and fast. On the day the club celebrated its 105th birthday, December 19, Jan-Henrik Gruszecki told a club representative: “If we lose tomorrow, in Bremen, we are in serious trouble.” They did and they were.

“All I can say is: I wouldn’t write us off,” Klopp said after this game, standing on the pitch in Bremen and having to explain his team’s 10th league defeat. He defiantly added: “At the moment we look like complete idiots, and it serves us right. But we’ll be back, looking different.” He was right. But what ultimately saved him was that great German football invention – the winter break. 
 

Klopp: Dortmund’s Steve Jobs

 

Another perplexing aspect of Dortmund’s mysterious fall from grace was that the men who run the club were apparently prepared to go down rather than part company with their coach. During the winter break, the magazine Sport Bild asked the club’s chairman, Hans-Joachim Watzke, how safe the manager’s job was.

 

“We will never dismiss Jurgen Klopp,” Watzke replied. “The services he has rendered to Borussia are exceptional. No confrontational situation will ever arise.” Four weeks later, after the Augsburg debacle and with the team still in last place, Watzke renewed his promise, adding that the club’s faith in Klopp was “beyond debate and doubt”. Saying that this was a most unusual state of affairs would be an understatement. Only once before in league history had a reigning runner-up sunk as far as last place this deep into a season. That team was Alemannia Aachen in 1969-70. Needless to say, they sacked their coach as early as December (and still went down).

 

The only fairly recent comparable case that comes to mind concerns Bayer Leverkusen. Under coach Klaus Toppmoller, the team reached the 2002 Champions League Final and the domestic cup final, and finished second in the league, playing tremendous entertaining football along the way. Months later, in February 2003, Leverkusen found themselves in a relegation spot – and the club’s then-business manager Rainer Calmund announced that to his “greatest regret” he “didn’t have a choice” but to fire the coach. 

 

Watzke could have done the same without losing face – or a friend – because everyone, not least Klopp himself, would have understood that football clubs can’t afford to be sentimental. That Watzke stood firm regardless wasn’t met with universal admiration. 

 

In a much-publicised interview in late January, the columnist and philosopher Wolfram Eilenberger compared Borussia to a sect. “A crisis calls for an honest analysis,” he said. “But that’s not possible in Dortmund, because seeing the coach as the cause of the crisis is taboo.” 

Eilenberger added: “I have spoken with many Dortmund fans, and the general thrust is: ‘We cannot imagine the club without Klopp’. Dortmund feels as dependent on Klopp as Apple used to be on Steve Jobs.” Eilenberger then drew a comparison with Arsenal, saying the Gunners were stagnating because Arsene Wenger had become unsackable. The philosopher, who also holds a German FA coaching badge, offered a simple solution for both clubs: “Klopp to Arsenal; Wenger to Dortmund.”

 

Perhaps Watzke viewed things differently because he had learned the hard way that bringing in a new coach may indeed put an end to stagnation, but that you can’t be sure in which direction you’ll start moving. Watzke became the club’s chairman in early 2005, when Borussia were on the verge of going bankrupt. The following year, a week before Christmas 2006, he fired the popular Dutch coach Bert van Marwijk, despite the fact that Borussia were in a perfectly respectable ninth place. 

 

 

The dismissal threw the club into turmoil. Van Marwijk’s successor, Jurgen Rober, lost six of the next eight games. Suddenly Dortmund were only one point above the drop zone. It took another sacking and another coach – Thomas Doll, to whom Borussia’s fans never warmed – to avoid relegation at the 11th hour. 

     

And so the board wouldn’t sack Klopp, and the fans wanted him to stay. However, that didn’t automatically mean he would last the season. As Owomoyela’s comment on television suggests, the longer the drama lasted, the more people could imagine that there would come a day when the coach himself felt he had taken this as far as he could and that now “somebody else must come and help”. 

 

Klopp himself fuelled such rumours after the Frankfurt game on the last day of November. Dortmund lost the match partly because of yet another unfortunate mishap at the back. A week earlier, Stuttgart coach Armin Veh had stepped down, saying that luck had deserted the club and he somehow felt responsible for this. Klopp was asked if he would follow Veh’s example, whereupon the Dortmund coach replied: “If it’s only about luck and if changing the coach brings this luck back, then just give me a call and a guarantee that it’s going to work – I won’t be standing in the way.”
 

Time takes time: How Klopp saved Dortmund

 

However, reading jadedness or even helplessness into such a comment was taking things too far. Because all through that almost comically terrible run, Klopp was very much aware that there was one powerful ace still up his sleeve. Gruszecki is right: although the circumstances of this one were highly unusual, the coach had been in relegation fights before, in the first division and the second. He knew that what you needed first and foremost was defensive stability. He also knew that all it took to restore that was time.  

 

When Klopp was standing on that pitch in Bremen a few days before Christmas, he could promise the fans that, although all signs pointed to the contrary, his team would be back, looking different, because he knew he would now have six precious weeks to take the players’ minds off the league standings and work with the team on their problems. Not to mention that the physios would have time to get the injured players back into shape. If ever a Bundesliga team desperately needed the winter break, it was Borussia Dortmund.

 

For the fourth time in a row, the club set up their winter training camp in a slightly remote resort near Murcia, in south-east Spain. It may be just a coincidence that in each of the previous three seasons, Dortmund had played better and with more success after the winter break. But if you’ve ever watched Klopp conduct one of those training sessions under the Spanish sun, you know there is a connection. The coach may have a reputation as a master motivator, but his aggressive pressing game is based on supreme organisation and he simply has more time to work on it during the quiet winter weeks than he has in the summer – especially a summer following a big tournament.

 

During the winter break, Klopp must have come to the conclusion that the situation called for another form of stability as well. Having experimented with various formations and line-ups during the first half of the season, he went back to the 4-2-3-1 system he had used almost without exception from October 2009 to May 2014. Shinji Kagawa was put in his old position, in the hole behind the lone striker. And this striker was Aubameyang. As much as Klopp liked the two forwards he had signed in the summer to replace Robert Lewandowski and provide extra options (Immobile and the Colombian Adrian Ramos), both now had to accept they were going to be subs, at least until the worst of the crisis was over. 

 

The same team that had kept only two clean sheets in the first half of the league season racked up five in the first eight games after the winter break. Dortmund conceded only five goals in those seven matches and climbed from last place to 10th in a little more than three weeks. While some fans took a furtive glance at the table to calculate if there were enough games left in the season to bridge the gap to the Champions League slots, Klopp said: “Even after four wins on the trot, we’re only five points above the relegation zone. That shows you in what kind of situation we were – and still are.”   

 

The final perplexing facet of Dortmund’s season in hell was made public on the morning of February 10. With his team in 16th place in the 18-team Bundesliga, Marco Reus extended his contract until 2019. As the club later confirmed, the new contract didn’t include a get-out clause and was valid for the second division as well. When Reus walked into the dressing room an hour later to prepare for that day’s training session, the rest of the squad gave him a round of applause.

 

For the general public, this contract extension – later described by Klopp as “an extraordinary act” – came as a massive surprise. It was also deeply significant for the club’s support. A few months earlier, Bayern Munich chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge told a newspaper the much-coveted Reus could leave Dortmund “for a rumoured €25 million”. Ever since that disclosure, many fans feared Reus would be tempted to ‘do a Lewandowski’ (or Mario Gotze) and leave Borussia for Bayern. And even if he didn’t, chances appeared to be slim that he’d stay in Dortmund if the club failed to qualify for the Champions League.  

 

When asked about his motivation, he said all the things a player should say. He mentioned that Dortmund was his hometown and how important his family and his friends were to him. Reus, who joined the club in 2012 after their back-to-back Bundesliga titles, also said that he dreamed of one day winning the league with Borussia just to see “what the city will be like then”, which echoed a point of view many fans take – that signing with Bayern to win silverware is the easy and therefore less satisfying route. 

 

But most important of all was what Reus didn’t say, because he didn’t have to: that, like many other people in Dortmund, he didn’t have the slightest doubt the coach would find a way to avoid relegation.

 

Next?

 

By the spring of 2015, Eilenberger’s claim that Dortmund’s fans can’t imagine the club without Klopp had ceased to be true. For most supporters, there was at least one point during this cataclysmic season – maybe the Berlin game, probably the Bremen game, certainly the Augsburg game – when they simply had to entertain the thought that the pressure could become so strong that the coach might have to step down. In other words, they had to realise that the club is truly bigger than any one person.
 

Over the past few years, Klopp has been linked with numerous English clubs not only because he is rousing, engaging, entertaining and successful; it’s also because just when you think you’ve heard it all, he will offer a fresh and different perspective on an aspect of the game. And he did this again during Dortmund’s horrific run. A few days after the team had dropped into last place and most fans had begun to seriously fear for the future, he opened one of his regular press conferences by letting his gaze wander over a packed press room. Then he cracked a grin and said: “It hasn’t been this crowded in a long time. Is there a new rumour I don’t know about?” 
 

 

 

A few minutes later, he told the journalists: “One day, when we look back on this, we’ll find that the whole thing has brought the club closer together. We have the great chance to come out of this crisis stronger than we went in. But only if – perhaps for the first time in football history – we do it without allowing a wedge to be driven between us while we’re in the crisis.” They say you don’t know who your real friends are until the going gets tough. When the going got tough in Dortmund, Klopp found he has a lot more friends than he might have thought possible – in the stands, in the boardroom and in the team.

 

[Sugar Ape]

Last one.

 

http://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/fourfourtwos-50-best-football-managers-world-2015-no6#:SZGITA58OQfoxQ

 

FourFourTwo's 50 Best Football Managers in the World 2015: No.6

 

The bearded one may have endured a bad final season at Borussia Dortmund, but the brilliant six that preceded it were only made possible by the world's most charismatic boss...

Sometimes little things can change the course of football history.

 

In February 2008, Hamburg came very close to signing Jürgen Klopp for the new season. In fact, the club had already reached an agreement over wages with the man who was then coaching Mainz in the second division.

 

But there were some other options, too, and so a group of scouts was asked to monitor the various candidates and give their opinions on them. The dossier on Klopp was damning. The scouts disliked the fact that he wore jeans with holes in them. They complained he was often badly shaved. They called him flippant.

Hamburg crossed Klopp's name off the list and he joined Borussia Dortmund instead. The rest, as they say, is history. Hamburg went through 13 different coaches during the next seven years, while Klopp turned Dortmund into arguably the most exciting team on the continent and became one of the most coveted managers in Europe precisely for being his own man. Oh, and he also won back-to-back Bundesliga titles, plus the domestic cup, and guided his team to the Champions League final.

 

 

An unexpected surprise

 

However, none of this was planned. When Dortmund approached Klopp, they didn't do it to win trophies. Only three years earlier, the club had been on the verge of bankruptcy. All Borussia were looking for was someone who could breathe new life into a team that had become old, stale and uninspired.

 

Klopp, meanwhile, knew there were no riches to spend in the transfer market. (In fact, when he received Dortmund's original offer, he called back and informed the club he was earning more money than that at Mainz.) All he wanted was a club where football was more than just a game or a business and where the job would be fun.

 

It seems silly now, but at first Dortmund's supporters were critical of Klopp. He had worked wonders at Mainz, taking the small club to the Bundesliga and keeping them there for three years. But of course, that wasn't the same as coaching a tradition-laden club with a massive fan base like Dortmund’s. Also, many dismissed him as a media darling who merely talked a good game. They said the main reason he was so popular and sought-after was his work as a pundit on television, where he was analysing internationals in a most entertaining and refreshing manner.

 

Finally, some people said his only strength was motivating people. His partner on television, the sportscaster Johannes B. Kerner, later disclosed he had once, a few seconds before the show, asked Klopp: "Everybody says you can really fire up people. If I were one of your players, what would you do now to get my adrenaline pumping?" Klopp looked at him for a second, then gave him a resounding slap in the face.

 

In a way, all those reservations were not unfounded. Like all really good modern coaches, Klopp is charismatic and has an innate talent for communicating with people. Whether he is talking to fans, players or someone from the media, he always makes you feel that you are the most important person in the room for as long as the conversation lasts.

 

This skill also makes him the sort of coach footballers want to play for. During his first two years in Dortmund, Klopp rebuilt the team by selling star players and veterans and replacing them with young, gifted hopefuls. And yet one of the veterans Klopp ousted declared: "One reason I'm sorry to leave the club is that I would have loved to work with this coach."

 

Hello, Pep

 

But Klopp did a lot more than just talk a good game. He invented a new one. He took Barcelona's pressing system and combined it with a counter-attacking game based on pace, thrust and movement to arrive at an ultra-aggressive style based on what now seems to be known everywhere by the Anglo-German term Klopp always uses: gegenpressing.

 

Perhaps it's too much to call Klopp, as the columnist Clark Whitney has done, "the creator of a new tactical movement that has been emulated by some of Europe's strongest clubs". But it's certainly true that Dortmund's daring style posed a challenge. Teams had to find a way of dealing with such intensity and enthusiasm.

 

When Pep Guardiola first travelled to Dortmund as Bayern Munich coach in November 2013, he stunned observers by eschewing the passing game that is his trademark. In an attempt to escape Klopp's gegenpressing, his players did the unthinkable – they hoofed the ball upfield. "I have watched Bayern many times," Klopp said after the game. "I don't think they have played so many long balls in three years."

 

The most celebrated and innovative manager of his generation had decided to betray his principles in an effort to counter Klopp's tactical system. It was the highest compliment a coach can be paid.

 

Tactics corner (by Michael Cox)

 

"Jurgen Klopp’s period with Dortmund came to an underwhelming end with a cup final defeat to Wolfsburg, at the end of a terrible league campaign when the club briefly flirted with relegation. But two Bundesliga titles and a Champions League final means Klopp remains hugely respected.

 

"The key to his approach is energy. At their peak, Dortmund did everything at incredible speed: their defensive transitions, their attacking transitions, their pressing high up the pitch in order to regain possession immediately. Dortmund were cohesive enough to play very compact, and yet be extremely dynamic with their collective movement across the pitch, and in full flow it was a wonderful sight.

 

"Initially a 4-2-3-1 man, Klopp later experimented with 4-3-3 and 4-3-1-2, and occasionally switched between a four- and a three-man defence. Sometimes, it felt like he changed too much, too often, and questions must be asked about Klopp’s expertise in the transfer market too – Robert Lewandowski’s replacements simply weren’t up to it.

 

"But as a training-ground coach and a tactician, Klopp is rightly revered across the continent. As with many of the managers currently regarded amongst the elite, the question is whether his methods will transfer to other clubs."

 

[el nino laff]

All our best recent business has been done in January, it's a myth good business can't be done then.

I meant shit as in teams unwilling to let players go mid season and higher prices.