When Jurgen Klopp appeared in the media area after a Paris Paralympics badminton match this summer, you imagined some of the prickliness which had often characterised his discussions with us might have melted away.
Here he was, unencumbered by the sound and fury of football, to support the cause of Paralympic sport and his friend Wojtek Czyz, who had been competing.
But even in that benign environment, there was the distinct sense of a man looking for journalistic landmines. You could feel the chill when football was mentioned. It seemed rather brave of a colleague to ask how life after Liverpool was suiting him. ‘All good. Don’t worry about me, I can fill my time easily.’
That’s how encounters with Klopp at Liverpool so often were. Beneath the big smile and the patina of charm, there was a sense that you were walking on eggshells with this uber-competitive individual, for whom every outward facing environment was a field of conflict.
David Coote, a member of the refereeing fraternity so consumed by ego and self-importance that he allowed someone to film his foul-mouthed anti-Klopp tirade, should never darken the door of professional football again. But it’s a safe bet that he’s not the only member of that profession who would admit to feelings for Klopp ranging somewhere between loathing and dislike.
David Coote described Jurgen Klopp as a ‘German ****’ in a foul-mouthed tirade during the video and has since been suspended by refereeing chiefs PGMOL while they investigate
Coote (left) tells the camera ‘that f***ing last video cannot go anywhere’ in the second video uploaded online while the man identified as Kitt (right) says ‘let’s not ‘f***ing ruin his career’
Coote and former Liverpool boss Klopp had several runs in with each other over the years
That extends to the relationship between many referees and managers — two mutually dependent groups who are always discussing the other in private. The refs being the ones who can never publicly defend themselves.
‘Jurgen Klopp. Brilliant manager. Sour loser,’ Mark Clattenburg wrote in his excellent memoir Whistle Blower, describing several encounters with the German which reflected that view.
These include Klopp arriving in the Anfield officials’ dressing room with Jordan Henderson before a match against Chelsea in January 2017 and staring
Clattenburg down for 30 seconds. ‘It was bizarre,’ Clattenburg wrote. I just stared back. I could see Jordan was a bit, like, ‘What the hell’s going on here?’ Did Klopp think I was stupid? I was not going to be bullied.’
Paul Tierney will have stronger sentiments, given that Klopp once told him, in comments picked up by TV cameras, ‘I have no problems with any referees — only you’. Should we really expect officials to accept this with equanimity behind closed doors?
Klopp could be unreasonable, irritable, a nightmare for anyone he believed had crossed him and almost always unrepentant after the event. A softening was particularly unforthcoming for those groups he’d calculated were broadly unpopular. Such as referees and journalists.
It’s also why he was a winner, of course. He pushed the envelope as far as he could, channelling the febrile stadium atmosphere to optimal competitive advantage. Just like Sir Alex Ferguson, who called Alan Wiley overweight, Martin Atkinson biased, scrutinised his wristwatch and jumped up and down on the touchline.
‘It was intimidating,’ Clattenburg wrote of Ferguson’s conduct. ‘I have no shame in admitting that.’ Jose Mourinho exploited this perceived opportunity to often vicious extremes.
Klopp could be unreasonable, irritable, a nightmare for anyone he believed had crossed him
Mark Clattenburg (left) described Klopp as a ‘brilliant manager’ but a ‘sour loser’
Clattenburg’s book conveys a sense that he actually came to like Ferguson far more than Klopp, because the Scot had the grace to repent when his shouting was done.
Howard Webb also saw this side of Ferguson, having summoned him to his office at half-time during a match against Liverpool, after the manager had accused him of being a Liverpool fan. ‘All right, fair enough,’ Ferguson said after a few minutes, breaking into a smile. ‘Anyway, I know you’re a Rotherham fan!’ That grace was harder to find in Klopp.
Coote has not been as deeply unpopular among Liverpool fans as Tierney is. Coote is viewed as pompous, and rather too pleased with himself, rather than a dispenser of many big, wrong decisions.
The attention-seeking X user, @Josh97LFC, who shared the career-ending video warned in a subsequent tweet, ‘Anthony Taylor you are next’, and Klopp, needless to say, has had run-ins with that referee, too.
But there’s no wish within football for more of this. For what it’s worth, Taylor, the Greater Manchester official, has generally been seen to referee Liverpool well and without ego, despite inevitable local suspicions.
Liverpool have won more games against the two Manchester clubs than they have lost when Taylor is in the middle. He has given more penalties to Liverpool than he has any other side.
As Liverpool — and football — brace for another reveal, the wisdom of Brian Clough, who took Derby County and Nottingham Forest to the heights while affording referees utmost respect, seems more precious than ever.
‘What you do to referees is nothing short of criminal,’ Clough told the BBC’s John Motson in the late 1970s. ‘I’ve worked in your industry a little as a layman and I’ve looked at one of your machines 24 times and still couldn’t get the decision right.’ Different days.
A different class of manager.
Clattenburg likened the antics of Klopp to that of Sir Alex Ferguson but admitted the Scot had the grace to repent when his shouting was done
Brian Clough (right) took Derby County and Nottingham Forest to the heights while affording referees utmost respect
Football’s Common Goal
I have my kids to thank for driving home the message that the planet is burning and that the Valencia flood victims remembered in a few moments’ reflection before I watched Arsenal play in the San Siro last Wednesday died because of that.
So, amid the environmental catastrophe that the new Trump presidency represents, there was light last Thursday when the brilliant Common Goal organisation, through which sports stars such as Juan Mata have committed a percentage of their wages to the greater good, announced a project with UK-based sustainability non-profit, Football for Future, to help sports organisations on all corners of the globe be more sustainable.
They used football language to paint the picture. Since Pele lifted the 1970 World Cup, there has been, on average, almost a 70 per cent decline in the populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians.
Another Sunday night
The Manchester United fan who came strolling down our packed train as it skirted the Midlands on Sunday, proudly singing that ‘we all hate Leeds scum’, presumably considered himself a proud custodian of that great club.
The same kind of warped thinking that led him to embark on the antisemitic abuse of a passenger who wasn’t willing to give up his seat. To my shame, it was only when he tried to engage me in conversation, after five minutes or so, that I shared some thoughts on racists — proper scum — like him and tried to act.
The train manager, a diminutive and hugely impressive woman, had the fan ejected at the next station, though not before he punched the passenger he’d targeted.
A few of us have provided contact details which we hope will enable British Transport Police to prosecute. There’s been no call yet. Just another Sunday night on our rail network.
The Common Goal organisation, including stars such as Juan Mata, have announced a project with UK-based sustainability non-profit, Football for Future
Do players care enough now?
Amid more discussion of player ‘burnout’, it was 37 years on Monday since Mark Hughes played in two matches in two different countries, on the same day.
Following a full 90 minutes for Wales in Prague (a 2-0 defeat by Czechoslovakia), he flew to Munich to appear as a substitute for Bayern against Borussia Monchengladbach.
West Ham’s Frank McAvennie helped Scotland to qualify for the 1986 World Cup with a play-off win over Australia, boarded a flight straight to London, insisted on playing for West Ham at Loftus Road and promptly scored the winner.
Do players care enough to do that now?
