Liverpool reminds of Dortmund: Why Klopp is still a good coach

At the start of the season, Liverpool appear to be on the way to defending their title. But then coach Jürgen Klopp breaks away one high performer after the other, and the crisis grows out of hand. Memories come back to his last season at Borussia Dortmund.

After the Champions League final in 2013, the frenzy in Dortmund had gradually subsided. Bayern, now trained by Pep Guardiola, were simply too dominant. There was a hangover mood in the 2014/15 season. After Mario Götze, BVB had also lost Robert Lewandowski to the competitor. At halftime of the series, Borussia was penultimate, of the 17 games they had only won four. Almost more frightening: the team had only scored 18 goals. Thanks to a strong second half of the season, in which BVB scored more than twice as many points as in the first half of the season, the team was able to work their way up from 17th to seventh place.

The black and yellow ensemble presented themselves too often exhausted and lacking in ideas in Klopp’s last season. Had Klopp’s breathless and fast-paced football and the relentless game against the ball taken too much strength? Was the course of the 2014/15 season perhaps the price for the grueling “full throttle football” of recent years, for the 2011 championship, the “double” in 2012 and the grandiose European evenings that the team gave their fans – especially in the 2012 season / 13 – had brought?

Borussia’s post-2013 problem was not just about Bayern’s recovery and the departures of Götze, Lewandowski and Shinji Kagawa. The squad was also weakened by injuries. The unfortunate injuries could not be compensated with the available squad. In the 2013/14 season, BVB was missing the entire back four at times, which is why they had to sign the 34-year-old Manuel Friedrich, who kept fit with the regional division Rot-Weiß Oberhausen. The seeded central defenders Neven Subotic and Mats Hummels only made ten and 24 appearances respectively. İlkay Gündoğan only appeared once due to an injury. BVB was plagued by failures again and again in the 2014/15 season. It was also the first season without the goal guarantor Lewandowski, the Italian Ciro Immobile could not replace him.

Getting the maximum out of it

The successes in the Klopp era were not a matter of course. Even in the two seasons in which FC Bayern had a sporting crisis and BVB had to give way in the championship award, the record champions were equipped with more individual class than the challenger. In the black and yellow “double” season 2011/12 Bayern had players like the eventual world champions Neuer, Kroos, Boateng, Lahm, Schweinsteiger and Müller in their ranks, as well as Ribéry, Robben and Gustavo. At BVB, Marcel Schmelzer and Lukasz Piszczek defended the outside positions for years. Players who do not necessarily belong in the “international class” category. As little as Kevin Großkreutz.

Borussia did not become champions because they had more excellent footballers under contract than Bayern. BVB relied on their coach to make the players better, to get everything out of them and not to have any of the top performers for longer. It was also possible to take the league by surprise with a soccer ball (“counter-pressing”) that it was not yet familiar with. But it was also clear that the hegemony was a temporary project. Bayern upgraded – at the expense of BVB. A Robert Lewandowski could not be replaced – and from then on he scored for Bayern. When BVB also suffered bad luck with injuries, it was clear that Bayern could no longer meet at eye level.

Unusual weakness at home

In the 2020/21 season, Liverpool FC was initially on course to defend its title. Liverpool’s record of the first 14 games: nine wins, one defeat, four draws. On matchday 14, the “Reds” won 7-0 at Crystal Palace. Liverpool led the way, four points ahead of Leicester City, five ahead of Manchester United and even eight ahead of Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City. However, United and City had played one game less. And the “Reds” didn’t seem as confident as in the first half of the 2019/20 season. At that time, the team won 13 of their first 14 games, one game ended in a draw.

After the victory at Palace, things went downhill. Of the following 14 games, Liverpool only won three. Eight games were lost, three times it was only enough to draw. In the first 14 games, the “Reds” scored 36 goals, in the following 14 only eleven. Liverpool’s weakness at home is particularly noticeable. In the 2018/19 and 2019/20 seasons they remained unbeaten at home: 17 wins, two draws 2018/19, 18 wins one draw 2019/20. This season, six of the 14 home games so far have been lost. You lost only three times away. At home they got 23 points from 15 matches, away from 14 also 23 points.

There is obviously no home advantage for the “Reds”. Liverpool FC may suffer from the pandemic-related exclusion of the public more than other clubs. The interaction with the audience, which is so important for Klopp’s Liverpool, is missing. The situation is similar to that in Dortmund: The “Reds” are a team where everything has to be right, really everything, so that you are at the top.

Entrepreneurs versus patrons

Since Klopp’s arrival during the 2016-17 season, Liverpool have spent significantly less money on new players than Manchester City, Manchester United and Chelsea. Liverpool spent approx. 560 million euros on reinforcements in the period from 2016/17 to 2020/21, City approx. 845 million, Chelsea approx. 835 million and United approx. 770. In the Bundesliga it looked similar at the time: The In the period from 2009/10 to 2014/15, BVB invested a good 160 million euros in new players, FC Bayern around 315. The difference becomes even clearer if you only compare the seasons 2009/10 to 2012/13: BVB approx. 53 million euros, FC Bayern approx. 212 million euros

Liverpool works differently than the City and Chelsea, which are fed by a sheikh or an oligarch. Liverpool is a sports company. When the Fenway Sports Group (FSG), owner of Liverpool FC, identified Jürgen Klopp as the preferred candidate for the Liverpool job, they did not let themselves be confused by his last BVB season. The FSG had set up an analysis department at Liverpool FC – based on the model of their baseball team, the Boston Red Sox. This came to the conclusion that Jürgen Klopp is a trainer who constantly exceeds expectations with his cadres. Klopp makes players, makes teams better. And his last season in Dortmund?

In terms of scoring chances, his Borussia should have finished second and would have been the fourth best team in Europe. Klopp simply coached one of the most unfortunate teams in recent football history. Patrick Bauer, the man of data at the Academy of the German Football Association: “If you watch a single game, it is clear to everyone that luck and bad luck play a role. That is why the expressions’ deserved victory ‘or’ undeserved victory ‘established. ” The data-based, objectified evaluation of the last Klopp season in Dortmund “could have eradicated the last doubts at Liverpool about a commitment from Klopp.”

Klopp is the ideal coach for a club that wants to play with the big players in the industry but does not have the financial resources of Manchester United, Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain or Real Madrid. Carlo Ancelotti, who has won the Champions League three times with AC Milan and Real Madrid, also presented himself in Anfield. Ancelotti wanted to solve Liverpool’s problems by signing three absolute top stars – one each for defense, midfield and attack. The decision in favor of Klopp was also made because he was able to meet another, central requirement: In Dortmund, the trainer had demonstrated how a unity can be established between the audience and the team, how both can drive each other to peak performance.

Liverpool’s bad luck with injuries

Liverpool’s squad is strong, but the Manchester City ensemble’s individual class is stronger. Especially in depth. In the summer of 2019/20 Liverpool only spent a good 10 million euros on new players – negligibly little by English standards. Before the 2020/21 season there were around 80 million. The most expensive new acquisition was with 44.7 million left winger Diogo Jota (24) from Wolverhampton Wanderers, followed by Thiago (29), whom Bayern let go for 22 million.

Of the players who made it to the 2018 Champions League final, eight are still part of the regular formation today. That means some players are overused. Virgil van Dijk, one of the world-class players wearing the “Reds” jersey, played 100 competitive games for the club in the 2018/19 and 2019/20 seasons. There were also 13 international matches for the Netherlands.

Liverpool started the current season with three central defenders who were competition-tested at the highest level: van Dijk (29), Joe Gomez (23) and Joel Matip (29). The central defender arsenal was completed by Ozan Kabak (20, on loan from Schalke), Rhys Williams (20, own youth), who gained playing experience with sixth division Kidderminster in the 2019/20 season, and Nathaniel Phillips, who is now at VfB Stuttgart had borrowed. At other clubs, the second row is more experienced. And the first row?

For Gomez it was over after the 8th matchday or seven missions – his patellar tendon pinched him. Matip played for the last time on matchday 20 – then an ankle injury paralyzed him. Not his first injury this season, which is why he had only played ten games so far. Van Dijk only appeared in the first five games. On Matchday 5, the head of the Liverpool defense suffered a cruciate ligament rupture in the derby against Everton. The trio only played 22 of 84 possible games in the Premier League.

Midfielders who were now missing in midfield had to help out – with an impact on the tectonics of the game, which was jerky. In the 1: 4 against City Fabinho and Henderson defended centrally.

Klopp is great

What does that tell us? Above all, one thing: what a great coach Jürgen Klopp is. And that Liverpool FC brought in exactly the right man in 2016. What even a messed up 2020/21 season won’t change. The fact that BVB became champions in 2011 and 2012 and reached the final of the Champions League in 2013 was not a matter of course. The fact that Liverpool were in the Champions League final in 2018 and 2019, won the pot in the second attempt and a year later in the championship also did not triumph. In this list, the skin-tight head-to-head race between Liverpool and City in the 2018/19 season should not be missing – when Liverpool lost only one of 38 games and still had to be satisfied with the runner-up.

BVB is not Bayern Munich, Liverpool FC is not Manchester City. But thanks to their coach and clever management, the black-yellows and the reds were temporarily able to relegate their wealthier competitors to second place. That is perhaps the greatest thing a coach can achieve.