Anfield said goodbye and thank you to a coach who reinvigorated the club, his impact going way beyond silverware
There was a game of football at Anfield on Sunday, and Liverpool, despite missing countless chances, as they have done consistently over the past couple of months, won it 2-0. But nobody seemed to care too much; even Gary O’Neil was restrained in his reaction to the video assistant referee intervening for Nelson Semedo’s yellow card to be upgraded to a red. It was only last week that Wolves called for the review system to be abolished: if you come at the VAR you’d best not miss.
But beneath a sky of perfect unbroken blue, this was not a day on which the game or the league table mattered; this was a day for saying goodbye, and saying thank you. “Danke Jürgen,” as the tifo running round two sides of the ground read, culminating with a heart on the Kop in the colours of the Germany flag. Liverpool knew that, whatever happened, they would finish third. That’s three places higher and, as it turned out, 20 points more than they had managed in 2014-15, the last full season before he took over, but the improvement he has wrought has been far greater than that, the outpouring of affection for him, expressed in the five-minute rendition of “I’m so glad Jürgen is a red” over the final whistle, entirely appropriate and understandable.
Written by Jonathan Wilson at Anfield
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/football/article/2024/may/19/jurgen-klopp-liverpool-anfield-elite under the title “Jürgen Klopp made Liverpool elite again after years of faded grandeur | Jonathan Wilson”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
