Former Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp admitted that he is unlikely to return to any club’s dugout but couldn’t promise to have the same opinion in a few years’ time.
The revered tactician ended a near nine-year spell on Merseyside in the summer of 2024, citing fatigue after more than two decades of almost uninterrupted management positions at Mainz, Borussia Dortmund and then Liverpool.
Klopp never claimed that he was retiring, although his appointment as Red Bull’s global head of soccer came as something of a surprise. The Champions League-winning coach has been repeatedly linked with several top-flight positions, most notably last April when he was tipped to replace Carlo Ancelotti at Real Madrid.
That always unlikely scenario never came to pass and Klopp has done his best to quash any future speculation early. “I don’t want to work as a coach anymore,” Klopp emphatically told The Athletic. When pushed on the definitive nature of that statement, the German provided himself with some wiggle room.
“That’s what I think,” he clarified. “But you don’t know. I’m 58. If I started again at 65, everybody will say, ‘You said you’ll never do it again!’ Er, sorry, I thought 100% (when I said it)! That is what I think now. I don’t miss anything.”
Jürgen Klopp ➡️ Red Bull! 🪽@jacob_culshaw reveals the real reason why the ex-Liverpool manager joined the sporting giants. 👀 pic.twitter.com/dtEmUOGatl
— Sports Illustrated FC (@SI_FootballClub) October 9, 2024
Reflecting on his decision to step down—which was announced to widespread astonishment in January 2024—Klopp outlined: “I finished at Liverpool at 57. I was 100% certain and sure that I will not finish working. I had a break for seven months or so. I enjoyed it—wow!”
“The thought was not that I would do this until the end of my life,” Klopp explained. He pledged to go “25 years at full throttle without looking left and right” when he took on his first managerial role at Mainz in 2001.
“I missed nothing in my life because I never thought about it. So during almost 25 years, I twice went to a wedding—one of them was mine and the other one was two months ago. In 25 years, I have been four times at the cinema—all in the last eight weeks. It’s now nice to be able to do it.
“I was in so many different countries as a coach and I saw nothing of them; just the hotel, the stadium or the training ground. Nothing else. I did not miss it, but I would now.”
Klopp Aims Sly Dig at Man Utd
It’s been almost a year and a half since Klopp last came up against Manchester United, but the bitterness towards Liverpool’s historic northern rivals still persists.
In his role as Red Bull’s nebulous footballing advisor, Klopp oversees operations at a glut of clubs, stretching from Bundesliga outfit RB Leipzig and Austrian giants FC Salzburg to freshly promoted French side Paris FC. Recruitment is carried out with an eye on selling these players on for an inflated fee at a later date—a system which Klopp took advantage of at Liverpool by buying the likes of Ibrahima Konaté, Dominik Szoboszlai and Naby Keïta.
“We are not the final destination,” Klopp explained. “We are not Liverpool... or in former times Man Utd!” he added with a hearty chuckle. “You can write that if you want.”
Klopp would have indirectly come into contact with United over the summer transfer window. The vastly experienced operator revealed that he was “involved in a lot” with RB Leipzig’s transfer dealings this year, the most high profile of which saw Benjamin Šeško sold to Manchester United for a fee which could rise to €85 million (£74.2 million, $99.7 million).
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as ‘I Thought 100%’—Jurgen Klopp Speaks Out on Potential Managerial Return.
