Jurgen Klopp has admitted he loves the thrill of football management - but confessed he thought he would enjoy such a sustained career within the game after being made appointed Mainz 05 manager in 2001.
Saturday's Premier League encounter with Chelsea will see the Liverpool boss reach the incredible milestone of 1,000 games in the profession, having managed Mainz, Borussia Dortmund and Liverpool during his 22-year career.
Speaking ahead of the Reds' clash with Graham Potter's side, Klopp was asked what his message to his younger self would be now he has accumulated a lifetime's worth of wisdom in the game.
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"From this standpoint today, the easy thing [to say] would have been 'don't worry it will be fine'," Klopp told reporters at Kirkby on Friday lunchtime. "I didn't know that I wanted to do the job for the rest of my life, and how this job is. I think from the first seven games, I don't know exactly, I think we won six.
"If we would have lost one more we would have been relegated. If you win five from the first seven, that is an outstanding number, nobody would have recognised it and you would have gone down to the third league at the time, and a pretty promising coaching career would have been finished before it would have really started. I was lucky that didn't happen.
"The problems I had at that time are completely different to the situation I have today. The job I do today is completely different. But I would [say], be open, work hard, be curious, nosey, look around the corners and try to find solutions for problems you don't have at the moment, but you will have in the future. These kind of things. But most importantly, be busy, learn the game."
He added: "Coaching is the same as golf, when you think you have got it the game will tell you differently. You always have to develop and that's what I like most about it - it was not for one second boring. Obviously that's the best thing you can say about your working life. The best thing I can imagine to do, so that's how it is."
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