Jurgen Klopp was forced to rely on Google to find out Jose Mourinho’s position as a player after struggling to come up with a response when asked by a journalist ahead of Liverpool’s showdown with Tottenham.
The jibe, intended or not, came as part of a light-hearted discussion of who had been the better player during their careers on the field.
“Don’t blame me if you don’t know,” the German said, when asked what position Mourinho played. “Don’t say, ‘Klopp has no clue’. I think he was a goalkeeper. You can play in goal if you can’t walk any more in a charity game. I want to know! Google it! We have time.”
Mourinho’s father, Jose Manuel Mourinho Felix, was a goalkeeper with Vitoria Setubal and Belenenses, and made one international cap for Portugal.
The Tottenham boss failed to reach the same heights. He briefly played as a central midfielder in Portugal’s second tier, including at a club his father managed.
Klopp, in contrast, made a club record 325 appearances for Mainz in Germany’s lower leagues as a striker and defender. “I had fourth-division feet and a first-division head,” the Liverpool manager once said of his playing days.
The 52-year-old also ducked out of a question on whether Mourinho still posed the biggest managerial challenge in football. “He is a world-class manager with a specific mindset, I would say,” Klopp replied.
“He wants to win with all he has. I respect that a lot. That means each situation his team is in, he tries to use for his team.
“I don’t want to create headlines but I don’t remember that we played a game in the last two or three years that I thought ‘thank God it’s him as a manager and not somebody else’. It’s just tough against all of them for really different reasons.
“Are Tottenham my preferred opponent this weekend? Probably not but I am not sure anyone wants to play against us in the moment.”
And there was a glimpse of empathy for former Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino, too. “Two or three weeks before that we went to Milan (for The Best awards) and he was with me there,” Klopp said. “It just shows you how football can be.”
