Sunday’s victory perfectly encapsulated Jurgen Klopp’s eight and a half years at Liverpool.
It was dramatic, emotion-filled, spirited — and it had a memorable goal to seal the win.
“In more than 20 years (of management), this is easily the most special trophy I have ever won. It’s exceptional,” Klopp said after his side had beaten Chelsea 1-0 in the Carabao Cup final. “It is a night I will never forget. If nobody else sees it like that, no problem — but for me, it’s a really nice memory forever.”
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Liverpool are in a strong position to add more trophies to their cabinet this season, but rival fans have often scoffed when counting Klopp’s haul of silverware, deeming it modest for a lauded manager.
Those people might want to reassess their stance.
Klopp has transformed Liverpool’s fortunes, rebuilding them into one of the strongest clubs in European football following years in the wilderness. There were glimmers of light in the early 2010s, with a League Cup victory under Kenny Dalglish (2011-12) and a title push under Brendan Rodgers (2013-14), but the club had only finished in the top four once in the six seasons before Klopp’s arrival.
As you can see below, Liverpool’s team strength — indicated by ClubElo’s rating system, which allocates teams points for every result weighted by the quality of the opposition faced — was typical of a Europa League side when Klopp was appointed in October 2015.
Despite last season’s struggles, he will leave a club who are shining as brightly as ever.
If you did want to throw the “show us your silverware” card in Klopp’s direction, the German has won the Premier League, Champions League, European Super Cup, Club World Cup, Carabao Cup (twice) and the FA Cup.
If he wins the Europa League this season, he will have led Liverpool to victory in every competition he has competed in. Even if Liverpool don’t win any further trophies by the summer, Klopp’s reign should be seen as one of the most successful periods in Liverpool’s history.
Silverware punctuates success, it does not define it.
The same is true across all sports, as Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo outlined after his side crashed out of the NBA play-offs in 2022-23.
“There is no failure in sports. There’s good days, bad days,” Antetokounmpo said.
“Some days you’re able to be successful, some days you’re not — and that’s what sports is about. You don’t always win.”
A Bucks season with championship aspirations came to a premature end on Wednesday night.
So was it a failure? @eric_nehm asked a passionate Giannis Antetokounmpo after the loss.
🎥 @NBAonTNTpic.twitter.com/2XyQEmyBTx
— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) April 27, 2023
Statistically, the probability of writing your name on every trophy you compete for is near zero, but Klopp’s Liverpool came within touching distance of an unprecedented quadruple in 2021-22.
In a parallel universe, Aston Villa held onto their 2-0 lead against Manchester City for another 14 minutes to allow Liverpool to clinch the title on the final day of the season. Or the capricious xG gods chose to shine on Klopp’s side in Paris just days later, where an inspired Thibaut Courtois performance prevented Liverpool from winning a seventh European Cup/Champions League final.
They did not win those two major trophies, but would you argue that the 2021-22 season was a failure?
The margins are paper thin at the elite level and Liverpool have fallen on the wrong side of the line on multiple occasions during Klopp’s tenure — as he said when telling the world he was leaving.
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“Do you really think with one more player — a different player — we would have had a point more than when we reached 97 points?” he asked.
“I don’t know how that goes, players are not that influential, scoring in the right moment — it was about 11 millimetres here or 15 millimetres there. That’s life. We had so many good things, if you want to remember them, remember them. I will forever, I will cherish that 100 per cent.”
Liverpool’s tally of 97 points in 2018-19 is the most by any team not to win an English top-flight title — and a higher total than 25 of the 28 title-winning campaigns across the 38-game Premier League era.
Before that season, no team had accrued 90-plus points in a season without winning the title. In the past five seasons, Liverpool have the unwanted record of doing that twice — with their 92-point haul in 2021-22 more than 22 of the 28 Premier League title-winning seasons, despite finishing second.
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Of course, sandwiched between those campaigns was Liverpool’s 2019-20 title-winning season that did not crawl to the finishing line but — in typical Klopp fashion — sprinted to a record-breaking victory.
Liverpool sealed the title after playing just 31 matches, which was the earliest in top-flight history. A winning run of 18 league games along the way saw them equal a record in the top division.
Klopp had built a machine that was a picture of consistency. No side in England’s first division has won more games in a single season than Liverpool’s 32 during that 2019-20 season.
Oh, you want some more records?
Spanned across the 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons, Liverpool became the first English top-flight team to take 110 points from a run of 38 league games. One hundred and ten. Klopp holds the club record for the longest unbeaten run in league games — 44 in total between January 2019 and February 2020.
The obvious sky-blue elephant in the room is that Klopp’s reign was in tandem with a Pep Guardiola era that has turned Manchester City into a footballing monster. The rivalry between Klopp and Guardiola has pushed both managers to levels that neither would have reached without the other.
“We cannot define our period together here without him,” Guardiola said last month. “We cannot define our period without Liverpool. It’s impossible. They’ve been our biggest rival and he’s been the best rival I’ve ever had.”
The numbers support the theory, too. Guardiola has the best points-per-game rate (2.3) of any manager in the Premier League era (minimum 50 games), ahead of Manchester United’s Sir Alex Ferguson (2.2). The man in third place? Klopp, with 2.1 points per game.
For context, that is better than Arsene Wenger, Jose Mourinho, Roberto Mancini, and any other title-winning manager in the past 30 years.
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Sure, a manager’s points-per-game rate or win ratio can typically be devoid of context, but it is similarly difficult to ignore just how impressive Klopp’s record is when you span it over Liverpool’s history.
Where teams could afford to draw or lose a smattering of league games and still go on to win the title, the dominance of a few teams in the modern era dictates that near-perfection is the only way to get your hands on silverware.
For long periods during Klopp’s nine years in charge, his side rose to the challenge. In an era where the margin for error is paper thin, Klopp’s record speaks for itself when compared with all those before him.
Beyond the discussion of trophies, the impact Klopp has had on the style of English football cannot be overstated.
Yes, we know that players sprinted before Klopp graced the Premier League, but it is no coincidence that the increased intensity of modern football correlated with the German’s arrival in 2015.
High-octane, relentless pressing has been the foundation of Liverpool’s success — there is a reason the phrase “our identity is intensity” is written on the walls of their training ground.
When looking at the volume of high regains per game and passes per defensive action (PPDA) — as a proxy of pressing intensity — since 2014-15, Liverpool have fallen below the sample average on either metric only once and that was the season before Klopp arrived.
Klopp has created a legacy, not just at the club but across the English football pyramid. Does that fill him with pride?
“I couldn’t care less about my legacy,” he told The Athletic after the game. “I’m not here to create one. As the manager of a football club, you’re there to do the job. We learned so much in that time.
“It’s not a problem if the manager leaves, but if our supporters would leave, that would be a problem. As long as they are the way they are, Liverpool Football Club will be fine. From time to time, you need to really celebrate — and this (trophy win) was so special.”
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Bill Shankly’s statue has stood behind the Kop since 1997 and is a reminder of the foundations that Liverpool’s success has been built upon. Beneath the statue reads a single sentence. It does not list the Scotsman’s first top-flight league title in 1964 or his final FA Cup victory 10 years later.
It simply reads: “He made the people happy.”
The parallels with the joy that Klopp has brought to the city are what will also immortalise him in Liverpool’s history — irrespective of the number of trophies he wins.
(Top photo: Robin Jones/Getty Images)