As Liverpool await the beginning of the 2016-17 season at Arsenal on Sunday, Jürgen Klopp speaks philosophically of his desire for this campaign to be talked about in 50 years’ time.
A trip to the Emirates is on the cards for the Reds and should victory come Liverpool’s way it will go a long way to helping Klopp make this season a domestically successful one for the club.
The whole country, and indeed the world, are ready for what promises to be one of the most exciting Premier League seasons in recent memory. Klopp agrees with this and hopes that it’s the Reds who are remembered:
When questioned by Liverpoolfc.com at Melwood as to what his his main desire for the upcoming season is, the German replied: “A positive, remarkable season.
“Hopefully this planet will still work for another two or three million years and in 50 or 60 years, somebody looks back and says that this season, 16-17, was a really wonderful season, ‘we played this, we won this’ and all that stuff.
“That’s what I want because that is what life is for – and especially a football life is for.
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“If you have a season that at the end of it everybody wants to forget it in a second then for sure a few things went wrong.
“I want that in the next summer break, we look back at this season with big smiles on our faces.”
That’s quite a philosophic response from a football manager but such is the norm with Jürgen Klopp and very few people expect less from a man whose footballing doctrine took Borussia Dortmund from mid-table in the Bundesliga to the heights of European football. Liverpool fans are hoping and praying for much of the same in the coming years from Klopp.
“That’s what we always want – learning in life and developing in football never ends,” continued Klopp. “Even when you are 35, you have space to develop if you want, or you can use your experience better than you did before.
“It’s a big, big aim for us to really make a step in the right direction – together and individually as players. That’s what they need to do and my job is to help them as good as I can so that everybody can see.
“If after a game, only I am satisfied then it is better than nobody being satisfied but it’s not enough. We need to show that we work together, we need to show that we have improved and we need to show that we will still improve. All together.
“The start of the season, big expectations from every side and each team has their own expectations, so it’s exciting. That you don’t know for sure what will happen makes it even more exciting, so all good!”
‘Excited’ – or a variable of the adjective – is a word Klopp repeats on several occasions throughout the interview with Liverpoolfc.com at the club’s training complex.
It offers an insight into the 49-year-old’s mindset as he gears up to watch his Reds side put all the hard work amassed over the last six weeks into action at Emirates Stadium.
“I don’t know exactly how excited our fans are, but of course we’re very excited,” continued Klopp.
“Pre-season is a very important part of the season, but it’s ‘pre’ so everything we do is done to be perfectly prepared for the season.
“I would say pre-season in this specific year with the European Championship, and maybe one or two need a little bit more time to make them strong and fit enough, but we’ve had a lot of players in training over the last few weeks and [it meant we] could do a lot.
“We feel as well prepared as possible and that means, yes, we’re looking forward to the season.”