Jurgen Klopp’s achievements were only just beginning to warm up after his Liverpool victory in the 2019 UEFA Champions League finals.
The 2018–19 Premier League season saw Liverpool emerging second with 97 points, the 3rd highest total in the English top division history, and the most points by a team without having to win the title. The German relentlessly followed this up the next season with his second trophy for Liverpool, the 2019 UEFA Super Cup. And even as we are now trying to immortalize his still ongoing achievements in words for posterity, he and his juggernauts have already set a new Liverpool record for the longest unbeaten league run in the club’s history.
How did one man manage all this in just slightly over four years? It’s almost a monumental impossibility.
The Pruning
Any vineyard owner worth his mettle would know that trimming and pruning are key to the successful cultivation of grapes of the finest quality, all other factors and considerations having been met. It’s never the quantum but always the quality of the produce. The final product is the wine that flows from the barrels.
And prune the German certainly did. He had just inherited a massive squad when he took over at Liverpool. Without any second thoughts, he began by sheareing off no less than 30 players. This pruning exercise trimmed everything down to a controllable size easy to monitor, for one. Secondly, this generated more than enough cash reserves for Klopp to weave his wand in the transfer market to finance the acquisition of the right mix of players he was planning to mold into future European and World club champions of sustainable calibre.
The Philosophy & The Molding
Klopp still remembers the unenviable task he was settled with to turn things around when he first arrived on the Anfield scene. He knew even back then that it would take no less than four years or so to instill his special brand of philosophy into the club and the players. In the process, there would be the need to build and foster a unique culture involving each and every team member, a culture they would be proud to be an invariable and integral part of. From players to coaching staff, everyone had to be singleminded, striving continuously for excellence in all areas of endeavour despite all odds.
Finally because all the strategies are laid out, and played out, on the pitch in real battle formation, the process of molding the players into one formidable squad of football invincibles he was already incubating in his mind had to run in tandem.
Hence the Jurgen Klopp machinery of teambuilding steamrolled into action. The work had officially commenced.