Liverpool’s new German manager Jurgen Klopp (C) poses on the pitch next to Liverpool’s chairman Tom Werner (R) and managing director Ian Ayre (L) after a press conference to announce his new appointment at Anfield in Liverpool on Friday. (AFP)

By Daniel Taylor/The Guardian


The last manager to describe himself as the Normal One was Avram Grant when he replaced José Mourinho at Chelsea in 2007.
Grant lasted eight months, never dispelled the suspicion he landed the job only because of his friendship with Roman Abramovich and subsequently admitted his players had never believed in him. Jurgen Klopp will hope to leave a more favourable impression at Liverpool or it is quite conceivable, as he admitted with one of those disarming smiles, his next job may be somewhere in Switzerland.
Klopp, of course, is more than just a normal bloke, however unpretentious and grounded he seems compared to others inside the football bubble, and his introductory press conference included mentions of his mum, heavy metal, one playful moment where he jabbed a finger at the nearest photographer and asked him to stop clicking, a grinning request to the newspaper journalists to show they were kinder than he had heard and, more than anything, the clear sense that this tall, relaxed guy in his black blazer, Levi jeans and leather boots is a good fit for English football. The first impressions were exactly as you might expect: nobody can be sure whether Klopp will deliver with his aim of “one title” inside four years but it is going to be a lot of fun finding out.
“I watch from outside,” Klopp said from a quieter room inside the Centenary Stand, once all the cameras were off and he could pause for a moment.
“They [the fans] seem to be a little bit nervous. The atmosphere in the stadium is good but nobody is really enjoying themselves. It’s never good enough. You are winning and then you hear: ‘Well, the defence is a problem.’ That is what I mean when I say we have to restart. It is very important that we make it all closer.
“We need to be closer with all the staff, the fans. It is important they don’t think: ‘These are the good-paid guys, we are the fans.’
“This is the craziest situation I have ever been in – all the photographs, this big trouble [the press conference]. This is not what I want. I want to work with the team. But this is part of the deal. So we do this today, then let’s start to work with the team. I am not the guy who is going to go out and shout: ‘We are going to conquer the world!’ or something like this. But we will conquer the ball, yeah, each fucking time! We will chase the ball, we will run more, fight more [jabs finger on table].
“We will work better together. We will have better organisation in defence than the other teams. We have to find our own way to play. Our performances have to be enjoyable for ourselves. I don’t want to tackle too rough but if there is a tackle that is legal, a good tackle that gets the ball, it’s like a goal, if you want? Yeeaaah! [punches air] The players have to get the feeling that, I don’t know, they can dive into the game. What I want is to be a real special team.”
These are the kind of statements that will endear the German – “a normal guy from the Black Forest,” he said, “I am the Normal One” – to his new fan-base in a city where the Liverpool Echo’s splash was “Klopp Mania” and the back page had his surname superimposed over the sign for the Kop.
His message for the supporters was to “stop being doubters and become believers”. He seemed bemused by any suggestion there would be a potential issue with Liverpool’s transfer committee, explaining that he had “the first and the last word” and that it had not troubled him for even 10 seconds, and there was certainly no need for him to apologise for his English. Klopp spoke with great clarity, cliche-free apart from one reference to the club’s “football family”, and everything he said was backed up by the kind of full-beam smile that Brendan Rodgers had spent a lot of money on trying to replicate. With Rodgers it felt like a media-trained act at times; with Klopp, there was just the sense he was entirely comfortable in his own skin.
Klopp wanted us to know he was a “football romantic”, someone who “loves the stories and the history” and who was photographed touching the “This is Anfield” sign when he visited the stadium as manager of Borussia Dortmund.
Yet he also made the point that a club’s history can eventually become like lugging around a backpack, and in Liverpool’s case one that sometimes feels like it weighs 20 kilos.
His new club have gone a quarter of a century since their last league championship.
“A long time,” Klopp reflected. “I want to see the first step next week, not always compare with other times.”
Later, he spoke to a smaller group of football writers in Room 7, named after Kenny Dalglish and the other wearers of Liverpool’s most famous number, in a stand lined with pictures of Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley et al. Klopp had already been asked by that stage if he wanted to join the cast of legends at Anfield.
“I don’t compare myself with these genius managers from the past,” he replied.
“It is cool you are looking forward to working with me but none of these great managers said in his first press conference: ‘My target is I want to be a legend.’”
He was completely right: legendary status is attained through trophies not talking. Yet Klopp, one imagines, has already seduced Liverpool’s supporters.
His last line at Dortmund, he explained, was “it’s not so important what they think when you come in, it’s much more important what people think when you leave”. Yet first impressions are important, too, and Klopp Mania may be here to stay.