Jurgen Klopp has detailed the biggest surprise to him upon taking over as Liverpool manager in 2015, praising the supporters and people of Merseyside in the process.
Klopp marks six years as Liverpool manager on Friday, with the boss reflecting on his time with the club so far in an exclusive interview with This Is Anfield.
The German has taken to life at Anfield in perfect fashion, bringing the silverware back to Merseyside in the process, winning the Premier League, Champions League, Club World Cup and UEFA Super Cup so far.
It has been a long and impressive career for Klopp, who went from player one day to manager the next at Mainz, before boosting his reputation at Dortmund and then moving on to Liverpool.
While it may have been considered a step up, the 54-year-old has admitted he was not quite prepared for the size of the club, along with the warmth of the fans.
“The passion. I knew about it, but not the extent of it. So the love for the club,” he told This Is Anfield, when asked about the thing that surprised him the most.
“Liverpool FC is obviously a massive club, a worldwide brand and stuff like this, but inside we are really small – in a good way. So really together.
“At Mainz I was a player and then a coach, so I never had to change anything.
“I could wear the same clothes, nobody asked me to behave like I’m the manager, it was just the day before I was a player, so why should I change? That was pretty easy-going.
“Then I went to Dortmund and thought I had to change, big club, stuff like this.
“In the beginning, I wore jeans and a shirt on the sidelines, just because I thought you cannot run around constantly like a tramp or whatever, wearing a tracksuit.
“After four or five games I thought ‘come on, it’s all fine, go back to the tracksuit’.
“Then you come to Liverpool and you start thinking again that’s the case. But I was obviously already grown-up, matured, and didn’t have to change again.
“So that’s really nice, that you can be who you are, how you are, or can stay who you are, how you are, in such a massive club.
“It was a surprise about that, maybe not a surprise, so [I was] really pleased.”
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