Jurgen Klopp has shared his hope that he has created a culture at Liverpool FC that will sustain beyond his departure at the end of this season.
The German is set to bring a trophy-laden eight-and-a-half-year stint at Anfield to a close this summer in order to take a break from football.
And he is set to come up against a similarly long-serving coach in the Europa League on Thursday when the Reds host Atalanta in the first leg of the sides’ quarter-final tie.
The Italians’ boss, Gian Piero Gasperini, is closing on his eighth year in post, a feat that Klopp has been understandably impressed by.
When asked what kind of legacy managers can leave when given such time to work, he replied: “It’s pretty rare. What Gasperini did at Atalanta and that I’m here that long is not that common, I know that.
“I think you have to leave the club in a better status than it was when you arrived, you have to try that.
“We tried to do that by creating a culture, by creating an understanding and by creating a mentality inside the club.
“It is independent of the manager or the head coach, it’s just how you deal with specific parts of the club, and that’s what we did.
“The rest is just results, maybe trophies, maybe not trophies. I hope what you leave is a culture, and I’m pretty sure that is what [Gasperini] is doing as well.”
Klopp will leave the club in a strong position on and off the pitch ready for the next manager to pick up from where he left off and build on it, it is his legacy and one that has always been on his mind.
In his first press conference as Liverpool manager in 2015, he said: “It’s not so important what people think when you come in. It’s much more important what people think when you leave.”
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