Jurgen Klopp serves as Liverpool manager for nine years and established himself in legendary status.
Jurgen Klopp’s agent has revealed how he has had to calm down the former Liverpool manager during his career when he ‘might have gone too far’ with owners.
Klopp has brought the curtain down on his coaching career, having spent time in charge of Mainz 05, Borussia Dortmund and Liverpool.
Serving in the Anfield hot seat for nine years, Klopp established himself in legendary status. He oversaw Liverpool’s return to the pinnacle of European football, winning seven major trophies. That included the Champions League in 2019 and the Premier League the following year.
The likes of Virgil van Dijk, Mo Salah, Alisson Becker Sadio Mane and more recently Dominik Szoboszlai and Alexis Mac Allister were signed while Klopp served as boss. But Marc Kosicke, Klopp’s long-time agent, suggested that the German did not always get his way when it came to transfers, although he did not specify whether that was at Liverpool, Dortmund or Mainz.
Speaking to Transfermrkt, Kosicke said: “We're very similar in how we deal with issues and people. Ages ago, Jürgen did an ad for Henkel's Metylan wallpaper paste. Things went terribly wrong. It was a truly awful and embarrassing commercial—and it was constantly playing. Jürgen called me one evening; he was in a Wolfsburg hotel at the time. He held the phone out to the crowd and asked: ‘Do you hear that? Everyone here is laughing their heads off at me. It's really awful, and I keep seeing that ad. Take it down!’
“I then used all my commissions from that deal to get a different commercial made so we could avoid this stress together. Other people also told me that the first ad was absolutely terrible. And it was. We were young and needed the money.”
On any other disagreements, Kosicke added: “In situations where he might have gone too far with the owners because he desperately wanted players they wouldn't give him, I stepped in and tried to mediate. Jürgen and I can have incredibly good arguments. They're brief moments, though. We're close friends, and if we disagree, we can work it out.”
After leaving Liverpool at the end of the 2023-24 season, Klopp revealed he does not plan to return to management. He returned to football, though when taking up the role as Red Bull head of global soccer.
It was a controversial decision in Germany as RB Leipzig, now a leading club in the Bundesglia, bypassed the “50+1" ownership rule. Leipzig were known as SSV Markranstadt and in the fifth tier when Red Bull purchased the club in 2009.
However, a call with Fenway Sports Group president Mike Gordon persuaded Klopp to take the role. Kosicke added: “Of course, we discussed the topic beforehand. I said to Jürgen: ‘You do realise that your popularity is likely to drop by 50 per cent, right?’
“I called his former owner, Mike Gordon of the Fenway Sports Group, and asked for his opinion. He thought Red Bull was fantastic and that it would be a perfect fit for Jürgen. Mike Gordon explained:
“There are eight billion people in the world, 80 million of them in Germany – including 30 million football fanatics, with perhaps one million fans from Dortmund and Mainz. Of those, a few hundred thousand are real hardcore fans and ultras. How many is that compared to the eight billion?
“Everywhere else in the world, Red Bull is viewed exclusively positively. That's why we shouldn't worry about it. That's how Jürgen and I saw it too. He said he stood behind it. Why should it diminish what he had achieved in Dortmund and Mainz? And if people saw it differently, that was their right.”
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