Photo by ANP via Getty Images
Photo by ANP via Getty Images
Jurgen Klopp fittingly faced off against some of his former Liverpool players in his return to management this week, with Germany picking up a draw against the Netherlands.
The Nations League clash could have been a meeting of the Reds’ two Premier League-winning managers, after Arne Slot was in the frame to take the Oranje job over the summer. As it was, Klopp made do with facing Virgil van Dijk, Ryan Gravenberch and Cody Gakpo.
Gakpo was one of the game’s decisive players, scoring a late equaliser to hand Xavi a point in his first game in charge. The goal saw intense celebrations from the Dutch, with Gakpo revealing after the game that he and his teammates had been angered by Germany’s decision not to put the ball out of play while Brian Brobbey lay injured on the pitch earlier in the match.
Gakpo disappointed with Germany’s ‘unsportsmanlike’ moment
Klopp looked like he enjoyed meeting his former Liverpool charges on Thursday, greeting each of them individually and even spending some time with Van Dijk after the game had finished.
Nevertheless, things are rarely friendly when Germany and the Netherlands meet on the pitch, and that showed during the game itself.
The flashpoint came just after the half-hour mark, when Klopp’s team did not put the ball out for Brobbey to receive treatment. Felix Nmecha went on to score while the Sunderland man was stricken, and it has since emerged that he may have suffered a serious injury.
Netherlands players were clearly not happy as soon as the goal went in, with Gakpo speaking out after the game to slam what he saw as being ‘unsportsmanlike’ behaviour from Klopp’s team.
“In our opinion, that is unsportsmanlike,” he said to Dutch broadcaster NOS. “There is no rule for it, but I think it is normal to play the ball out of bounds when someone is lying on the ground. They decided not to do that; that was not sporting, which made things a bit more heated.”
Normally one to play fair and do the ‘right’ thing, the decision to play on will have been from Klopp’s players rather than the manager himself. Nevertheless, football has once again become a game for the ‘dark arts’ – in England especially – and it will be interesting to see whether the former Liverpool boss may have adopted a slightly different approach during his time off.