Jurgen Klopp was angry about reports linking him to Real Madrid. Photo: Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images
Jurgen Klopp was angry about reports linking him to Real Madrid. Photo: Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images
Thomas Müller, Jürgen Klopp and Mats Hummels who are part of the MagentaTV team for the World Cup.
Thomas Müller, Jürgen Klopp and Mats Hummels who are part of the MagentaTV team for the World Cup.
thumbnail: Jurgen Klopp was angry about reports linking him to Real Madrid. Photo: Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images
thumbnail: Thomas Müller, Jürgen Klopp and Mats Hummels who are part of the MagentaTV team for the World Cup.
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Jürgen Klopp, the former Liverpool manager, was angered by questions linking him to Real Madrid, saying speculation he would return to football management at the Santiago Bernabéu this summer is “nonsense”.
Klopp, 58, will be a World Cup pundit for Magenta TV in Germany this summer alongside German greats Thomas Müller and Mats Hummels, and at a press conference Klopp was not impressed by being asked about taking over from Real manager Álvaro Arbeloa.
Klopp said: “It’s good we’re talking about this. When is a story a story? When someone takes a sheet of paper and writes something on it? Or when there’s actually something to it? What does the situation have to be? That Real Madrid called me at some point and said: ‘Florentino Pérez on the phone! Jürgen, how are things?’
“Or is it enough if [people] − no idea whether it’s AI or written by people − write some rubbish? That annoys me. You need to show a bit of discipline there. It’s all just nonsense.’
He added that Madrid have “not called him once, not a single time” in his life, jokingly adding that: “I’ll take over at Atlético Madrid as well, preferably at the same time.”
Thomas Müller, Jürgen Klopp and Mats Hummels who are part of the MagentaTV team for the World Cup.
Thomas Müller, Jürgen Klopp and Mats Hummels who are part of the MagentaTV team for the World Cup.
Klopp left Anfield at the end of the 2023-24 season and is now head of global football with Red Bull, working with clubs such as RB Leipzig, RB Salzburg and New York Red Bulls. He was also angry when asked if he would be leaving Red Bull soon. Klopp said: “The same idiots wrote that. The reporter hasn’t got a clue. Everyone’s jumping on the bandwagon there too.”
Earlier this month, it was reported that Klopp’s presence at events such as the Winter Olympics rather than more high-profile matches with Red Bull’s stable of clubs had raised questions over his future.
Klopp was also asked about managing Germany’s national team, but said: “I’m not thinking about that at all at the moment. Who knows what the next few years will bring. But there are absolutely no plans in that regard.”
Klopp won the Champions League in 2019 before leading Liverpool to their first league title in 30 years in 2019-20. During his tenure he also lifted the FA Cup, two League Cups, the Uefa Super Cup and the Club World Cup.
He made it clear when he left Liverpool that he would not coach another Premier League side. “What I know definitely is that I will never, ever manage a different club in England than Liverpool, 100 per cent. That’s not possible,” he added.
Klopp previously managed in Germany with Mainz and Borussia Dortmund, where he won back-to-back Bundesliga titles in 2011 and 2012.