Dinner with Sir Alex Ferguson and a moving tribute from his players have already been parts of Jurgen Klopp’s farewell week.
Now the ‘emotional’ Liverpool boss needs to keep his composure as he plans to address a packed house at Anfield on Sunday after his last game in charge against Wolves.
Klopp had no hesitation in dining with Fergie after the legendary Manchester United manager requested a chance to personally bid him goodbye. ‘Outstanding,’ is how the German described the evening.
He was uncharacteristically quiet when Virgil van Dijk led the speeches for him on Thursday but Klopp knows he has to deliver the message of his life when he takes the microphone at full-time on the pitch on Sunday afternoon.
‘I was super-emotional in moments this week,’ he admitted.
‘The players said incredibly nice things about me and other staff who are leaving. I only made a joke here and there because if I’d started really to say what I thought, I would have gone emotionally. So I protected myself from that.’
In nine memorable years at Anfield, Klopp became the first manager in the club’s history to hoover up the Premier League, European Cup, FA Cup and League Cup. He also won the Club World Cup and UEFA Super Cup.
His trophy haul would have been greater than seven without having Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City as formidable rivals.
Klopp hailed Guardiola as the ‘best manager in the world,’ but is still keen to learn the outcome of the 115 charges facing City over alleged breach of Premier League financial rules.
‘Everybody would like to know. I would like to know but I will be somewhere else,’ he said.
‘Whatever has happened at Manchester City, Pep Guardiola is the best manager in the world — and that is really important.
‘If you put any other manager in that club, they don’t get to win the league four times in a row. That’s down to him and his boys.
‘Does that mean they can do what they want? No. But I don’t know what they did — if they did anything — and I’m not here to say they have. We will see.’
Klopp’s last sabbatical after leaving Borussia Dortmund in 2015 lasted only five months before he arrived on Merseyside to take the Liverpool job. But he says this time will be different. ‘This will be a long break, 100 per cent,’ he confirmed.
‘It might be it. Definitely my time in England is over because I will not coach another team here. It means a big part of my life is now over.’
