"Nobody has to say thank you to me" — that's Jurgen Klopp, speaking on Peter Crouch's podcast this week, and it tells you everything about why Liverpool fans still light up when they see him.
Two years on from his departure in May 2024, the man who delivered the club's first league title in 30 years and a Champions League in 2019 still sounds like he's processing just how much the whole thing meant. Not with regret. With something closer to disbelief at his own luck.
"I have to say thank you for the exact same reasons," Klopp explained. "It just was our life." That's not false modesty. That's a manager who genuinely believes the supporters were part of the team — and his record backs it up. Anfield under Klopp was one of the most hostile home environments in Europe. That doesn't happen without a fanbase that's been brought in, not just entertained.
Nine years that still hold up
The trophies are well-documented. But what Klopp keeps coming back to isn't the silverware — it's the connection. He recently returned to Anfield for the Liverpool Legends vs Borussia Dortmund charity match and got a standing ovation. He's now head of global soccer at Red Bull, technically moved on, but the crowd reacted like he'd never left.
He told Crouch about a kid at the Anfield Community Centre, maybe ten years old, who told him: "I love you more than my dad." Klopp's point? That child wasn't even born when he arrived in October 2015. The legacy isn't just in the memory of fans who watched the 2020 title run — it's been passed down.
He was also candid about what he didn't get to see. "I would have loved to have played a full season with Philippe Coutinho, Bobby Firmino, Sadio and Mo. Wow." Coutinho's January 2018 exit to Barcelona ended that experiment almost before it started. Those few games together were enough for Klopp to know what could have been — and everyone does know what happened instead: Salah, Mané and Firmino became one of the most devastating front threes in Premier League history without Coutinho.
Time was the key ingredient
Klopp is clear that none of it would have happened without patience from the club. "Nobody gives you time" in football, he said — but Liverpool did, and he repaid it. He came in when the club were drawing at home to West Brom and celebrating it. He left having won every major trophy available.
For a club that spent most of the 1990s and 2000s watching rivals collect titles, that timeline matters more than any single piece of silverware. The rebuild was gradual, funded by smart sales and reinvested step by step. It's a model Arne Slot inherited — and the shadow Klopp cast over Anfield makes the comparison an occupational hazard for his successor.
"Nobody can think back to these nine years without a smile on their face," Klopp said. Hard to argue with that.
