As he left the podium after Liverpool’s pre-match press conference on Wednesday, Jurgen Klopp turned to the club’s press officer and asked, “What’s next?”
What’s next is the questions that preoccupies every manager at every football club, but maybe more so at Liverpool where there is always the expectation that more is to come and an attendant disappointment if it doesn’t materialise.
This week, Jurgen Klopp has to do it again. Liverpool’s last-minute defeat in the first leg at Villarreal last week revealed something more than just a scoreline. “Liverpool is the most emotional club in the world,” one local journalist said on Wednesday.
In his pre-match press conference, Klopp had to repeat again the hoary old line that it was only half-time, that there is a second leg at Anfield to come and he expects more from his team, especially if they channel the spirit that was present in the second leg against Borussia Dortmund.
That was Klopp’s job on Wednesday, to be the counterpoint to the reaction since the first leg loss, as well as the feeble defeat against Swansea at the weekend.
“It was not the best moment in my life, but it was a normal result” Klopp said of the game in Spain. “Nothing happened and we have the second half of the semi-final.” He was satisfied with the first leg performance he said, but now he will need Anfield to summon its old energies.
This has been a low-key build up. The press conference on Wednesday took place at the club’s training ground in Melwood, but was moved to one of the indoor pitches because the press room was too small. Yet some at the club were worried that the vast and sweltering hangar would look empty, given there wasn’t the interest in the game that there was when Klopp came up against his old club.
The astonishing game against Dortmund seems an age ago. The club and the city has had to deal with more profound and important truths since then, while the sporting world has moved on to more incredible stories.
Klopp and Dejan Lovren were both asked about Leicester City in the pre-match press conference and both expressed their admiration for all they had achieved.
“They really deserved it. They had a consistent season. They had a lot of luck with injured players and with only one game a week, but that’s not an excuse for the others,” Lovren said. “They defended clever. They have one of the best strikers in Vardy”.
Klopp congratulated Leicester from the “bottom of my heart”. It was cool what they had done, he said, but then moved on to his own team, his own hopes for a game on which Liverpool’s season depends.
The build-up to the second leg had been dominated by the two defeats in the past week and the presence or otherwise of Daniel Sturridge. Injuries and Mamadou Sakho’s failed drugs test have also created anxiety.
“Please don’t shout at me,” a reporter said before asking a question about Sturridge and his chances of starting at Anfield. He is Liverpool’s most gifted forward, but a player who may not fit into the collective energy Klopp demands.
When Klopp was asked if the second leg was a game for Daniel Sturridge, he gave no hint of frustration with the player. Maybe there isn’t any.
“Why should I shout? I was waiting for this question…It could be [a game for him]. 100 per cent. But I have made no decision yet. If we want to talk about this, we have to think about how will we start in the game? How can we change in the game? How can we react in different situations? In all these thoughts Daniel Sturridge is involved.”
Klopp selected a side full of industry for the first leg and he may have been happy with how hard his players worked.
“A lot of people thought we could have done more, but if we had played a little bit more offensive, we would have opened space for them.”
That might have been different if Sturridge had been on the pitch. Perhaps he could have been used instead of Christian Benteke from the bench, but in these key games, Klopp may want other qualities.
But if Klopp decides to leave him out and Liverpool fail, there will be questions about the manager’s methods in a game when Liverpool need to score and Sturridge, for all his faults, provides Liverpool’s best opportunity to do that.
Klopp is always busy looking for something else, something it may be that Sturbridge doesn’t possess.
Others like Emre Can may be more likely to start. Before this game, Klopp has tried to summon the emotional intensity of the Anfield crowd, while insisting there was no pressure.
“I have not enough words for this,” he said, when asked about the inspiration the team can draw from the crowd. “To be honest, it’s one of these things in life you cannot buy. That’s the main thing of football. These moments when you know we’re all together.”
This may well be what Klopp believes football is all about, it is certainly what he can sound evangelical about: a coming together of supporters and players “for the whole Liverpool world”. Importantly it is a gathering that comes without asking too much. They must see it as an event to be played “not with pressure, but with joy”.
That may be unrealistic. “We can save our season,” Lovren said of Thursday’s game, which was a truthful statement, but one which reveals how important this tie is for a club like Liverpool after the league campaign they’ve had.
But they won’t want to forget Dortmund either. “With Liverpool, everything is possible,” said Lovren, who scored the fourth goal that night, and it may well be true.
Lovren hoped that it would be a less hectic route to victory against Villarreal. Klopp said something similar, but with Klopp there is always a desire for an urgency, a restlessness which guards against complacency. “It is about being patient with a clear direction,” he said, perhaps fearing the game will meander into nothingness and go against everything he believes in.
Towards the end of the press conference, Klopp was asked by a German reporter about the poor record of German clubs against Spanish clubs. It wasn’t something that concerned him – especially as Dortmund had beaten Real Madrid in a Champions League semi-final on their way to the final in 2013.
“It is absolutely not important. If English teams had lost against Spanish teams for the last twenty years I wouldn’t care.”
Those things don’t matter to Klopp, those kind of precedents can be shrugged off, but other stories will always have to be accommodated.
Every Liverpool manager must learn to harness history, as well as dealing with the endless and persistent question which never goes away: What’s next?
