Borussia Dortmund vs Liverpool: Jurgen Klopp to buck trend and celebrate goals against his former club
Klopp does not plan to hold back if he sees his new club take advantage in the first-leg at Signal Iduna Park
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Your support makes all the difference.“So there’s what?” Jürgen Klopp asks, utterly bemused by the abandoned plan of a German broadcasting company who wanted to stalk his every move from the second he disembarks at the Signal Iduna Park through the deployment of a Kloppcam.
“I don’t know," he continues, shaking his head. “You see how crazy the world is. But I know the way in Dortmund - off the bus, down the stairs; left, right: dressing room and no-one else, only us.”
When narrating his arrival strategy, Klopp delivers his thoughts like David Peace detailing Brian Clough’s unsolicited introduction to Elland Road in 1974. Klopp, though, is a hero trying to normalise what stands before him: a return with Liverpool to the place where he is treasured most because of his transformative guidance across seven seasons where he inspired a club from the Bundesliga relegation zone to successive titles and the brink of Champions League glory.
I did everything for Mainz, I did everything for Dortmund and now I do everything for Liverpool
When 'You’ll Never Walk Alone' is projected from the stadium’s public address system before kick off, a special moment is expected: where supporters of Borussia Dortmund and Liverpool sing in unity. There might be a temptation to precede or follow it with John Paul Young’s 'Love is in the Air'; such is the expected level of good feeling.
And yet, Klopp insists he will not bow to the irritating modern trend in football where those revisiting a former home restrict their passion deliberately.
“I will celebrate of course,” Klopp insists when asked what he will do if Liverpool happen to score against the team he considers the best that remains at the quarter final stage of the Europa League, the one he confesses “100-per-cent” has risen in his absence into the top five category in world football. “I did it when I went back to Mainz with Dortmund, and I was there for 18 years.”
He reasons that Dortmund supporters know him well enough by now to understand why he might respond differently to others. He simply cannot help it.
“It depends, if it’s in the first minute, I won’t go running down the line. But if it’s important, if it’s decisive, in this moment that’s what happens. It’s not that I plan this but I will not go there and take some pills that mean I won’t celebrate a goal.
“At Mainz they knew about it. We had big celebration when I left. It was ‘thank you’ and when I went back there it’s what they expected. I did everything for Mainz, I did everything for Dortmund and now I do everything for Liverpool – it is like it is.”
Klopp’s endearing quality is that he is able to reach out to supporters by speaking a language that is unfussy. He relates the prospect of competing in this game to experiences from his childhood playing tennis against his father, Norbert.
“He loved me overall but when we played against each other he wanted to beat me. I needed 15 years to beat him for the first time but that wasn’t his problem and there was no doubt about our relationship. It’s a game, still even if people are not always aware of it.
“I know a lot of people [in Dortmund] who will be happy to see me again. But it’s not the right situation to see friends. I have no problem if someone wants to hug me – if I know him! At the end it’s a football game. We all started playing football against our best friends and I can’t remember a moment where because it was my best friend I did not want to win against him.
“That is absolutely bullshit.”
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