Jurgen Klopp's parting shots
Hi! It's May 29th, and in today's newsletter: Klopp signs off in style; today's transfers, Americans home and abroad, and the rest of the soccer news from around the world you need to know.
Less than a fortnight after saying goodbye, Jurgen Klopp was back in Liverpool on Tuesday for a ‘farewell’ evening, packing out the city’s indoor arena, with 11,000 fans and raising money for the Liverpool Foundation charity. (Andy Hunter, Guardian)
If there is one thing Klopp can do, almost as well as motivate and organise a football team, it is to play to the gallery. So good is he at telling Liverpool fans what they want to hear, he could probably sell out Anfield itself every week just to complain about kick-off times, fixture congestion, praise the amazing fans and then finish off with those fist pumps in front of the Kop.
But it won’t just be Liverpool fans who will miss Klopp. While the true devotion is found exclusively on Merseyside, there are plenty of others who follow the game who have appreciated his frankness and willingness to dive into issues head first. Certainly the British media will miss the input of a man whose press conferences almost always made headlines.
Sure, he could be touchy, even aggressive, after a defeat, but most managers are like that on the inside and if he is your manager, you’d rather see clear evidence that he cares as much as you do, than listen to some technocratic blather about the ‘process’.
His ‘parting shots’ last night at the spending of Man City and Chelsea amongst other things, will have gone down very well with :Liverpool fans who are rightly proud that their success has been combined with a degree of relative financial sanity.
As this piece from Football Benchmark shows, During his tenure at the club, Liverpool spent €928 million on transfer fees, while earning €584 million from player sales. This resulted in a total transfer fee deficit of -€343 million in the Klopp era.
That does indeed look modest when compared with the Manchester clubs and Chelsea, but the idea of plucky Liverpool on their tight budget, has limits - no-one had spent more on a defender than the Reds did on Virgil van Dijk in 2018 when they invested 75 million GBP to bring him from Southampton and then made Alisson the most expensive goalkeeper in the world splashing out 66.8 million GBP on him. Darwin Nunez cost somewhere north of 75 million GBP too. It’s been sane spending but hardly ‘bargain basement’ stuff.
But last night, Klopp brought up one issue that many people in the game will agree with, regardless of allegiance: the madness of the managerial merry-go-round and the short-term thinking of certain club owners:
“We should be really happy that we have these owners and not guys who bought London clubs and other stuff. I wouldn’t have survived a year at Liverpool (with them in charge). ‘Great development but not good enough, sack him!’ A year later: ‘Sack him’. Then finally they play football where people think they might be back and they sack the manager anyway.”
He’s right and of course the contrast between the Todd Boehly way of running a football club and the John Henry/Fenway Sports Group (FSG) approach is stark. The danger is that other clubs, with managers under pressure from fans and the media, can slip too easily into the Chelsea way.
Klopp of course, made it easy for Liverpool’s owners to be loyal. He won things and that combined with his ability to connect so strongly with the fans ensured a constant base of unwavering support.
A tougher test of FSG’s approach may come if his replacement Arne Slot doesn’t hit the ground running. Klopp’s reign at Anfield wasn’t as long, or as successful, as Alex Ferguson’s at Manchester United, but there is a danger that his departure could be just as difficult to handle.
Klopp is a tough act to follow. Slot has his work cut-out and we are about to discover if John Henry really does believe in giving people time to build a team or if he too, finds it impossible to resist pressing the eject button when the difficult moments come.
Europa Conference League Final
Fiorentina take on Olympiakos in Athens (3pm ET, Paramount+/TUDN and 8pm TNT Sports 1 in the UK)
UEFA.com has a liveblog for all the build-up including full previews.
Your Daily Soccer Round-up….
Today’s Top Transfers:
Kvicha Kvaratskhelia wants to join PSG from Naples for $100M (@SportsZone__)
Bournemouth sign Turkish forward Enes Unal from Getafe for £13m-ish (BBC)
Real Madrid want Alphonso Davies, but for less than $40M (Revelo)
Man Utd also want to pay less than £40m for Jarrad Branthwaite (Daily Mail)
Five Premier League clubs want Leeds’ Crysencio Summerville (Daily Mail)
Managerial Mayhem:
Emma Hayes finally takes charge of USWNT (Guardian)
Barcelona officially appoint Hansi Flick in a two-year deal (BBC)
Vincent Kompany will be announced as new Bayern Munich boss today (@FabrizioRomano)
British Round-up:
Jimmy Aggrey was a victim of the Chelsea racism scandal – now he wants to talk. (The Athletic $)
If you thought the Glazers had their moments, new Manchester United owners, INEOS, have given employees a week to think about ‘voluntary resignations’. New broom and all that. (@AdamCrafton_)
In Scotland, SPFL 'sporting integrity' questioned over cup invites. (BBC)
Jude Bellingham is the world’s highest valued player at £236MILLION. (@MailSport)
European Round-up:
Following on from winning Bundesliga player of the season last year, Jude Bellingham has been voted La Liga player of the season this year. (Guardian)
99 points. 99 goals. One loss. One problem: Fenerbahce still didn’t win the league and their fans aren’t happy. (@eurofootcom)
The board falling out with their star man because they don’t want him to leave is one thing. The board refusing to pay their star man his wages to the tune of $100M is entirely another. Enter stage left PSG and Kylian Mbappe. (SportsKeeda)
Hansi Flick would’ve been willing to sign a one-year deal at FC Bayern as Uli Hoeneß and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge were supporting a possible return. However Max Eberl preferred rebuilding with Vincent Kompany. Eberl had doubts whether Flick would have supported a squad overhaul. Enough drama for two Netflix specials! (SportBild)
If there’s one way to lose a dressing room, it’s having the board leak your transfer plans to your players. Xavi must be ‘sobre la luna’ with the Barcelona president Joan LaPorta. (@totcosta)
USA Round-Up:
There are a full round of games in MLS tonight - including Inter Miami v Atlanta United (yes, he is supposed to be starting) and Seattle Sounders v Real Salt Lake in the West. All on MLS Season Pass on Apple TV of course.
Brian Sciaretta has written a thorough and detailed analysis of the performances of American players in Europe this season - must-read for fans of the USMNT. (American Soccer Now)
A good exploration of some of the issues around ‘Pay to Play’ in American youth soccer from Jake Landau at ‘It’s Called Soccer’. Also check out Part One of his series too. It’s an issue that gets over-simplified too often (as Gianni Infantino did recently) so good to see some nuanced exploration.
USA and Juventus winger Tim Weah has joined the ownership group of Brooklyn FC which will join USL later this year. (ESPN) As usual with these ‘minority investor’ stories, we aren’t told the actual scale of the investment but fair play to Tim for lending support to grassroots soccer in his home borough.
More American owners in England? Silicon Valley based private investors have submitted plans to the EFL for checks as they seek to close on the purchase of Championship club Sheffield United. (Mike McGrath, Telegraph)
International Round-up:
Chivas director Fernando Hierro set to join Al Nassr (and Ronaldo) (ESPN)
Not content with underwhelming the Premier League with his managerial prowess, Steven Gerrard barely raised the bar beyond mediocre in Saudi Arabia either. However, with reduced attendances in the Saudi Pro League, what has gone on in one of the most hyped leagues in the world? (John Duerden BBC)
There could be an interesting road-trip on the horizon for the American Outlaws with Greenland’s FA applying to join CONCACAF. (Reuters)
The Daily Soccer Quote of the Day
Emma Hayes on starting her new job with the USWNT "I'm going to work hard on that culture piece, something I've done throughout my career. Because what I've learned is if you don't deal with that part, that's what can cause as in any workplace, some of the in absence of communication, what happens? There's conversation, isn't there? And usually the wrong type of conversation."
Sounds like she knows what she is getting into…..via Jeff Kassouf at ESPN
We’ll be back Tomorrow with more.
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