Of course, Jürgen Klopp is best known as the manager of Liverpool Football Club. Since his appointment at Anfield on October 8, 2015, Klopp has won six major trophies, including the Champions League, in 2018/19, and the Premier League, in 2019/20, and has been described, more than once, as the ‘best manager in football’.
Born in Stuttgart on June 16, 1967, Klopp signed for Fußball- und Sportverein (FSV) Mainz 05 in the summer of 1990 and spent the remainder of his playing career at the Rheinland-Pfalz club, initially as a forward and later as a defender. In February, 2001, with Mainz 05 lying second bottom in 2. Bundesliga, the second division of the Germany football league, Klopp, 33, was appointed manager, succeeding Eckhard Krautzun. At that stage, Managing Director Michael Kammerer said that he hoped that Klopp would ‘bring life back into the team’.
Klopp did exactly that, winning six of the next seven games and finishing the season on 40 points, thereby escaping relegation with a match to spare. All told, Klopp managed Mainz 05 for seven years, coming agonisingly close to promotion to the Bundesliga in both 2000/01 and 2001/02, before achieving that goal – for the first time in the history of the club – in 2003/04. Two eleventh-placed finishes followed, in 2004/05 and 2005/06, but Mainz 05 were relegated back to 2. Bundesliga. Klopp remained as manager in 2007/08 but, having narrowly missed promotion once again, resigned at the end of the season. Nevertheless, having joined Borussia Dortmund in May, 2008, Klopp won the Bundesliga twice, in 2010/11 and 2011/12.