A Tomkins Times Tribute to Jürgen Klopp (Part 2)

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This is the second part of our tributes to the greatest manager of the modern era.

Part One can be accessed below.

A Tomkins Times Tribute to Jürgen Klopp (Part 2)

Chris Rowland

The fans of Liverpool FC takes its managers to its heart like few other clubs’. We revere them. We sing about them. We make epic banners of them, their images waving on the Kop like religious icons. They span generations. They achieve immortality.

Well the best of them do anyway. Maybe we won’t dwell on any former Reds and England managers here. Not when we have a hero to discuss.

Our cult of manager-as-leader, as hero, began, like most of the story of the modern Liverpool FC, with Bill Shankly. Shankly was – is – the talismanic messiah to rule them all. He 'got’ the club and its supporters, and the city itself, and that's always been important for Liverpool supporters.

And it is with the great man that Klopp bears the closest resemblance in that respect. Not in a measured way, calculated to achieve a bond that might serve him well, but instinctively, viscerally, as an achingly accurate reflection of the man and his views. There is such a tight fit between manager, club and the city it stands in, it's like they were made for each other. Klopp was in the right place for him, as he was at Dortmund.