“This is our year.” It’s a sentence that has become almost synonymous with Liverpool fans over the last two decades. Something that has become a running joke amongst their rivals.
Gérard Houllier’s treble-winning cup team of 2001 and Rafa Benítez’s 2005 Champions League winners are perhaps the standout moments. How could Liverpool fans not be optimistic after those achievements? Surely the league title would follow? It never did. Just as it never did in 2014, with the free-scoring team assembled under Brendan Rodgers. But now, in 2020, it’s finally happened. 2020 is Liverpool’s year, and it is down to the management of Jurgen Klopp.
Jurgen Klopp Has Helped Liverpool Return to the Top
Creating Identity
The reason why the German has achieved where others have failed in the league is simple: he has built a team with an identity. Not just with the electrifying brand of ‘heavy metal football’, but by instilling a togetherness within the squad, and a sense of togetherness between players and fans. It’s an attribute that links all the great teams. It is essential to continued success. It’s the difference between winning a trophy one season and winning trophies every season.
What Klopp has that some of his predecessors arguably did not, is the ability to tap into the club’s fan base; into the culture of not only the club, but of the city too. It’s something he did at Borussia Dortmund before. He connects with the fans in a way only the greats do. It is why the comparison to legendary figures such as Bill Shankly and Sir Alex Ferguson are completely justified.
Winning Mentality and Team Spirit
In creating such an atmosphere around the club, Klopp has instilled a do or die attitude in his players, and a winning mentality that is impossible to go unnoticed. It’s not just his Gegenpress tactics that demand a relentless intensity in his players, it’s the belief that they are playing for something more. There’s a team spirit that is reminiscent of Ferguson’s United, or the Arsenal of the late 90’s/early 2000’s. It’s clear to see in the way the players harass the opposition after losing the ball, and in the continuous drive of full-backs Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson.
There’s much more to this team than the famous front three of Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mané, or the elegant defending of Virgil van Dijk. There is the sheer desire to win, and to win not just for themselves, but for everyone connected with Liverpool Football Club.
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