Lots of articles by ourselves and others have been written recently about who could replace Sir Alex Ferguson as manager of Manchester United; Pep Guardiola, Jose Mourinho, David Moyes, Ole Gunnar Solksjaer etc. However, nobody has mentioned Jurgen Klopp.
What ‘Kloppo’ has done with Borussia Dortmund is astounding. He is a good age and has the necessary experience. At 45, he is the identical age to Sir Alex when he arrived at the club 26 years ago. He is also is the maker of champions, Dortmund are back to back German Bundesliga winners.
Rene Mulensteen, Manchester United’s Technical Coach has been following the progress of Dortmund closely over the past couple of seasons. But he’s been watching their highly successful squad of players – eventually leading to the signing of Shinji Kagawa. I wonder if their manager has been scouted too…
Klopp began his management journey with the club that honed his playing career between 1989 and 2001. Mainz 05 had never competed in the Bundesliga until Klopp came on board and took them there. He also led them to their first Uefa Cup qualification in 2005-06, only going out to eventual winners Seville.
He took charge of Dortmund in 2008 and immediately galvanised their fortunes, leading them from 16th before he took charge, to 6th and 5th in subsequent seasons. Klopp’s third season as Boss brought them the Bundesliga title for the first time in a decade that had been riddled with financial troubles and near bankruptcy for the German club.
2011-12 got even better. Not only did Dortmund secure back to back German titles, but they did it in record-breaking style. The 81 points gained was the highest points total in a single season in Bundesliga history. It didn’t stop there. Klopp then led them to the German Cup (DFB-Pokal) – the first double in Dortmund’s history.
It seems apparent that Klopp has now made the Champions League Dortmund’s first priority this season. They currently sit nine points behind Bundesliga Leaders, Bayern Munich, but their performances on the biggest club stage of all have been superb.
Victories against Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid, Ajax and a more than respectable draw against the billions of neo rich, classless bigmouths Manchester City at the Etihad has proved their standing. They sit pretty as winners with a game to spare of what many said was the group of death. They’ll be a lot of teams hoping to avoid them in the next round.
For the record, ‘Kloppo’ did it all on a shoe string budget. No benefaction or billionaire cash injections, just hard work, savvy investment and sound management. Take a bow Jurgen.
So to all Man United fans, why not Klopp? He certainly has the resume…
No comments:
Post a Comment