After Liverpool won the Champions League final in 2019, Jürgen Klopp sat deep in Madrid’s Wanda Metropolitano Stadium and tried to drink it all in just as he took a sip from a bottle of beer. As he walked into the dressing room, a mobile phone was placed in his hand by Liverpool’s head physiotherapist Lee Nobes. “I looked at the screen and it said ‘Pep’,” Klopp later revealed. He thought it was his assistant, Pep Lijnders. “It wasn’t until I started talking that I realized it was the other Pep,” Klopp said.
That ‘other Pep’ was Pep Guardiola. Nobes had worked at Manchester City until November last year and although Klopp did not know who had called whom, Guardiola wanted to speak to him to congratulate him.
Nearly five years later, and ahead of possibly their very last meeting, it remains a remarkable moment as they challenge for the Premier League title once again. Imagine if, at the height of their rivalry, Arsene Wenger called Sir Alex Ferguson or Jose Mourinho called Rafael Benitez in such a manner? Or Mourinho calling Guardiola when they faced each other in Spain?
“She [Klopp and Guardiola] They also have egos, but the difference is that they respect each other because they know how good the other is,” said a source. Of course, it perhaps helped that Guardiola made the decision on the back of winning a domestic treble, beating Liverpool by a single point on the final day to take the Premier League title. Yet he and Klopp joked that they had won the trophy the other coveted most.
But what’s even more remarkable is that it’s not uncommon. Guardiola and Klopp now talk ‘occasionally’, the source said, because ‘they really like each other’. There is a deep mutual respect between the two greatest managers of their generation – who recognize each other as such – and that stems from what drives them both: football. Not the off-field matters, not the shouting, the criticism and the petty politics, but the game itself. “Jurgen makes world football a better place,” Guardiola said. “You don’t have to be disrespectful just because you are rivals,” Klopp has said.
Ahead of Sunday’s summit, Klopp added: “I just know the respect is there. We’ve had conversations. Phone calls. Things like that at different times. He was going through a difficult period. I’ve been going through a difficult time. On a private basis. So we had contact there.
‘It’s just respect. While we are in charge of our respective clubs, why shouldn’t we have a friendship or relationship? When we meet afterwards and look back, there will be many things we can share and probably will. But that will have to happen afterwards and I don’t know when that will happen.”
Both recognize that they have pushed each other – “they made the other better,” said a source – and will talk about the tactical challenges they have set and the evolution of the game.
It’s an incredible thought: Guardiola calling Klopp and Klopp calling Guardiola, and it’s all the more incredible given the undeniable animosity that has developed between the clubs during their years in charge. It was venomous when the clubs released a joint statement in December 2022 after less than constructive scenes in a Carabao Cup fourth round tie at the Etihad Stadium, while the City team bus was attacked on the way to Anfield for the Champions quarter-final League. 2018 finals.
That match turned out to be crucial and later revealing. It was in the Amazon series ‘All or Nothing’ released later that year that Guardiola made a rare admission. “Liverpool’s attackers are good. Those three beforehand. They scare me, they are dangerous. I mean it,” he said. Liverpool eventually won 5–1, with Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mané and Roberto Firmino scoring four of the goals. But it was a shock to hear Guardiola talk like that and it was evident on the faces of his staff.
The managers first met 11 years ago, in 2013, when Guardiola took over at Bayern Munich and played against Klopp’s Borussia Dortmund in the season-opening DFL-Supercup that ended in a 4-2 win for Dortmund (Ilkay Gundogan, Guardiola’s first signing at City, was among the goalscorers).
While Guardiola won a double league and cup title that season, finishing 19 points ahead of Dortmund and beating them in the DFB Pokal final, and while his tally of trophies in the ensuing decade far outweighs Klopp’s, he has indeed inferior record. against the German.
They have faced each other 29 times and currently Klopp has eleven wins and Guardiola has ten. “The way Klopp is playing fits in perfectly with stopping the way Guardiola wants Man City to play,” a source explained. “The problem with facing Klopp’s teams is that so many things happen.” Klopp’s approach certainly played into Guardiola’s concept of control.
But the arrival in Germany and the confrontation with Klopp – they had been in the league there for two seasons – came as a relief and a pleasant surprise for Guardiola, who admitted that he was physically and mentally exhausted by the nasty rivalry that Mourinho had tried. to fuel between Barcelona and Real Madrid and between the two coaches in Spain.
“In this room [Mourinho] is the f—— boss, the f—— master,” an angry Guardiola declared at a press conference in 2011, as Mourinho tried to use every trick in his playbook to upset him, with the two clubs met four times in the space of two weeks during the Champions League, La Liga and the Copa del Rey.
Tellingly, Guardiola added that he wanted to concentrate on football. “He can experience his personal Champions League off the pitch,” he added of Mourinho as Barcelona won the treble.
‘Mourinho’s [rivalry] was nasty,” said a source. “Politics. It was like a war: Catalonia/Spain, Barca/Madrid, Leo/Cristiano, Pep/Mourinho. There were a lot of things there. Comparison is impossible. But Klopp has been his biggest rival.”
After Guardiola’s sabbatical in New York, it was refreshing to face someone like Klopp. “With Mourinho it was everything off the pitch,” the source said. “He never talked about tactics. With Pep and Klopp they normally talk about football. They also have this polite relationship because they respect themselves and each other enormously.”
What’s also fascinating about that is that each manager has made the other better. Guardiola has never struggled to beat an opponent as often in his career as he has struggled to beat Klopp. And vice versa.
What’s even more fascinating is how each of them rose to the challenge by adapting their tactics. Guardiola feared Klopp’s front three, but even more feared the incredible pressing play – the “best in history” – that Liverpool’s manager demanded. Yet Klopp has changed over the years, adding more control to his teams, wanting to have more ball possession – and, most importantly, completely overhauling his midfield last summer – while Guardiola has mixed it with a little more openness and directness, especially since the arrival of Erling Haaland. .
They looked at them all tactically and adjusted them. For example, would Klopp have pushed Trent Alexander-Arnold from full-back to midfield if Guardiola had not already done so with Joao Cancelo?
As challenging and exciting as it was, it was of course also exhausting. Perhaps most of all for Klopp, who in any other era would leave Liverpool with many more trophies. And that must hurt.
Between managers, they have the four biggest points totals in Premier League history. Looking back on the 2018/2019 season, Klopp’s side achieved 97 points, the fourth highest total ever collected – and yet it was only good enough for second place, behind City with 98 – the third highest in history.
It’s not over yet; not yet. Liverpool have already won the Carabao Cup and are fighting on all fronts – and could yet face City in the FA Cup – while of course there are still 115 Premier League charges against City dating back to 2009. If they are found guilty, there there are few prospects of the independent commission awarding any of City’s seven titles, five of which Guardiola has won, but the verdict would reassess the legacies of both managers.
Klopp has undoubtedly always faced Guardiola with fewer financial resources, both in Germany and England, which, given how well the Spaniard has coached, is an incredible reflection of what he has achieved.
But he is the one who blinked first, even though, to be fair, Klopp is 56 and therefore three years older and has been at Liverpool for nine months longer. Burnout and fatigue are something Guardiola is extremely sympathetic about. With his current contract at City set to expire at the end of next season, it would not be a surprise if he also steps aside for another sabbatical. He has already spoken about a break after City. Interestingly, both managers have expressed an interest in eventually coaching national teams – Guardiola has a fascination with Brazil.
Whatever happens at Anfield on Sunday, don’t expect Klopp or Guardiola to go for it. If they did, it would be completely out of the nature of their relationship and would reveal just how much pressure has been placed on them.
“He told me that if we no longer manage any club, we can sit together and have a glass of wine, even though I’m not a big wine drinker,” Klopp said. ‘But we could do that while I’m at work and he’s free, then I’d visit him. We could have that conversation, no problem.”
There was always the expectation that Guardiola would go first. Instead it’s Klopp and one of the biggest rivalries in the Premier League, perhaps even the biggest, and up there with Ferguson and Wenger, is about to end.