Former Liverpool and Mainz boss quit coaching after saying he had run out of energy
Jürgen Klopp has admitted he is unlikely to return to football management, after a two-decade coaching career that reached its peak at Liverpool.
The German is now settled into a “normal” lifestyle and insists he has no desire to step back into the high-intensity world of elite football. Speaking to Welt in a wide-ranging interview, Klopp reflected on his exit from Liverpool at the end of the 2023-24 season, and the emotional toll that came with the job.
“I was in a tunnel, but never with myself,” said Klopp. “Now I pay more attention to myself.”
“As silly as it sounds, I stopped doing what I always wanted to do. But it took me too far away from normal life, and ultimately I no longer had a normal life.”
Klopp described a rigid daily routine during his Liverpool days, saying his car “knew three ways: to the stadium, to the training ground, and home”.
The former Liverpool boss has taken on a global advisory role with Red Bull’s football projects and has occasionally appeared in commercials. He describes his current work as intense, but on his own terms.
“I don’t sleep in the morning and I don’t go to bed later at night, but I can organise my work much better,” said Klopp. “My wife, for example, is really happy with it because we can plan things much better that we couldn’t before.
“I loved being a coach, but I was never addicted. If I were to go back to coaching somewhere, it would all start again. I’m me! I can’t just take over and coach. Then I’d be completely involved everywhere again. And I just don’t see that happening anymore.”
The former Borussia Dortmund and Mainz coach also recounted conversations with Roy Hodgson and Jose Mourinho, both of whom have embraced coaching as a lifelong engagement.
“Roy [Hodgson] came up to me and asked how I was,” said Klopp. “In the same breath he said to me: ‘I miss it.’ And I was like: ‘What?’
“Roy is 77 years old and he wants to be a coach again. Unbelievable! When we played against Crystal Palace with Liverpool, I always asked him whether his apartment was damp or why he was standing on the pitch now.
“Jose Mourinho also said to me: ‘This is not the end.’ There are those coaches who always want to do that.”
For Klopp, though, the chapter is closed and he is happy with what he has accomplished: “Some days I couldn’t believe my luck. Just look where I came from, and then I made it to Liverpool Football Club and it worked out pretty well there.”
