J\u00fcrgen Klopp has explained why he rejected Manchester United’s interest in 2013 and outlined why a return to the dugout is not imminent. He said United approached him in the year Sir Alex retired, but at that moment he was committed to Borussia Dortmund.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the year when Sir Alex retired, they spoke to me. Of course, they were interested at one point. At that time, I would have been interested. I was young, I had a sensational team at Dortmund,\u201d Klopp said on The Diary of a CEO podcast. \u201cIt was wrong time, wrong moment. I had a contract at Dortmund and wouldn\u2019t have left for anybody. They wanted a new manager and I was one of a few options I think.\u201d<\/p>\n
Klopp also described his reaction to discussions with United executives and why the project did not appeal to him. \u201cThere are some reasons, but the people in that conversation told me [things] I didn\u2019t like. United was that big, \u2018We get all the players we want, we get him, we get him,\u2019 and I was sitting there… It was not my project. It was the wrong time, but on top of that it was not my project.<\/p>\n
“The idea is we bring all the best players together and let\u2019s go,” Klopp said before being asked if the Man Utd project at the time was about just football. \u201cNo, not at all (about football), and I sat there [and thought] it was not for me,\u201d he said, later citing his conversation with Liverpool\u2019s Mike Gordon and how their interest was centred around a \u201cpure football project.\u201d<\/p>\n
On his own future, Klopp made clear he is not rushing back to coaching. \u201cI love what I do right now. I don\u2019t miss coaching. I mean I do coach [now], but just different, not players. I don\u2019t miss it. I don\u2019t miss standing in the rain, two-and-a-half, three hours, and I don\u2019t miss going to press conferences three times a week, having 10, 12 interviews a week. I don\u2019t miss that, I don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, I don\u2019t miss being in the dressing room in the sense of I didn\u2019t have it often enough. I coached 1,080-something games, so I was in a dressing room very, very often and I don\u2019t want to die in a dressing room because it\u2019s so nice… it smells! It\u2019s these kind of things,\u201d Klopp said. \u201cBut there might be something. I\u2019m 58, that\u2019s from your perspective old, from the other side it\u2019s not that old. That means I could make the decision in a few years. I don\u2019t know. Do I have to make the decision today? I will not coach again, but thank God I don\u2019t have to do that. I can just see what [the] future brings.\u201d<\/p>\n
Klopp has said any Premier League return would be to manage Liverpool. His successor, Arne Slot, signed a three-year contract due to end in the summer of 2027, and despite early season struggles this campaign Slot still won the league in his first year. Klopp was linked with other roles after leaving Liverpool but ruled himself out of those openings, leaving his return dependent on time and the right circumstances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Klopp says he rejected United in 2013 because of timing and that their project was not his. Plainly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3940,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,179],"tags":[299,1087],"class_list":["post-3941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-manchester-united","tag-arne-slot","tag-coaching-change"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}