Bring the Noise: The Jürgen Klopp Story

life, you cannot ignore the negative things that have happened. If you can change them, change them: if you can’t change them, ignore them.

BVB players agreed to: ‘unconditional dedication’, ‘passionate devotion’, ‘a determination [to win], independent of the scoreline’, a readiness ‘to support everybody’, a readiness ‘to accept help’, a readiness ‘to put [their] quality wholly at the service of the team’, a readiness ‘to take on individual responsibility’.

After two full seasons, Klopp’s Jagdfußball (hunting football) was becoming second nature, a collective ritual, accepted and practised without hesitation.

Mainz beat Schalke 1-0. They were safe. A tearful, beer-drained Klopp mounted the stadium fence to sing punch-drunk songs with the fans. ‘He’s the ultra among the Bundesliga coaches,’ Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote, and ‘Mainz 05 has become the expression of his personality’, a club where both players and the crowd were ‘whipped into a frenzy’ by the man on the sideline and ‘tens of thousands were living in step with the emotions prescribed by their coach.’

‘Tactics is for bad players,’ the former VfB Stuttgart and FC Bayern manager Felix Magath had memorably proclaimed a couple of years earlier.

‘Nix gschwätzt isch Lob gnuag’–to say nothing is praise enough–a Swabian proverb goes.

Klopp denied that his team had been afraid of the Bavarians’ visit–‘we didn’t shit ourselves, I had a look before’–and stayed stoically upbeat.

Mainz beat Schalke 1-0. They were safe. A tearful, beer-drained Klopp mounted the stadium fence to sing punch-drunk songs with the fans. ‘He’s the ultra among the Bundesliga coaches,’ Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote