The topsy-turvy world of Jurgen Klopp takes a surreal twist today when he leads his Borussia Dortmund side out against Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium for their Champions League tie this evening. With 4 wins out of 4, the Germans have already qualified for the knock-out phase of the competition, but this cake-walk is a mere footnote in a season of unmitigated disaster.
With just eleven points from twelve games in the Bundesliga, Dortmund are lagging in 16th place in their domestic league just 2 points off the bottom with a goal difference of minus 5. Any other manager would be wary of losing their job with such a lamentable record but counter-intuitively, Klopp is still a very much a wanted man.
This cannot be said of his opposite number in tonight’s game, Monsieur Arsene Wenger. After a poor run of results culminating in last Saturday’s embarrassing loss to a depleted Man United side, many Gooners want a change at the top and they view Klopp as an ideal replacement. Analysing his record at Dortmund it is easy to see why.
In the 6 years Klopp has been at Dortmund, the club has won back-to-back Championships, the German Cup, and came runners-up to Bayern Munich in the Champions League in the 2012-2013 season. What makes the achievements even more impressive is that they were competing with one of the most powerful clubs in the world in the shape of Bayern, or as they are known in Germany ‘FC Hollywood’.
A growing number of weary Arsenal fans would like to see the high-energy, high-press, ‘heavy metal’ style of play favoured by Klopp, replace Wenger’s more classical ‘silent orchestra’ modus operandi. Like his friend, Klopp has grown accustomed to seeing his best players leave the club on a yearly basis, with the likes of Shinji Kagawa and Mario Goetze moving to Man United and Bayern respectively.
Ironically, this year Klopp has more in common with Liverpool’s under-pressure Brendan Rodgers. The loss of talismanic world class strikers, Robert Lewandowski and Luis Suarez from their respective clubs, seems to have had a traumatic effect on the group of players left behind.
Although still hanging on in there in the Champions League, the Reds’ league campaign seems to be unravelling at a similar pace to Dortmund’s. Even so, there have been murmurs emanating from Merseyside that the 6’4” maverick from Germany could replace the ‘wee’ man from Northern Ireland if the slump isn’t arrested.
So there you have it. A manager who has arrived a ‘bad moment’ in his career is being touted as the perfect man to replace two other managers who have also arrived at their very own ‘bad moments’. Maybe he has read the signs because Klopp has recently intimated that, apart from Germany, England would be the ideal location to progress his career.
If his Dortmund side get a win against Arsenal tonight that may happen more quickly then he envisaged. Then again, if Liverpool lose tonight too it could be even quicker even still.
Watch Arsenal v Borussia Dortmund live from 7.30pm... po.st/NTVSport
