Klopp declares Juventus rumours “bullshit, I’m staying at Liverpool”.
As soon as Massimiliano Allegri left the Juve job, several names were mentioned as his possible successor, but Liverpool's Jürgen Klopp is not considering a move to Italy.
Almost as soon as Massimiliano Allegri and Juventus parted company little under a fortnight ago, the rumour mill went into overdrive – churning out names of coaches who could be in line to take over. There was Pep Guardiola, José Mourinho, Andrea Pirlo, Simone Inzaghi... all of whom speak Italian and have experience working in Serie A – unlike the two other men whose names were also being bandied around by the sports press - Mauricio Pochettino and Jürgen Klopp.
Klopp: fluent English, limited Italian
Pochettino and Klopp were strange choices to be linked to the vacant Juve post. Both have said they are committed to long-term projects with their respective clubs - Tottenham and Liverpool respectively and Klopp who, it has to be said, has an incredible of English, has stated that he has no interest in working where he doesn’t understand the language. “I don’t think that it makes sense for any Italian club to work with me together because I can only order spaghetti in the restaurant”, Klopp said before last season’s Champions League semi-final against Roma.
Nonsense rumours
And this afternoon, the Reds manager told Sky Sport Italia during today's Media Day at Melwood that being a candidate for the Juventus job came as news to him: “Of course it's a league that I like, it's really exciting but all these rumours I hear about Juventus are bull****. There is nothing true about it. I am not going to leave Liverpool. I know Serie A very well, I follow it and I like it, but I am going to stay at Liverpool”.
Time away from football with the family
While a lifetime in football might be a dream for some coaches, Klopp has stated that in his case, there's no point daydreaming about the future. “Not at all; it’s not interesting”, he told Deutsche Welle’s Jana Schäfer last month. “If I think about my future then it will be my future when I stop working. That should be a moment when I still have enough energy to do things I have never had time for. I won’t be still sat on the bench when I’m 70 or something, it will be much earlier. The first part of my life I had no money and no time, then I had a bit more money and no time anymore and now I have the money and absolutely no time. So, it means I didn’t see anything of the world. If I see a city then I see the stadium, the hotel and the street when we take the bus to the stadium. That’s it. I have a famous face, so I cannot go to a lot of places without signing thousands of autographs – it’s no real problem for me because most of the time I’m tired when I’m not working. But I hope for the day when I’m long enough out of the business that people don’t recognise me in the street anymore, and then I’ll go and see the world. That’s my plan actually – together with [wife] Ulla and if the boys want to join us then great, no problem. But that’s it”.