Jurgen Klopp blasts speculators tying him to Red Bull departure and connecting him to Real Madrid job
The ex-Liverpool manager has been out of the coaching game for a couple seasons, but remains the front runner for some of the top jobs on the continent.
On Monday, Jurgen Klopp was presented for his new job ahead of the World Cup. It’s not a managerial role, or a directorial job. Instead its a TV job in which he will be working as a pundit for Magneta TV.
National team could be future destination
The German manager turned sporting director turned TV personality was presented with Thomas Müller and Mats Hummels, and during the Q&A after the presentation, reporters had plenty of question about the post World Cup future of Klopp. Some had to do with the national team, others had to do with a club that Klopp has been tied to for quite some time, and the ex-Dortmund boss took his chance to refute those claims.
First questions arose surrounding the a potential appointment to the German national team, to which Klopp neither shot down nor affirmed, but did admit that now was not the time. “Straight to the point,” joked Klopp after the first question fired off was centered around the national team. “I’m not thinking about that at all at the moment. Who knows what the next few years will bring. But there are absolutely no plans in that regard.”
After successful stints in Dortmund and Liverpool, Klopp was always going to be a candidate to take over at Die Mannschaft. Instead Klopp joined as the Sport Director as Red Bull, overseeing the handful of clubs that fall under the wing of the energy drink’s ownership. In the meantime Julian Nagelsmann is preparing the Germany for the World Cup this summer. Both of them have contracts running for the next couple years.
A move to Madrid not as likely
After Klopp cleared up any suspicions of a swap to the international side of soccer, the focus quickly shifted to Real Madrid. That seemed to light a fuse under the future World Cup pundit. As always Klopp was charismatic, and charming, but he did not mix his words when asked about a potential connection to Los Blancos who like the German national team have a coach in Alvaro Arbeloa, who has Madrid competing for LaLiga and the Champions League.
“When is a story a story? When someone takes a sheet of paper and writes something on it? Or when there’s actually something to it? What does the situation have to be?” Pondered Klopp. “That Real Madrid called me at some point and said: ‘Florentino Pérez on the phone! Jürgen, how are things?’ Or is it enough if OE24 – no idea whether that’s AI or written by people – writes some rubbish? That annoys me."
Klopp challenged the reporters to show a little more caution in their reporting claiming, “You need to show a bit of discipline there. It’s all just nonsense,” while denying he has talked to the Spanish club saying it’s never happened, “Not a single time.”
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