Jürgen Klopp: Would You Go Back To Manage LFC...? The Real Reason I Fell In Love With Liverpool!

Liverpool FC legend Jürgen Klopp reveals the TRUTH about the Man United offer, Arne Slot, and Michael Edwards, revealing how leadership, success, failure, and fatherhood defined his football legacy, and what it would take for him to return to Liverpool. Jürgen Klopp is one of the world’s most successful football managers, leading Borussia Dortmund and Liverpool, winning 13 major trophies, and Liverpool's first Premier League title in 30 years. Since retiring as manager in 2024, he has been Head of Global Soccer for Red Bull. He explains: ◼️His HONEST reaction to Liverpool’s £450M transfer window ◼️Whether he would ever return to manage Liverpool FC…? ◼️How his dad never let him win a single race, and why it shaped him ◼️The REAL story behind his “heavy metal football” high-intensity tactic ◼️The truth about pressure and how he managed it Follow Jürgen: Instagram - https://bit.ly/48B7eV8 Facebook - https://bit.ly/3IS9lcR The Diary Of A CEO: ◼️Join DOAC circle here - https://doaccircle.com/ ◼️Buy The Diary Of A CEO book here - https://smarturl.it/DOACbook ◼️The 1% Diary is back - limited time only: https://bit.ly/3YFbJbt ◼️The Diary Of A CEO Conversation Cards (Second Edition): https://g2ul0.app.link/f31dsUttKKb ◼️Get email updates - https://bit.ly/diary-of-a-ceo-yt ◼️Follow Steven - https://g2ul0.app.link/gnGqL4IsKKb Sponsors: Linkedin Ads - https://www.linkedin.com/DIARY

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  It was an intense time. We had to win football games, but all the rest was on my plate as well. I need a break. And you cannot do that in that business. You cannot say, "Give me a year, see you later."

• 0:11Steven Bartlett?

  So it begs the question, do you think you could ever go back and manage Liverpool again?

• 0:18Speaker 00

  It's possible.

• 0:19Steven Bartlett?

  So what would it take?

• 0:24Steven Bartlett?

  You change a club, you change the city. You arrive at a time when clubs were in a period of dysfunction to bring that club back to its glory. And you did that over and over and over again. How?

• 0:33Speaker 00

  To win in a very decisive moment, you have to be the best team. And to be the best team, everybody has to buy into that team and walk through fire together.

• 0:43Steven Bartlett?

  How do I get people to walk through fire?

• 0:45Speaker 00

  I'd better go back to the start. Growing up, my mom was very caring. She loved people. And my dad had expectations. The problem was I was absolutely useless in most of the things, even with football. My teammates were better than me. And I thought I only can get on that level. From the first until the last minute, I was a warrior on the pitch. But it made me the guy I am today. And so my team plays a little bit more like a heavy metal band. Because you have 90 minutes and there's no guarantee to get anything. But the only chance to get something is to give you all. So do you want to have the maximum success? Don't waste time with holding back.

• 1:21Steven Bartlett?

  I want to know why Manchester United didn't piss on you.

• 1:23Speaker 00

  They tried. But there are some reasons in that conversation which I didn't like.

• 1:28Steven Bartlett?

  Arne Slot coming in after you and didn't change much.

• 1:30Speaker 00

  That's super smart, not changing much. And all of a sudden, you win the league by some distance.

• 1:35Steven Bartlett?

  But this year Liverpool have spent, what, 450-odd million? You never had a transfer window like that.

• 1:39Speaker 00

  Nobody ever told me that it's possible that we can spend that.

• 1:43Steven Bartlett?

  You seem to always be successful. How does someone succeed you?

• 1:47Speaker 00

  You want to be able to become the best team in England? You need to.

• 1:59Steven Bartlett?

  Just give me 30 seconds of your time. Two things I wanted to say. The first thing is a huge thank you for listening and tuning into the show week after week. It means the world to all of us and this really is a dream that we absolutely never had and couldn't have imagined getting to this place. But secondly, it's a dream where we feel like we're only just getting started. And if you enjoy what we do here, please join the 24% of people that listen to this podcast regularly and follow us on this app. Here's a promise I'm going to make to you. I'm going to do everything in my power to make this show as good as I can now and into the future. We're going to deliver the guests that you want me to speak to and we're going to continue to keep doing all of the things you love about the show. Thank you.

• 2:44Steven Bartlett?

  To understand you and the man and the anomaly that you went on to be in your career and still are, what do I need to understand about your very earliest context where you came from? And how, can you point out to me how that very early context created the person you are today? And that everybody knows you to be?

• 3:05Speaker 00

  I think we all are who we are because of the environment we grew up. My dad was a salesman and my mom came from a family. My grandpa had a brewery and she worked there, blah, blah, blah, and all these kind of things. So, but her only purpose was her kids. She loved me more than her own life, definitely. And my dad had expectations. He loved me as well, but he had expectations, but my mom didn't. So my mom was just happy that I was there and my dad had always something where he was not really happy with. And all the things my dad wanted me to do, I loved doing. So he wanted me to be a sports guy, each sport, tennis, skiing, football.

• 3:50Speaker 00

  That was his life. So he wanted that his son is good at that and he loved doing it. If I would have been, I don't know, sitting at home and drawing or whatever, he would every day take me out and say, go outside and play something. But then, pretty quick, when I became better, it was never good enough. And he always, so that was the process. So that's how I was brought up. That's him. That's definitely him. Yeah.

• 4:18Speaker 00

  Can I keep these pictures?

• 4:19Steven Bartlett?

  Of course you can keep them.

• 4:19Speaker 00

  That's good, that's good, because I have them, but I'm not sure where. Yeah, exactly. Good looking guy, yeah?

• 4:28Steven Bartlett?

  Was he a tough, tough man?

• 4:31Speaker 00

  It's not long ago, I never, I never got hit by whatever, never, never, never. It was just he wanted to, to bring the best out of me. I think that was what he wanted. Tough in a way, yeah, how people who are brought up in, in that time probably, but not tough, endless, that you thought, you don't want to have to do anything with him. No, no, no, I loved him to bits and he loved me. He was very proud, but never, never said it and these kind of things, so. He was a good guy, a really good guy, but with his son, he wanted him to be ambitious and was a bit afraid that I might be not ambitious enough, so.

• 5:09Steven Bartlett?

  Competitive man, I hear?

• 5:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 5:11Steven Bartlett?

  Reading about stories of him racing you on ski slopes and sprint races and never letting you win.

• 5:19Speaker 00

  That's true. Who knows if it was right? Probably it was right. I, I don't know, it was not nice in a way. When you tell the story, it's like, my God, come on, let the poor boy win or whatever. He had no chance. It's just you stand on the touchline and you run to the halfway line.

• 5:34Steven Bartlett?

  And when you, and when you look back over the, the course of your career, are there moments where you have flashback to lessons that he taught you or principles or values that he taught you? That you think, gosh, I got that from my dad?

• 5:45Speaker 00

  The one skill I, I realized that my dad had without knowing that time it was a skill. He could speak publicly. You don't know that you have that, but I have it. Today I know it. I don't care if a camera is in my face or whatever. I say what I have to say in that moment. Without being too worried, what might people think about it if I'm convinced it's right? And I, I say, talking in public is not a problem. It's probably from him. My love for people.

• 6:17Speaker 00

  Unintentionally, it's from my mom. So this mix of a very confident and a very caring, very confident dad and very caring mom.

• 6:28Speaker 00

  It's where I was brought up, in the middle of it.

• 6:31Steven Bartlett?

  And you wanted to be a doctor before before then, so you're aiming to be a doctor, that didn't work out?

• 6:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's true.

• 6:37Steven Bartlett?

  Why, why, why doctor?

• 6:40Speaker 00

  No, it was always, it was something I want to do. So in all this wonderful upbringing, it was pretty clear that money is an issue, not in a sense that we didn't have enough, we always had kind of enough, but I remember discussions, bad discussions about money, arguments if you want, who spent that, who spent that, I was the little one, I just sat around and listened to it. But there was a moment in my life when I, when I realized I have to earn a lot of money and I can sort it all. I wanted to earn money to not having this kind of discussions with my wife or with the kids or whatever. So it grew as a, as a, as a thought, when you are a young man and you think what could you do with life?

• 7:23Speaker 00

  And for me, it was clear I cannot earn my money with football, because in my mind, I wasn't good enough. And then I got surprised by some people, they thought, oh, there's something that could be interesting.

• 7:37Steven Bartlett?

  What did they see in you as a football player? What was it that they, they saw in you as a young man? Because I've got these wonderful photos of you as a young player and.

• 7:47Speaker 00

  Oh my god. So in my village, I was the best player in my village. So I scored the goals, I was the fastest, all this kind, this physical talent. I was really fast. Later on, when I studied sports science, I could jump far, I could jump high, all these kind of things. So it was a physical talent. The problem was, um, small spaces, technique.

• 8:11Speaker 00

  That was my problem. So what they saw probably is the attitude. I was a warrior on the pitch, it was difficult to beat me, stuff like this, to get, kick me out of the game or get me out of the game. I was really focused, I had a really good attitude for the game, but I didn't see it. So I, I was not happy. I was, I was literally surprised by the approach from, from professional football clubs. I didn't think, oh, who's coming? So it was like, the question was, are you number seven from the game before? Yeah, oh come on, let's have a chat. Do you want to come to Frankfurt? That was the question. It was before that, it was eighty. Eighty seven.

• 8:55Steven Bartlett?

  And you were twenty years old at the time when you went to Frankfurt?

• 8:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:58Steven Bartlett?

  Well, I mean, a lot happens in your twentieth year of life.

• 9:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:01Steven Bartlett?

  A lot happens.

• 9:02Speaker 00

  That was a change. Wow. Yeah, I came to Frankfurt.

• 9:08Speaker 00

  I it didn't take long that I met Mark's mom.

• 9:13Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, your son's mom, yeah.

• 9:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. And then um she got pregnant and um December eighty eight, I became a father.

• 9:24Steven Bartlett?

  Were you scared? Twenty years old, become a father.

• 9:26Speaker 00

  Massively when I heard she's pregnant, I was I wanted to run away, go, oh, God, it's not me.

• 9:35Speaker 00

  So the moment when I when I got aware of the fact that I will be a dad, I was really scared. The night thirteenth December of December nineteen eighty eight, when Mark was born, was the night when I became an adult. And the night who changed my life in the right direction. From that moment on, I was always more an adult than all the other people in the

• 10:01Speaker 00

  in my age group. So they were at the university, they were on parties, I couldn't go. They went on holiday, I couldn't. I played football, low wages, third division, Germany, had two other jobs, one in the morning, one at night. Um and and playing semi-professional football. That taught me the discipline I didn't have to learn at home because I had no no jobs to do in the house. So I got it a bit later, but um it made me the guy I am today.

• 10:32Steven Bartlett?

  Because of that experience, when you became a a manager yourself, did that become a bit of a ref personal reference point to understand the individuals that you were managing? Because if you were managing a twenty one year old dad versus a twenty one year old that didn't have kids.

• 10:50Steven Bartlett?

  Did you understand them to be different?

• 10:52Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 10:53Steven Bartlett?

  One is, in your, you know, in your own words, one is potentially a man and an adult.

• 10:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:57Steven Bartlett?

  And one doesn't know what that is yet.

• 10:59Speaker 00

  Yes, of course. I, I, I don't just, but I say I like people and I'm super curious. Everybody has a story to tell, so I wanna hear it.

• 11:06Steven Bartlett?

  I think, I think I asked that question in part because I heard stories that Sir Alex Ferguson would prefer players who had a girlfriend or a wife and kids.

• 11:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:15Steven Bartlett?

  And I was, I was wondering if there's any truth to that, if they have a different stability or.

• 11:19Speaker 00

  Oh, it's probably, yeah. The cover problems, you can, you can have a great partner, married or not, and then everything is fine. It's the wrong partner, it's not great. You have no partner, not great for some, and you have too many, it's not great. So there are so many things in life, so I ever never, I never thought about that. I heard about it. I had coaches, Germany, very successful manager, Otto Rehager, I love him to bits, fantastic guy. He had as well, I think he said it once as well, that he wants, um, married players because they go home and stuff like this, yeah. It, that's not, that's one part of, of the personality, but not the overwhelming or the, the, the most decisive or whatever.

• 12:04Speaker 00

  So it's like, and you need on the, football is a football game, you need the cheeky, the cheeky ones as well. So you need them, the one who, under the street smart, you need as well. They get out of situations in life and on the pitch, stuff like this. So it's a mix of everything. That's what I loved about football teams. I, I treated them, let me say fifty percent of the time, completely the same. And fifty percent, what he needs, what he needs, what he needs, but in front of the other teammates. So people, players can't do it.

• 12:39Steven Bartlett?

  Why do you, um, treat me like that? You would have, would never say that to him.

• 12:42Speaker 00

  No, because he's from Argentina, grew up without a window and you are from Munich and everything was fine. You want me to treat you like him, really? To bring all these people from different areas in the world together, you cannot expect that they all tick the same way. It's just not possible. Growing up in Germany is obviously different to growing up in.

• 13:06Speaker 00

  Senegal, it is different. So but then we come together in our dressing room and then everybody says, so this is the rule for all of you. And yeah, be in time, of course, for easy. But then all the others start, come on, calm down. You want a football team full of different skill sets, full of different talent, full of different personality. You want that because that's what you need. That's what makes you unpredictable. But then you put just one, I don't know, helmet over it and say, so that's for all of you. That's how we go. There are moments in the game where they have to act like this. In all the other, in all the other moments, they have to be themselves. So treat them like that.

• 13:47Steven Bartlett?

  This is one of the most shocking, counterintuitive ideas that I've that I heard from players with other managers, specifically because I've just interviewed so many of Sir Alex Ferguson's former players. One of the shocking things they all said was that he treated people differently. And to hear you say the same thing as well, it really is the opposite of what you hear in business. In business, you hear that you have to be a consistent leader, that you have to be consistent, treat people the same. But in the world of football, people like you tell me that's my truth.

• 14:19Speaker 00

  I think in business, in life, it's the same. So

• 14:24Speaker 00

  to lead, that's number one thing, you lead yourself. So that's the first one. In the morning, you stand up, you have to kick your own butt and say, come on, it's not the greatest day. But anyhow, we go.

• 14:36Speaker 00

  And then the people you lead, you need to understand to do it properly. So now that means you talk to them, you listen to them, you ask them, where are you from? What's your background? What are we doing here and there, and why did you that and stuff like this? So it means it's already in that conversation, it's clear. He's different to the other guy. It's not about the rules like punctuality, la, la, la, early in, late out, not about these kind of things. But how can we get the best out of people if we treat them all the same? It's crazy. It's in business. I don't think it is like that, but I've never, I only worked in this football business. So maybe it's just working here. I cannot see that. For me, it's super important that you really pick the individual from where it stands, not from where you want it to be.

• 15:20Speaker 00

  No, actually, where it actually is.

• 15:22Steven Bartlett?

  Can you give me an example that I would know of two people that you treated differently? And why you made the decision to treat them differently based on their origin?

• 15:32Speaker 00

  So you have a young player as an example, so Trent Alexander-Arnold comes up to the first team. So, and then you can, and James Milner is already, I don't know, thirty-one or whatever, however old he was that time, so you, so James makes clear first and foremost that Trent doesn't go crazy, because he sorts all these kind of things, but there are so many things, but just as an example, but James doesn't have to do this and that, because you know he is doing it anyway, so for Trent you still have to educate the boy. This example, which you probably didn't think of, but it explains how, how different they are, there are different age groups, one is sixteen or seventeen and the other one is thirty-three, so that shows already that's not possible. Uh huh.

• 16:13Speaker 00

  So you are talking about the rules in football, so everybody has to work hard, everybody has to do, in my case, everybody has to defend the shit out of the opposition team, so that's, everybody has to buy into that, there's no, no, no, no, I always said, if, if you're not Lionel Messi, you have to defend, you have, you have to defend, so because I never had Lionel Messi, so they all had to defend. For example, everybody has to do that, but then to get there, that, that, that they, that they really grow together as a group. In a group, everybody accepts that they are different, otherwise we are, I don't know, an army, and, and they are different, but it's not, I mean, just because we wear the

• 16:56Speaker 00

  same shirt, we have all our own qualities, so, and to that, to bring them to life or let them shine, yeah, you have to be, to have to get treated in the right way, and that's what, what I loved to figure out, how is that, how is that possible, that was the conversations I had, the conversation with players during a season, of course they were football talks, but we had already enough meetings, the, the most important conversations were the private conversations. Why are, so when, when the player's not training well...

• 17:30Speaker 00

  Could be, could, that he just is not ready for training. Had a drink last night, didn't sleep enough, blah blah. Or, you ask. So that's all what you think, he looks like he didn't sleep enough, blah blah. Bring him in, ask him, what's going on? And he will be surprised, most of the time. They either slept enough or didn't sleep enough for the right reason because something happened and nobody could sleep. They had no drink, blah blah blah, but they lost focus right now because massive problems at home. Without asking, we'll never find out. So, here's one guy with a problem, here's another guy, he's flying. Don't treat them the same. The one needs more support and the other one you need to bring down a little bit. So, all these kind of, that's how you work with people.

• 18:13Speaker 00

  In the end, what you want is that, the job of a leader is to make the target, the aim, the final destination, whatever, that clear, like the sun, that everybody's automatically going there and you don't have to push them every day, say, by the way, there's the sun, let's run there. So that they know it. On the way there, you support them in different, in different ways. It's not so important what I want to say in a moment of anger or whatever, it happens, emotion, do that to us, especially around a football game, you shout something, did I really say that? Did I? Did I? But it's not so important in a talk conversation with people, they, which depend on you, you are responsible for, it's not so important what you say, it's much more important what

• 18:58Speaker 00

  they need to hear. It's not them telling them what they want to hear, no, what they need to hear to deal with their situation. So that's what leadership means. Not just telling them off for whatever, that doesn't work, that doesn't work, try to understand why. And that was, I, I love that part in my job and I still do that, if you want. Um, right now, not with world-class players all the time, or coaches, point directors, whatever, they're all young, um, younger than me at least, and, um, that's how I understand my role and understood my role.

• 19:35Steven Bartlett?

  Was there certain players in your team that you felt you could be tougher with? And others that you felt you could never really be tough with because that would make, that would hurt their performance?

• 19:47Steven Bartlett?

  I'm reflecting.

• 19:48Speaker 00

  Of, of course, of course, you have Sadio Mane and, and, and Mo Salah, two top examples. So in the end, there are not a lot of people who saw it coming. We knew they are great. We knew they are massive talents, they have fantastic potential, but they were not who they became later on. In that time, it's not that they came to Liverpool and said, boss, just wanna tell you, I defend anyway, so we don't have to talk about that. Just explain me how we do it. And we obviously, to, to be successful as a football team, you have to organize a football team, to get stability, to get stability, you need to find a way to defend properly and together. If you have that, based on that, they can start flying.

• 20:32Speaker 00

  Then we, then let's talk about the football part. So, and now there are obviously no defenders, but we were famous for our pressing and counter pressing. I talked a lot to them and it was, and the, the way we spoke about it was just one hundred percent clear. You wanna win more often than not, you wanna have the maximum success, you wanna be able to become the best team in England at one point. Yeah, okay, then do that, come on. So agreement, and then from there, we went on. But then with years, and not because they changed or whatever, here a little bit less, there a little bit less. And I have to decide, do I go for them like I would go for a young boy playing in that position and say,

• 21:13Speaker 00

  come on, turn, run, fight, jump and take them off in a moment. Oh, but no, of course not, you don't do that in that moment. It's a, it's a story in the newspaper. We had this one argument, I think, with Mo at West Ham at the, at the sideline when it didn't start and I brought him on and he was not happy. The problem, our problems then are always in public, that's not a real big thing. But in the moment, we didn't agree, definitely. So, um, how do you deal with that the next day? I think I can say, um, we have a very good relationship today, um, even though on that day it didn't look like. And that's all the things. So you learn, you try to do it the right way, you try to show the players respect,

• 21:58Speaker 00

  but at one point, it's never enough and you have to accept that as well. Because. The players, they grow, they get bigger and bigger and bigger and at one point, you hear years later, "He never spoke to me." Whatever, another player from wherever says about a former coach, about me, about Josse Mourinho, "He never spoke to me."

• 22:20Speaker 00

  I don't know, we spoke a lot. We just can't remember and we didn't speak what you wanted. We didn't, I didn't tell you what you wanted to hear, so you can never make it 100% right. But you can only do as good as you, as it's possible for you and that's what I tried all the time, to create a relationship where even when we had arguments, we always found a way out as me, player, and it never got carried into the team. That I lost respect, they lost respect for me because I acted that way. So we always stayed together. We always find a way that they understood, "Okay, it's really important that we get

• 23:01Speaker 00

  through this, that they sorted, the boss sorted with him or the boss sorted with us, that we can go from here again."

• 23:10Steven Bartlett?

  From a very young age, one of the things I found really surprising is in, as I was going through all of these football teams you played in as a young man, it appeared that you were always the captain, repeatedly assigned to be the captain. And I wondered why, what was it that you were doing from a very young age that meant all of your coaches back then asked you to be captain of the team?

• 23:30Speaker 00

  I have no clue. The coach I learned the most of, Wolfgang Frank, when he came back to Mainz, he was at Mainz, very successful spell, left, and then we were in trouble again, he came back and I was the captain. And we had a very experienced player from a first division team coming to Mainz in the second division, Lars Schmidt was his name. So in Wolfgang, "Jürgen, can we talk?" "Yeah, of course." "Jürgen, I want to make Lars the captain." "Oh yeah, good." "So then you are not captain anymore?" "Yeah, I know." So it was exactly like that, it meant nothing to me. So my role was not, I was a leader in the team, not on purpose. I was on the pitch, an aggressive leader, which I didn't like.

• 24:14Speaker 00

  So heart rate above 140, I lost it very often, in a very, very not good way. So really aggressive talk.

• 24:25Speaker 00

  Shouting at everybody and in all that, really, I had to, very often I had to apologize to my teammates.

• 24:33Steven Bartlett?

  Where did that come from? Because you're.

• 24:36Speaker 00

  I don't, I don't know.

• 24:37Steven Bartlett?

  There's a real dichotomy with you because you're such a sweet, kind guy. You have your mother in you in terms of the empathy and the love of people. But then there's this other explosive part.

• 24:48Speaker 00

  I didn't like it at all. And I was afraid when I stopped playing that that I'd take it over. So I was emotional. I was, I had moments where I lost it with referees and stuff like that. But generally, I was really, I'm a very calm person. So people think, because I'm probably, I think I'm a motivator or whatever I do. Get up in the morning and come in the dressing room and say, come on, boys, today we go again. Not at all. I mean, it happens from time to time, but not that often. No, I have no explanation for it. If I would have had an explanation, it was a little bit, I knew I'm not good enough. Actually, my teammates were better than me.

• 25:27Speaker 00

  And I thought I only can get on that level if I squeeze everything out. On, from an aggressive point of view, stuff like this. So that was a bit my explanation. Because they are so much better. But if I calm down and want to play cool football, yeah, I'm out.

• 25:46Steven Bartlett?

  You eventually become the manager of Mines.

• 25:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:49Steven Bartlett?

  You're my age when you get that job and the former manager's been sacked. The club have never gotten to the Bundesliga, the first division in Germany.

• 26:01Steven Bartlett?

  You don't have experience managing a club of this size or scale previously. The chairman comes to you, the owner comes to you and says they want you to do the job. Why did they want you to do the job?

• 26:12Speaker 00

  Because I didn't find anybody else in the short, in the short. We have times we played Sunday and the next game was on Wednesday. The idea was just to do that game. So the, the, the whole story is that Eckert Grauzon. The manager at that time, we lost the game on Sunday. And we had a little camp, a crisis camp, let me say, because on Wednesday was another very important game. We had to play, so he took us to a hotel, that we stay there, have two good sessions, and then we go for this very, very important and maybe decisive game. At that night, we have a meeting, we have a meeting with all players. And he said, gentlemen, I want to ask one question, do you still trust me? Are you still behind me? I don't want to answer now.

• 26:57Speaker 00

  I order beer for all of you. I go out, half an hour, I come back and you tell me.

• 27:03Speaker 00

  So he goes out, we just bring some beer in, we sit there, look at each other and think, huh?

• 27:10Speaker 00

  And discuss, and I was not captain at that time, I was not the captain. So, but then, it's like that, that the decision's no. What? Yeah, he asked, why you ask, you know? So, and it's like, we are, now we have a discussion, yeah, the majority, some people, some players didn't speak, but it was clear, if you ask, the answer is no. So, as I get, I'm not captain, but the captain says, Klopp, you tell him.

• 27:40Speaker 00

  I tell him, why? Oh, okay, but he comes in, he comes in, and, and that, actually, no. And he was shocked, he was really shocked, he didn't expect it. It's more like a little thing to do, and then we say, yes, we go through that together, something like that, but we said no. Why? Because he was not the right person. Why? Because we played bad and he was, I love Eckert Kraus, but that time for that team was really, he was just not the right coach, that can happen, doesn't say anything about you, but we did. Wrong training, wrong lineups, wrong tactics, wrong everything.

• 28:24Speaker 00

  So that's how things go bad in the wrong direction in that time. And we had no, that time, we didn't have to make the decision, yeah, who can take over or whatever. We just could say no. I mean, we, we, he could have said, okay, I will prove you wrong or whatever. But he ran out and said, tomorrow morning, nine o'clock training. Okay. And then he wanted to do a press conference where he wanted to tell the public that he kicks out all the experienced players and starts now the rest of the season and plays only the young kids. So I was one of the old players. I was thirty-three. Um, but I didn't know that that should happen.

• 29:03Speaker 00

  So he called the sporting director, we need a press conference and I want to talk to them and tell them we change everything. And the sporting director says, yeah, we do a press conference, but the subject will be Sec U. Okay, so done. And now they didn't have a coach. So and then they called me and for that game, can you do it? And I said, yeah, yeah, I can do it. And I did it and we won the game and they didn't find a manager. So we had Sunday and other games. We won, the first game we won one nil, the second game we won three one.

• 29:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, from the first seven games, we won six and drew one. So and we stayed in the league pretty comfortably. Comfortable is incredible. We were a bunch of friends. I, they were all my friends and I was their boss. They had to tell me that they change from now on in the coaches dressing room. Yeah, but what are you doing here? Here's the coaches, that's your office. Okay, the first night we had the twin room.

• 30:00Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 30:01Speaker 00

  So and I got one more game to sleep there with my friend, you and Kamni, they're in the same room. And then next day they all told me, yeah, you have, you get your own room. Oh, okay. So but all the rest, we were a real bunch of, of friends. And they respected me from day, from the first second.

• 30:19Steven Bartlett?

  What was your approach going into that? You, you, you go from being a player to a manager of these boys. Like what, what, what's in your mind? Are you thinking, I'm just gonna let them do whatever they want to do? I'm gonna.

• 30:28Speaker 00

  We had Wolfgang Franger, very, very, the best, the best manager we all had when we were at Mainz. He was an exception. We at Mainz, we were a football team who lost all the games when the other team had better players. I think it sounds normal, but you know, in football there's a way to win games anyway. We never had that. So then Wolfgang Frank comes in, implements four in the back, ball-oriented defending. We did nothing else than that. And we changed overnight into the one opponent nobody wanted to play against. We were like machines. We were like machines. We are not great football. We were like machines. There were games our goalkeeper didn't touch the ball once. We were just defending. It was new that time, so it was really for all of them.

• 31:13Speaker 00

  That means we all became believer in that. Then Wolfgang left and none of the other coaches could do that. None. There was no connection to the coaches after Wolfgang.

• 31:24Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 31:26Speaker 00

  So I was one of the players who benefited massively from Wolfgang Frank. And now I arrived and the only thing I did when I... The two sessions I had were both exactly about that. Four for two, ball-oriented movements. And we go for MSW Duisburg that time. They were third in the table. We go for them like nobody else. But I like these moments. I like to find a reason why it makes sense, that why we give our absolute all in a moment like this. Why we don't invest only the minimum, why invest the maximum. Why we would regret it if we don't do it. How better life is if we do it. How much more fun it is if we do it. I love, I love these moments.

• 32:08Speaker 00

  And probably something like that, I told them. And from that moment on, nobody wanted to play against us anymore. So like we were like, wow, animals. It was great. It was a fantastic time. Same team, um, pretty much, uh, changed overnight.

• 32:29Steven Bartlett?

  So you fixed the defensive situation, the formation, and you also told the players in that dressing room a story of why we had to give this, give everything?

• 32:39Speaker 00

  Hmm. Showed up, they wrote us off, showed the outside world, whatever you can do. Most of the time it was real life, but that time, so in my meetings later on, I never prepared in a way that I wrote something down or whatever. Our life was preparation, what happened during the week with us in the world. That was preparation for meeting. I never thought long about it, just remembered it when I needed it. We spoke, I told the boys. But that time, they needed one person to believe in them. And I did. It was not that I had to convince myself, we have to tell them, no. Before that season, I told in an interview, this is the best squad Mainz and VfM ever had. It would be really difficult for me to play.

• 33:25Speaker 00

  But good for us that the team is so good. And then we were in a hopeless situation before I took over. So when I became the manager, I was the one who thought this team is incredible. Nobody knows it yet, but we will make sure in a few weeks they will have a sense at least.

• 33:46Steven Bartlett?

  How important did that prove to be, this idea of making sure that the players you have throughout your career had belief in themselves?

• 33:54Speaker 00

  That's all. It's all about that. It's not football, it's life. You had no, when you started your podcast, people probably told you, well, that might be something for you. But you were not sure. And then with each little thing here and there, oh, how many people listened to your first podcast? Do you remember? No, no, no, I think I read it somewhere. Forty?

• 34:17Steven Bartlett?

  Something around that, it was under a hundred, yeah.

• 34:19Speaker 00

  So it's a start. So it's a start. And all the rest is if you want history, and that's always in life like that, that it's just give it a chance.

• 34:31Speaker 00

  Of course it makes sense, you believe in yourself, but not everybody can do that. But then if you meet somebody who helps you with that, who has a perspective, who can see something in you, yeah, then tell, tell them, oh, you should keep it for yourself. Oh my God, I think he's a talent, she's a talent, whatever. Oh yeah, she's good at that, he's good at that. Yeah, but we don't tell each other. So where's the problem?

• 34:54Steven Bartlett?

  Did someone do that for you?

• 34:57Steven Bartlett?

  It told you that you should believe in yourself. They saw something in you.

• 35:00Speaker 00

  Once I said I never struggled with confidence, but I don't know why. That's the truth. But it's true. I never struggled with confidence. There's no reason for it. My two best friends in school were genius and we sat together doing exactly this, reading the same books, did, invested the same amount of time. They had the best A levels in school and I was far off that. So a normal reaction would be, poor, I'm a dump, obviously.

• 35:30Speaker 00

  But I never thought that. I don't really know why, why, why that happened. So I took it how it was. I thought, oh, respect. You, you can remember all these things? Crazy. I can't.

• 35:41Steven Bartlett?

  But you had lots of players that struggled with confidence.

• 35:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. I tried to create a situation to make sure that

• 35:52Speaker 00

  the player, if, if they are not confident yet, they are confident. But you know, there are moments when they lose it. Confidence is like, perhaps it once as a little flower and constantly somebody steps on it. It's like that. No, and then it's growing again and oh, now we are confident again, stuff like this. In football, it's really difficult because it's like you cannot play without making mistakes. So if a mistake costs you confidence, ah, that's a real, a real challenge. Um, but, but I tried to, you know. If you would believe as much in yourself as I do, that would be a start. But as long as you cannot do that, just trust me. So you are good because I don't work with, not with other players. I don't waste time.

• 36:36Speaker 00

  I don't, that's what, and it's true, I don't. So I really, I really see something and if I see it, I'm patient enough to work on it. Um, much more patient than the public wants me to be. But of course, the, the idea is that at one day. I help you learn flying, but in the end you have to fly yourself, obviously. I cannot, I cannot do that for you. That's what it is football, you have to perform alone. They cannot look at me. Uh, what shall I do? And that's my job is to prepare them as good to make it the education, the coaching as as wide as they just pick. For me, that's the idea, but not too much as well.

• 37:19Speaker 00

  It's, yeah, it's obviously was a good time in my life doing all these kind of things. I, I, I worked with some of the best footballers in the world. Um, really good time.

• 37:30Steven Bartlett?

  Do you sometimes have to lie in public to protect a player's confidence? I was, I wonder this because you see managers come out and say, oh, he can't play because he's injured or whatever. And they, they say things, but I wonder sometimes if managers are protecting players.

• 37:46Steven Bartlett?

  Because they're struggling or.

• 37:47Speaker 00

  Yes, we protect players. I'm not sure I ever had to lie, to be honest, I'm honest, I don't know, but we protect players. Super important, so for me, super important. Um, he lacks confidence, that's in football, obvious. You see that you run one on one on a goalie and you don't make it. You can see it's because you don't have confidence. That's, that's how it is. There's not a lot of other reasons, it can be wind, weather, ball, opponent is there, but you do it once, you do it twice, three times. Yes, that's like, that's not good for the confidence of nobody. Having that in training, you, you have, the job is not to talk too much about it, to, to give him a chance to get confidence back with the things you do in training. That it doesn't last forever.

• 38:27Speaker 00

  So, um, the one thing you have to protect players from is public.

• 38:33Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 38:34Speaker 00

  Try to, because they are ruthless in moments and they don't care until something happens or whatever. Supporters sometimes, I think we were really lucky with that. We created that bond between the supporters and the team that they were not angry, disappointed, yes, but not angry in a way that I don't want to see them anymore. So that helped, but of course you have to protect them sometimes. You have to protect them sometimes from themselves as well. So that's the job.

• 39:04Steven Bartlett?

  Did you have to involve yourself much with social media usage of your team members? And did you, did you ever consider someone's social media usage when you were considering signing them to join the club? Because I think this now as a Manchester United fan, I think some of our when some of our players are posting on social media little indirect messages and little emojis and commenting things, I just think, oh god, troublemaker.

• 39:26Speaker 00

  We had situations that players text us or posted something at night and deleted it, but I still got aware of it. So not that I read it, but people tell me, oh, last night, this and that happened. When? Three o'clock.

• 39:41Steven Bartlett?

  Three o'clock?

• 39:43Speaker 00

  Okay. What did he say? Yeah, this and that. Oh. What I do in these situations, even deleted, I go in the dressing room and all I have is, last night, this and that happened, uh, got deleted. I know what's there, but maybe you want to tell everybody.

• 40:00Steven Bartlett?

  You would ask them to say in front of everybody?

• 40:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:04Speaker 00

  Last night, eh? The thing is, I didn't, I don't go for him and tell him, how can you write that or whatever. So I said, come on, I, I, somebody told me, so I know it.

• 40:17Speaker 00

  Not important really, but come on, tell the whole team what he, what he wanted to say. And then it's not, it's not great in that situation that I don't like to bring people in that, but I think that's a deserved punishment for something like that. But actually, the effect is, nobody ever did it again. Because nobody wants to be in that situation in the dressing room, sitting there and be the one who has to explain something he did last night or whatever. I discuss individual problems if it was okay, quite in front of the team. If it was important for the team, yeah, come on, explain why you did that, why you went out that long, what happened in the last two hours.

• 41:04Steven Bartlett?

  Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay. This photo here is of things going well for you.

• 41:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:09Steven Bartlett?

  Mines?

• 41:10Speaker 00

  Before I had.

• 41:13Speaker 00

  That to get here, we, that's, these are tears. The tears the year and two years before were not for the same reason. So you probably know we didn't get promoted for a point and a goal. First a goal, first a point, then a goal. And then this happened. That was the first day when it really went well.

• 41:32Steven Bartlett?

  So this was the day that you got promoted for the first time in the history to the Bundesliga?

• 41:37Speaker 00

  Yeah. But before winning that, I learned how to lose. This is very important, I would say. I think that's again, to learn, even though you want to be as successful as somehow possible.

• 41:56Speaker 00

  You have to accept that from time to time you lose. And then keep, then when you then keep going, you have a good chance if you learn from it. A defeat is a defeat if you don't learn from it. If you learn from it, it's a very, very important information. And obviously in football, we have a lot of opportunities to get beat and opportunity to learn from it. But this was the biggest relief in my life, not happiness. That I was just pure relief. The pressure was mounting. I was crazy. Not only myself, nobody, not from outside, I don't know even over the outside world thought.

• 42:36Speaker 00

  But to make it happen that year, that was really special.

• 42:42Steven Bartlett?

  But it took two years of coming close.

• 42:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:46Steven Bartlett?

  And dealing with the disappointment.

• 42:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:48Steven Bartlett?

  True. When I spoke to Jamie Carragher, I asked Jamie Carragher, actually this earlier this morning, I said, I said to him, you know, what, what was he curious about with you? And this is actually what he said. He said, there were so many near misses in your career, whether it was in the Champions League. Or I remember when you were head to head with Man City that in that season and you were one point shy of winning, winning the league. And his question was, he's fascinated with how you, you were so good at dealing with the disappointment of near misses. Because sometimes near misses can cripple people. They can turn them into a downward spiral. It can be like the plant that got stood on. It can crush someone's confidence. But it appears through your career that near misses ended up being positive forces for you.

• 43:36Speaker 00

  It's not that I knew that always, but what made me spoke about very early, but what maybe the person I am, these people, of course, mom, dad.

• 43:46Speaker 00

  My faith as well. So, and I, I knew always that I'm not here to get everything. I am here to give everything. So

• 44:00Speaker 00

  that doesn't help in a moment when you, when you, when you fail for a point. But in the general understanding as a person, of course, it helps. So I'm not surprised that I fail. I don't, I don't think, I don't see myself as a constant winner in my, in my mind. I see myself as a constant trier. So I don't know constant winners, but there might be some out there. Um, but I, I just can't imagine a world where it would be like that. You know, all, all the people running around there, all the happy people that win all the time. Nobody wins all the time. Uh, nobody does. So it's all about dealing with the things you want and not get.

• 44:42Speaker 00

  And then you wanted more and or not anymore or whatever. So the moments were not great, but I learned it here. Doing it that day changed the, the destiny of the Club of Mainz 05. That's how it is. My destiny, the players destiny changed everything. So we wanted it that hard, but we learned before. We have to try harder. And that's what I always took. If you don't get the result you want, try again and try harder.

• 45:14Steven Bartlett?

  It was Christian that gave you that job, wasn't it?

• 45:16Speaker 00

  Yeah. Mr. Heidel.

• 45:18Steven Bartlett?

  Christian Heidel. I am, I spoke to Christian Heidel.

• 45:23Steven Bartlett?

  He made a-

• 45:23Speaker 00

  His English is very funny, isn't it?

• 45:25Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, I've had, I've had to, I'm going to translate it for the viewers, but I'm going to actually play what he said to you in, in German.

• 45:31Speaker 00

  Oh, of course.

• 45:31Steven Bartlett?

  So you can hear it.

• 45:34Speaker 02

  Globo. Yes, dear Globo, we've known each other for exactly thirty five years now. First, we were both players, then you subsequently became my esteemed coach. It all started in Mainz, you changed an entire club, you changed an entire city. Back then, we were promoted to the Bundesliga together, and today Mainz has been in the Bundesliga for over twenty five years. Back then, that was actually unimaginable. You go to Dortmund, change your club, change an entire city, and win every title there is to win. You move to Liverpool, and the same thing happens for the third time. You change your club, you change your city. I don't think any coach before you has ever achieved that. And I'm always asked, what makes Jürgen Klopp special?

• 46:16Speaker 02

  To this day, he has simply remained a genuine person, always authentic, which is incredibly important. Apart from the fact that you are, of course, an outstanding expert. I hope we'll see each other again soon on our little shared island in Mallorca. Um, and have a great day and lots of fun with your podcast. Wow.

• 46:34Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 46:36Speaker 02

  Globo.

• 46:37Steven Bartlett?

  I told you. You changed a club, you changed the city.

• 46:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:41Steven Bartlett?

  You did that over and over and over again. You went on and did that again at Dortmund, um, winning a huge range of awards there at a time when they were weren't considered to be hopeful. And then you went off to Liverpool and did the same. And as you, I was reading about how when you traveled to Liverpool, there was thirty thousand Liverpool fans watching your plane fly across um, the channel to Liverpool because they're all very excited. And you arrived at a time when they were in a period of dysfunction, kind of similar to where Manchester United are now, I guess.

• 47:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:13Steven Bartlett?

  And you managed to bring them up from being a team that were dysfunctional, hadn't won. There was a lot of pessimism around the club. I think as a Man United fan, I was hoping and wondering that if Liverpool would ever come back, I was hoping they would never come back again. But you brought them back annoyingly. When you, when you arrived at Liverpool that day, you said in that press conference that you're the normal one. I remember that. What did you observe when you arrived? What was the culture? What was the feeling? And what was your first thought about what you had to do to to bring that club back to its glory?

• 47:45Speaker 00

  The feeling I got, I had roughly a week to to think about everything from the from the first call to the signature, I think.

• 47:54Steven Bartlett?

  Did you have other offers from other clubs?

• 47:55Speaker 00

  Oh, in that moment, not, but in the summer I had a lot of offers like before, I mean, I finished at Dortmund. But in that moment, it was just Liverpool. But it was kind of destiny because I didn't want to. It was not, we were on a family holiday in Lissabon with the with the two boys, Ulla and I, sitting there, phone goes. My agent, why is he calling? Boys, look at my face. And I say, Liverpool. And the both.

• 48:23Steven Bartlett?

  Yes, the boys.

• 48:25Speaker 00

  Yeah. And Ulla looks, what? What is she? And she didn't see my lips when I spoke. What? And realized, oh, my God, we start again. Before she knew, we will we will go to Liverpool.

• 48:36Steven Bartlett?

  What did your boys?

• 48:37Speaker 00

  Oh, come on. If you are not a Man United fan, you know what Liverpool means for two people. And they, they, they, yeah, they loved it. And we fell instantly in love with that club. So.

• 48:50Steven Bartlett?

  Did Manchester United have a call?

• 48:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, I spoke to them.

• 48:55Speaker 00

  So in the year when Sir Alex retired, they they spoke to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course they were interested at one point. So I was, that time, I would have been interested. I was a young, I had a sensational team at Dortmund. My God. So somebody, they probably thought, my, what is he doing there? Later on, I heard that my players, Handel, Adam Alana, James Melon, so that they flew to to to Real Madrid when we played the semi final in the Champions League to watch us. I wanted to see what is Dortmund doing? My God, what a football that is. I mean, you cannot get bigger compliments. That's really, it's really good.

• 49:33Steven Bartlett?

  I want to know why Manchester United didn't piss on you.

• 49:35Speaker 00

  No, no, no, they tried. I, I, it was wrong time, wrong moment. For me, I was in, I had a contract at Dortmund. I wouldn't have left, not really for for for nobody in that time. They just needed a manager, but the manager they wanted in that case now, it was one of a few options, I think.

• 49:52Steven Bartlett?

  So it was you that turned down Manchester United, not Manchester United turning you down?

• 49:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, that way. So I, yeah. So.

• 50:00Steven Bartlett?

  We need someone else on negotiations, we need.

• 50:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, no, no, he's not there anymore, the guy who negotiated that, so there are now other people in charge, it's long ago, long ago, so.

• 50:10Steven Bartlett?

  Why wouldn't, I'm going like, Manchester United's often known as the biggest club in the world, why wouldn't you take that job? Why didn't you take that job? Manchester United, the great Manchester.

• 50:20Speaker 00

  So it's just typical, we are now not in private, in a private space, so there are some reasons, but the people in that conversation told me, which I didn't like.

• 50:28Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, really?

• 50:30Speaker 00

  So, United was that big. We get all the players we want. We are like, we can this, we get him, we get him, we get him, we get him, and I was sitting there. So it was not my project, it didn't feel like my, it was the wrong time, but on top of that, it was not my project. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't want to bring back, I don't know, Pogba, Paul is a sensational player, my god, but these things don't work usually. But these kind of things, or Cristiano, my god, we all know that he's the best player, or together with Messi, the best player in the world, so, but bringing back never helps.

• 51:09Speaker 00

  In that time, in two thousand thirteen, it was obviously not about Cristiano, maybe about Paul, I'm not even sure, when, don't get the numbers together, but it was just, the idea is we bring the best players together and then let's go.

• 51:20Steven Bartlett?

  It wasn't about the football.

• 51:21Speaker 00

  No, not at all. And I sat there and was like, ah, nah, I am not sure, that's not for me. So, and then the pure, pure football project comes up with Liverpool, and a sensational talk to Mike Gordon, that's really important as well, like, he was the owner, I know John and Tom, of course, as well, but Mike was responsible for us. I wanted, after that talk, I want to be his friend, he's such a good guy, so that's how it started, and in the end, yeah, it was pretty special.

• 51:55Steven Bartlett?

  I find this fascinating, because as a Manchester United fan, I observed from the moment Sir Alex Ferguson left. We adopted a very different approach and we brought in all these massive name players, Di Maria, Falcao, Ibrahimovic, Pogba, Ronaldo, and we failed. And it taught me something as an entrepreneur about what matters more. And I actually, when I read through your philosophy, it's quite clear in your philosophy that you prefer attitude and character versus how many Instagram followers you've got and what you've done in the past.

• 52:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, of course.

• 52:31Steven Bartlett?

  And I wanted to get your take on why you think the last, this is very selfish of me, the last 15 years at Manchester United haven't worked out as an objective observer.

• 52:41Steven Bartlett?

  I want to, I need to.

• 52:42Speaker 00

  You cut.

• 52:45Steven Bartlett?

  You're a man that was able to take teams and make them successful. And we are currently underdogs in many regards because of the last 15 years. What is it that we've missed in that time? What have we overlooked in your view?

• 52:57Speaker 00

  I know you don't want to hear that.

• 52:58Steven Bartlett?

  You have a hypothesis, though.

• 53:00Speaker 00

  I didn't think a second since I joined Liverpool about what Man United did right or wrong. I just didn't. So it's like, I buy into a situation. So I went to Liverpool and that moment you became our opponent, not my enemy, but a very important opponent, one who is much more fun to beat than maybe, and like other leagues with Everton. I know so many Everton fans in Liverpool, they lived there for nine years. So I know so many people, great people. So absolutely, but then you go to the game and think, oh my God, that's something different. Not I make that up, it's like that. But I really didn't think, but always in football is like this.

• 53:42Speaker 00

  And again, like in life, you have a problem and you only try to find a solution for now, knowing you have two days later, another problem. You know it, but it's such for now, then just find a solution for that problem. There's no mid, no long term. So generally, okay, we have to deal with that for another day or two and then we can sort it. And that means in our sense, we have to deal with that for a year or two at United and then we can make a big step. Then this, in our case, in football case, contracts are running out, player goes anyway, we can sell him, we can do this. But because you're in such a rush all the time, just because you want to or have to win the next game.

• 54:23Speaker 00

  A little bit like that, being now in the situation probably United, in the years when they were not happy, they would buy the time from that time, Jose becoming second, and no one was really happy there, and you think, "Oh, remember that? In that time, second was not good enough, and now you are not even close to that." But that's not a Man United story for me, it's just a football story. It's always like that in the world of football. You win, you're the greatest. You lose, you know nothing about the game. You draw, you're boring. So that's not, you're constant, and it's only about your own idea, what you really want to do and where you want to go. And everything in life is about development. Today, you were not the same 10 years ago, I was not the same 10 years ago.

• 55:07Speaker 00

  So it means the time between then and now counts. So if it counts, for me, the next 10 years do the same, so it's important what I do, it's important what I see in a year, two, three. So I have to plan my own life, mid and long term, as much as I can do that, and especially the destiny and the future of a football club.

• 55:27Speaker 00

  A player can score a goal, can score five goals, will never solve the problems, if you have real problems. And I don't know the United problems, but Liverpool was the same. It's not about that. On the day when we lost, sold Phil Coutinho, that was not the day when I thought, "Oh, good that we have the money. I lost a player I wanted to work with for the next 10 years, if you want." It was not that I thought, "Ah, and we can invest it." Yeah, we invested it smartly, that's true, but it's not that we found a player for the position and sorted that. That's, we had to solve differently, but we found two really solid, solid, and becoming world-class players with Alisson and Pandai.

• 56:10Speaker 00

  That was for the future, to go from there, and now that's the difference, I think.

• 56:16Steven Bartlett?

  I've had so many founders speak to me and say, why didn't this particular ad that I ran on this platform work for me? Maybe the copy wasn't good, the creative wasn't strong, but usually the problem is they're not having the right conversation because that ad never reached the right person. And if you're in B2B marketing, that is much of the game. And this is where LinkedIn Ads solves that problem for you. Their targeting is ridiculously specific. You can target by job title, seniority, company size, industry, and even someone's skillset. And their network includes over a billion professionals. About 130 million of them are decision makers. So when you use LinkedIn Ads, you're putting your brand in front of the right people. And LinkedIn Ads also drive the highest B2B return on ad spend across all ad networks in my experience.

• 56:59Steven Bartlett?

  If you want to give them a try, head over to LinkedIn.com/diary. And when you spend $250 on your first LinkedIn Ads campaign, you'll get an extra $250 credit from me for the next one. That's LinkedIn.com/diary. Terms and conditions apply. Do any of you remember a conversation I had on this podcast with anthropologist Daniel Lieberman? It was one of our most viewed conversations of all time, and the most replayed moment in that conversation was when I talked about this product. These are what I call Barefoot Shoes by Vivo Barefoot, which have significantly reduced support, which gives my feet the opportunity that they desperately want to need to strengthen. We're living in a comfort crisis and that at all times in our lives, we're making this

• 57:44Steven Bartlett?

  trade of whether to have more comfort now and therefore more discomfort in the future, or a little bit less comfort now, but to be stronger and healthier in the future. And research from Liverpool University has backed this up. They've shown that wearing Vivo Barefoot shoes for six months can increase foot strength by up to 60%. So if you want to start strengthening your feet and your body, visit vivobarefoot.com/steven and you'll get 20% off when you use code STEVENB20 at checkout. That also comes with a 100-day money-back guarantee.

• 58:17Steven Bartlett?

  What I love about football is the analogies to the world I'm in, which is the world of business, where you can watch a team like, we're seeing, I think, Crystal Palace at the moment, who objectively don't have maybe the best players in the world, they don't have the most money.

• 58:31Speaker 00

  Bournemouth as well.

• 58:32Steven Bartlett?

  Bournemouth as well, yeah. But they're doing something, which is creating this magic. And it's this wonderful narrative of you don't need to have the most talent or resources to have the best outcome. So what is that gap between, like, and that's...

• 58:47Speaker 00

  There must be something. Now, look, it's a situation at the moment, and the situation with Crystal Palace and Bournemouth is massively different to the situation for United. If Bournemouth wins the game 1-0 and doesn't perform particularly well, you take it and you go on. I'm not sure you would really find an article in the newspaper about it, just win it and go. But United is United. United, each step is under the focus. And they're like, oh, he didn't... They won, but he didn't play great. So they win a game and then somebody doesn't perform well, so pick him out and go for him full throttle. And you think, wow. So the coach has to pick him up again. No, no, it's all right, stuff like this. And the next one, and the next... They are different, completely different situations.

• 59:31Speaker 00

  The only problem you have now, in the time you try to sort your problems, all the other clubs improve their situations. So Liverpool has an incredible squad, yes. Are they 100% happy right now with the three defeats? No, probably not. But incredible squad. Arsenal, incredible squad. City, City. I mean, they want to strike back, there's already three clubs. Chelsea, they're in that time when everybody thought, do they have an overview about their transfer market? Do they know who they own and who they loan and stuff like this? Obviously, somehow, it pays off. So they have already five clubs. They are above you. Are you happy with position six? No.

• 1:00:14Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:14Speaker 00

  So, and here's the problem. Should you be happy theoretically with position six? Maybe, this year, I'll build on that. So find a reason, find a reason to enjoy the situation again. Find a reason to enjoy a 1-0 victory, 2-0 victory at home, whoever, against whoever. Southampton, try to enjoy that. Really, be happy, go home, and not listening to others who tell you then.

• 1:00:45Speaker 00

  For Southampton, that's what we had years ago when we decided after a draw against West Brom

• 1:00:54Speaker 00

  to say thank you to the supporters. We stand in front of the Kop and hold his other hand and said, thank you. And then the press conference, Tony Poole is, what a world we are living in when Liverpool with the money they spend celebrate a point against West Brom. And, oh, thank you. So, but it's, it's, it's your choice how you grow together again. And I think after all the years now without a lot of good football, they need to find a way to grow together again.

• 1:01:28Steven Bartlett?

  I fully believe in Ruben Amorim. I think he's, he's a man that's focused on culture and I, I like how honest he is as well. And I think with the team that they have around them, with people like Jason Wilcox and Ineos, who I've met and Kelle and all the others that are there. I think we're, we've never been in a better place. I personally feel like that because I just think they're aiming for more long-term things. They're aiming at more long-term.

• 1:01:51Speaker 00

  The only problem is you have no clue about football, but besides that.

• 1:01:56Steven Bartlett?

  That's a small problem.

• 1:01:59Speaker 00

  So, yeah, good on you, good on you.

• 1:02:02Steven Bartlett?

  But I have faith.

• 1:02:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:04Steven Bartlett?

  That's great.

• 1:02:05Speaker 00

  It's nice.

• 1:02:06Steven Bartlett?

  I don't know if all my friends do, but I, but I certainly do. And the only reason I have faith is because I see the club aiming at more long-term things now. And not buying.

• 1:02:15Speaker 00

  That's what you have to do.

• 1:02:15Steven Bartlett?

  Players because they have loads of Instagram followers. When you got that phone call from Liverpool and they asked you to, to come and join, you said, well, the reason you chose Liverpool is because they felt like a football project versus Manchester United, who seem to be a bit more, less football oriented.

• 1:02:30Speaker 00

  But it, but it's not the same year, huh?

• 1:02:32Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:32Speaker 00

  Two years, yeah, two, two years before.

• 1:02:34Steven Bartlett?

  I'm wondering, what is it about their proposal that made you think it was a football project?

• 1:02:41Speaker 00

  Oh, the situation. I knew the club, I knew the team. So if you look at, on top of that, I didn't think it that way, but when Sir Alex left, it was, and they became champion in his last year, but it was not that the team was the one you build a future on. So that's how it is. When you come in, it's, it's a bit built to fail. If you want it, but I didn't see it that way. In that time, it was, it had other reasons, but if I would have thought longer about it, probably, probably. Yeah, so David Moyes, fantastic, fantastic manager, what he proves every year. Couldn't do the job and since then it's a bit of a problem, so a new team needs time. He was stitched up.

• 1:03:21Speaker 00

  So, well, needs time. So Liverpool, the team, as I said when I came, nobody likes the team. Not even the team likes the team. I like the team. I like the team. I knew the players. I thought when Bobby Firminian moved there, I thought, oh, that's a smart, that's a smart transfer. I know Christian, I knew Christian Benteke, I love Divock Origi, I knew John Henderson, I knew Adam Lallana, I know plenty of players and heard only, ah, kind of good enough. And I thought, oh, well, let's see. So I like the team. So that's a football team, proper football, super attitude. I mean,

• 1:03:54Speaker 00

  just on day one, I could have played Handel, Millie and Adam together in midfield. Maybe I did. I don't even know my first lineup, but this, it's a proper engine room. It's smart players. It's people who really want to, want to perform, want to work hard and all these kind of things. That's what you need for a start. I knew Liverpool was not the same club than they were before. It's not that I went into the shiny room. I played there a year before with Dortmund in the summer, in the preseason, and I was

• 1:04:26Speaker 00

  massively disappointed about the dressing rooms. I remember you have these pictures in your mind, you think, oh my God, it's envy, huh? And you walk in and make two steps into the dressing room and you run against the wall and you think, kidding? Is that all? Where's the rest? So English dressing rooms are really, really small in the old stadiums. That we think, oh my God, how can you bring it? It was built for 11 players and now we come here with 30. So people in that room doesn't help. So I, I knew about the history. I knew that nobody's happy. I knew that I liked the team.

• 1:05:03Speaker 00

  That's a good start.

• 1:05:05Steven Bartlett?

  And did they tell you that they were going to develop the ground, the stadium? Did they make any promises to your assurances? Did they tell you?

• 1:05:11Speaker 00

  No, we didn't really speak about that in the first conversation. That's nothing I need to talk about in this kind of conversation. I know the job I had in that moment was just to improve the football team, not the club. That I was involved in all the other stuff happened with time, with time. Just to be, I realised this is my responsibility now as well. You never know. I don't plan seven, eight, nine year spells in a club. It just happens. It's like, I don't, I don't think they could sack me, but I know could happen. So I plan from a specific moment on, when I sorted the first few things, then I plan mid and long term, or always did, knowing it might not be for me.

• 1:05:53Speaker 00

  But I was, I was never worried about that too much.

• 1:05:57Steven Bartlett?

  What was the first, first couple of things you thought you had to change to get them winning and to get the confidence back and to ultimately bring the city behind you? Was there anything you thought, okay, the first thing I'm going to have to do is get rid of him, change this?

• 1:06:10Speaker 00

  So, a year before, like not in that season, but the, the, the, two years before, then nearly became chairman, was a different team and it was a very specific way of football. Offensively, oh my God, they were ridiculously good. Defensively, yeah, lucky, a good goalie there, stuff like this. It was not the same. So we didn't have the team from that time. We didn't have Suárez, we didn't have Sterling, we didn't, yeah, we had still, um, Danny Sturridge, stuff like this, but it was different, different team, completely different. I arrived there, I had five strikers. It was Chris Hementaker, Danny Ings, Diva Gorigi, Bobby Firmino, Daniel Sturridge, five strikers. And I want to play a one striker system. Oh, how do we deal with that?

• 1:06:55Speaker 00

  But it was, it was fine and there was so much quality, just really solid. So the first thing I had to sort is like to organise them. So find, get, find a way to make sure that they understand that we have a chance to win the next football game. We have to do a couple of things for that. For Tottenham, three days' time to train.

• 1:07:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, jump in their face. And let's see what we get for it. It's not organized. It's like we started with an organized chaos. So I gave them a few ideas about where we have to, where we want to put them under pressure. And in that moment, now do it. And afterwards, we work, we talk about it, how it worked out, because there was no time to train. Anyway, we had no time. The week after, we played European League, I think, in the midweek, and then we play again. And it's like you are in a rush. At a coaching career with all the games you have to play, if you really want to, a top team especially, if you really want to develop a style of football, you are set up to fail. Because it's like you have no time in the preseason. There's no, their players are everywhere, playing big tournaments, blah, blah, blah.

• 1:07:56Speaker 00

  And you come two weeks before the season starts into your camp. Okay, so let's drive, let's go from here. Then you play, top teams play every three days from a specific date on. We, obviously, we lost a lot of finals. That means we played a lot of finals. That means we played all the games until the end of the season, which is a lot. So there's not really time. So to train and really develop things, you have to use each little moment to implement a specific idea we all can buy into. And that's what we did. I loved our first game against Tottenham. Simon Minjule had to make a few good, really good saves, but they had to do as well. And that year Tottenham was really strong.

• 1:08:41Speaker 00

  They became second behind Leicester, I think it was that season. And that's a start.

• 1:08:46Steven Bartlett?

  What are those little ideas that you started to implement one by one?

• 1:08:53Speaker 00

  So many, if you don't have time to change football. What do you mean? We are all not genius. We cannot go there and show them a little bit, pass the ball here, pass the ball there. And if you pass the ball back again, you can shoot on your own in front of the goal. That doesn't work like that. So I am one hundred percent convinced you have to.

• 1:09:11Speaker 00

  Make sure that you are stable. If you're stable, that means that the other team, whatever they try, it's not easy for them to get through and should just finish. I don't like that. So if you can avoid that, do it. Because we are people, what we now realize a few times, it's not easy. If they have five, six chances after each other, opportunities after each other, then it's like that, you don't feel great. Nobody plays his best football if each attack of the opponent ends in the arms of your goalie. That just doesn't work. So how can we do that? Instability is to organize a team that's number one, two, and three on the to-do list of a successful manager. And that's what I did. We organized. And then we told them to run their socks off. People have to, you have to show the people that

• 1:09:56Speaker 00

  you want to change something. You have to show the people that you want to achieve something. How, we can tell, I can tell them, but at the end you have to show them. So run. And they went for it. I loved it so much. They loved it so much. It's easy. They're all top fit. They want to run. So just show them which direction and it goes. And then we developed step by step our own way of football. Brought players in step by step. But we got stable pretty quickly. Not as much as we wanted. I think we became six, seven, eight. I don't even know first season. Two finals, great. Lost both, not great. But then we knew each other and we loved working together with this group. Brought

• 1:10:37Speaker 00

  in super players, really super, super players, super characters, super players, and stick together. And I mean, what can you do? We lost the European League final in Basel. How it always is, there's a party after the game. So you cannot organize a party, but you always know if you lose, who wants to go to the party? So I was the new manager, yes. Not that new anymore, seven, eight months in or so. And I realized some players are also there, but it was in a team hotel. So I called them, told them, all here. Come on, come downstairs. Ah, boss, really.

• 1:11:16Speaker 00

  I tell you what, this was only the start. We only are together since six months. This is not the last final we played. This is the first final we played. Okay, we lost to Carabao. It's not important. The first international final we lost. No problem. We go again. And I went on to stay on the dance floor. It was a dance floor. And they're all coming. And we're saying, we are Liverpool. I mean, I had had a few parties after the finals we lost. And I always thought, I don't waste time at all on not being happy about what we achieved over the whole year because qualifying for a final is a real achievement. Losing it is not great, but until then, everything was fine. And I never accepted

• 1:11:59Speaker 00

  that we ignored the rest. So we have a party.

• 1:12:04Speaker 00

  And then we went on to achieve new things. And we've been need a bit of time, obviously, but it was okay.

• 1:12:12Steven Bartlett?

  And this goes back to the point earlier about controlling the mindset and the psychology after you lose to make sure that you don't get pressed and.

• 1:12:20Speaker 00

  If you don't learn from a defeat, it's a real defeat. If you learn from it, it's just, it's a very, very important information. And that's how I always understood, understood it too. I had enough opportunities to learn, really. I lost more Champions League finals than most people play. It's not a great thing to say. It's the truth anyway.

• 1:12:44Steven Bartlett?

  You're known for what they call heavy metal football.

• 1:12:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, but that's the.

• 1:12:48Steven Bartlett?

  Do you like that phrase? And do you know why?

• 1:12:51Speaker 00

  I said a lot of things, but it's like, I said that, it was not in my mind that I thought you want to play heavy metal football. They asked me about Arsene Wenger on the comparison and they did think we are similar in a way. And I thought, what? Arsene, I know. So, come on, don't be disrespectful to Arsene. I'm a young blah blah blah man from somewhere. But if you want to compare us, then I'm not sure that's possible because Arsene's football is rather like an orchestra. And my team plays a little bit more like a heavy metal band. But that was the first day when I thought about my team, I got heavy metal band. But it.

• 1:13:29Steven Bartlett?

  But it's true.

• 1:13:30Speaker 00

  Yes, somehow.

• 1:13:31Steven Bartlett?

  It is true. And I know that more than anyone as a Manchester United fan watching. I'd hate playing your football teams because they they ran so much, they were so passionate, they never let up. They could always win in the last minute. And the intensity was you were just anxious as a as a football fan watching the games because it was so full on and it was overwhelming, it's almost overwhelming emotionally. And I I remember through your era, you'd win, sometimes you'd win games by seven, you'd score seven goals, five goals. Every week when I pull up my phone to check the scores that week, oh, Liverpool have scored five again. Oh, they've scored seven again, they've scored six again. Sometimes you would concede three, but you it was it was it was crazy how high intensity the way you played football was.

• 1:14:13Speaker 00

  Don't waste time with holding back. I don't understand it. We have nothing to do there ninety minutes, ninety five minutes, whatever. I don't, you had to learn, I had to learn to to manage games. Inside me until the last day was like, come on, come on, try. But then I had to, I mean, I grow up and I got more mature and stuff like this. It was like, OK, come on, hold the ball, control the ball. All the things you you at one point you do, you you learn some at any time on your on your journey. And that's that's how it is. And I loved the game so much and could play it not that good that I was so happy that I could work with these outstanding players. I couldn't so I I loved it.

• 1:14:57Speaker 00

  I enjoyed it so much, seeing them doing what they're doing. I was I was number one supporter of my team. Teams where I was, I loved what they did. So and that's what I I I carried through the week. I didn't tell them, I told them, I want to be your friend, but I don't, I cannot be your best friend. Because I'm the one who tells you off very often and they'll tell you this is not right, this is not right. But then, but the feeling, the general feeling was, I loved them. In my mind, my ex players, I love them all and some of them don't love back, let me say like that, probably for some reasons or whatever, but that doesn't mean anything to me. I love my clubs.

• 1:15:32Steven Bartlett?

  Do you think it's important how you win? Because you you know, this heavy metal, high intensity.

• 1:15:38Speaker 00

  Oh, you'll win.

• 1:15:39Steven Bartlett?

  Was great for the fans. They they love watching three, four, five, six, seven, they love watching that stuff. Do you think that matters or do you think it's just about getting the three points?

• 1:15:48Speaker 00

  Just we didn't win that often, five nil, seven.

• 1:15:51Steven Bartlett?

  It felt like it. It felt like.

• 1:15:54Speaker 00

  And against United, we did. You can cut it out. No, it's, yeah, of course it's important. So if you have your backpack, going to stadium as a player, if you have your boots and if you have your shirt, don't waste time with anything than giving your all. There's no guarantee to get anything, but the only chance to get something, so give your all from the first until the last minute. You have to understand this game is only that fun for us because all the people are watching it. That's why we earn the money. I mean it, I know that's what people want to hear, but we earn the money because everybody's interested in it. Everybody wants to see it, knows about it, reads everything about it, all these kind of things. And for that, with all the stories around,

• 1:16:38Speaker 00

  the only thing we really have to deliver is give your absolute all in a game like that, whatever, whichever game is there. Five thirty, two thirty, three thirty, whenever the game starts, give your absolute all. But why not just one nil and defense and boring and pass it round? That happens, that happens in games. You realize, okay, we scored a goal, but today's not our day. Come on, let's get it over the line. That happens, but it cannot be the target or the purpose for the next game again. Let's do it like that. Not for their clubs. If you own, the only realistic target is to stay in the league. A one nil is a wonderful result, but we talk about a club like Liverpool. We are, we are bigger than that.

• 1:17:23Speaker 00

  You have to win each football game when you are manager of Liverpool. That's what people, that's not that before the season, anybody thinks, oh, I have thirty eight games. Oh, what makes sense? Ooh, more than hundred. Hey, nobody had ever. So it's not like that, but still each defeat and each draw is like, how could that happen? It's like, and that's why you have to. To play in a specific way, not all clubs have the same things to do. But the top clubs, they have to win all the games. And when you have the chance, you win them clear. You win them with the proper results, stuff like this. You have to make the people enjoy the football you play. And I love to do that. I loved it, honestly.

• 1:18:05Speaker 00

  It's like the games we played, the results we had were just incredible. It's just amazing, but not all of them. And I love the one nils as much as I do all the others. The Champions League final was the worst, the worst final of all the four my teams played. But we won it. Would I take, would I change and say, okay, let's the other three as well? The performance in other games was really good, but we lost. So here we are, it was not fantastic, but we won. So all fine. It's about the result, but if you have a result and another result, it has to lead to really good football at one point. As good as possible for your specific team. You want to stay in the league, do it with good football.

• 1:18:49Speaker 00

  You want to qualify for Europe, do it with good football. Because we are there for the people. We don't, it's not there that we just go home and the people think, oh, it's unwatchable, eh? I'm not sure I come next week again. That's not, that's not fair. Try to play. The game is really, is a really cool game. So let's make sure that everybody sees it.

• 1:19:07Steven Bartlett?

  And what is the Liverpool way? What is inherent in, when you come to Liverpool, you are the manager or you are a player? What is the thing that you have to do that's specific to Liverpool in order to be successful?

• 1:19:18Speaker 00

  You have to understand the community. I mean, the community, just the city community, and it's a bigger community around the world. There are so many people. And this club went through a lot, not as the only club in the world, but come on. For that moment, we just think about ourselves, went through a lot. The reaction to these situations was always exceptional, to be 100% honest. And that's what you have to understand, what you have to learn. That this club means more to the people than just football. So that was, you have to understand. And that's why what we do is more important than it maybe is somewhere else. That that's the responsibility, responsibility we always took and understood 100%. Our boy, the players understood.

• 1:20:01Speaker 00

  To play for Liverpool is not just a club where you play during your career. It's the club and it's something you will definitely remember for life. So that we try, we try to make sure that the boys understood.

• 1:20:16Speaker 00

  If we give our absolute everything now, we meet in ten fifteen years, look back and we think it was the best we could have done, the absolute best we could have done. I think that's how you my view on life is as well. Or the other side is just sorting the problem in front of you.

• 1:20:33Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 1:20:34Speaker 00

  There's something we have to sort, but when you sort, you think about what's the effect for for for the rest. And that's what some people, some clubs maybe don't want to see because the pressure is too big just to make sure, okay, tomorrow at least they will not write. We have no clue. Tomorrow at least they will say they found a solution. And then we can think about um the next day or whatever.

• 1:21:00Steven Bartlett?

  How does how does someone, I don't know how someone succeed succeeds you because you have such a big aura. Are you aware that you have a big aura?

• 1:21:09Speaker 00

  Don't know if anybody has awareness of that. I heard about it, but I doesn't, they don't know what it means, what hundred percent to be honest. But I see it with other people.

• 1:21:18Steven Bartlett?

  An energy when you you arrive, it's the passion, it's the ability to talk, it's the ability to inspire people. It is, you know, it has an impact on the rival team you're playing because they go clocks here and big personality, big charisma. So Arne Slot coming in after you, he's he doesn't appear to be as have the same size of an aura. And I, I don't know, I just think big, big shoes to fill in terms of your aura.

• 1:21:46Speaker 00

  I have to go to the toilet.

• 1:21:49Speaker 00

  Oh, really?

• 1:21:54Speaker 00

  That's good.

• 1:21:57Speaker 00

  Big shoes.

• 1:21:59Steven Bartlett?

  Big shoes. I would not want to fill such shoes.

• 1:22:03Speaker 00

  Couple of things. First and foremost, I I thought I have.

• 1:22:09Speaker 00

  To say what I had to say when I when I announced my exit, if you want, my retirement, whatever you call it, at the time, and people judge that wrong moment, blah, blah, blah, whatever, you cannot change that. The first feeling was I have to say that. Then you have to finish the season as good as somehow possible in either world. You win something, we couldn't do that for whatever reason. And then you have to make sure because that's still something you have to do. You have to try to make it as easy as somehow possible for the guy who's coming after you. That's what I tried as well. Because I wanted

• 1:22:48Speaker 00

  them all to do incredibly well. And I always thought if somebody is not doing it that way, it's the first, the first hint you can get that, hmm, maybe he wants the next guy not to do it well. There was shouting, oh, my God, he did that, he did that, he did that. And I don't need that. I want Liverpool to do well. I want Liverpool to win. But they did. So what I liked a lot about Arne, and Arne didn't hesitate, what you said, no, I want to go in these shoes. Arne didn't have that problem. He thought, OK, that's a great club, that's a great team. And he's right, it was a fantastic, it's a fantastic club and it's a fantastic team. And he stepped into that. We had a lot of contact after

• 1:23:31Speaker 00

  that. He was super, he's a super, super good guy. Oh, my God, what a team. Wow, thanks a lot, blah, blah, blah, all these kind of things. Yeah. And he made the best. He got the best out of this team and they became champions in incredible manner, to be honest. So, and I'm really, really happy about that. So that's all, that's all. Is it, it all about, it shows again, it's all about how you see it. You can see you step into my footsteps, how you called it, or you take over a fantastic football team.

• 1:24:06Steven Bartlett?

  It was a brilliant, I mean, my, my best friend's a Liverpool fan, and he said, before you left, actually, he said, this is the best squad Liverpool have ever had. Arne has inherited that squad, which is considered to be the best squad by many people that Liverpool have ever had. And in that first year, didn't really change much. There wasn't really, there wasn't any big signings coming. I actually heard from one of the, the players in Liverpool that them say to a really good friend of mine that the best thing Arnie had done was actually in that first year, don't change much. Don't come in and try and radically change things and signing.

• 1:24:39Speaker 00

  What Arne Slot would say himself, probably, I think he said it, that's super smart. So it's not about what Arne wants to show the world what he can do. It's about how to get the best out of this team. And that's exactly what he did. Not changing much means he changed a little bit. We became third the year before. So there's not a lot you have to change, but a few decisive things you have to change. And all of a sudden, you win the league by some distance. So that's what it is. Not that he has to put his new own stamp. This team was, was, was good in a, in a lot of ways, but we didn't win. The year before. So then that's what he, what his, what his um job was. And he did that in an incredible, impressive manner. So, and.

• 1:25:21Speaker 00

  That's all you want. And you need people who have the confidence to do these kind of things because um. Doesn't make sense if you have a, a manager who is not one hundred percent sure about the things he is wants to do and. I want us to play like this, or if that's not possible, I wanna play like this, or I wanna, but we maybe completely different. That doesn't work. Being a football manager is already a challenge with all the different things you have to do. Being a football manager in, in, in such a competitive league like the Premier League is a real challenge. Being a football manager in the world we are living in with media.

• 1:26:03Speaker 00

  Social media and all these kind of things. It's an incredible challenge. Believe me, you, you have no clue what's coming up. The next day, you think, oh my God, where's that coming from? How, how, who was that? Oh, my player. You read a story, whatever, and all of a sudden, you think.

• 1:26:22Speaker 00

  From a problem, it turns into your problem and a wing. So sort that and all the rest as well. So you need this kind of. I love that about Arnie that he came in and took over and he knew he got a good team. Yes, it was.

• 1:26:39Speaker 00

  And did a perfect job.

• 1:26:42Steven Bartlett?

  I mean, in terms of making changes this year, Liverpool have spent what 450 odd million, which is a crazy number. I mean, I think he's broken the transfer record in various positions several times with Wirtz and with Isak now as well. So change has arrived. These are new people. They're coming in with their own ideologies from their previous clubs. They've all arrived at once, a lot of new faces at once. Is this not now where the challenge begins? Because this is going to become Arnie's team now.

• 1:27:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, but that's not a problem. That's just completely normal. It doesn't mean exactly that today. There was a lot of change. I mean,

• 1:27:22Speaker 00

  no team in the world. By the way, it's 450 or whatever million. I don't know the exact numbers, but they earned a lot of money as well.

• 1:27:30Speaker 00

  And change always has an impact and change always needs time and but people talk then about this. If, no, that's not like that. He keeps us exactly same team like us. Yeah, Darwin Yun is still there. Luis Diaz is still there as an example. So they start playing, but they have problems. So yeah, we need a change. So now they are not there anymore. The new guys are there and they are good, really, really good players. It's not working out. I mean, yeah, why? Why it's not working? Because development needs time. Then nobody can change that. And people need to find, need to adapt to situations, need to adapt to things and all this kind of thing. So it's all good. It's all in place. What you have, Liverpool this year has to be in the competition, in the decisive moments.

• 1:28:14Speaker 00

  And then they have to be ready to go for it. There's no guarantee that you then will win it again. That doesn't happen just like this. You cannot be champion, spend money and be champion again. The other teams don't sleep. That's how it is. And to become champion, you need luck in moments here and there. That's how it is. Nobody wants to hear that. But crossbar. Over the line, not over the line, all these kind of things, it can go in your direction or in the other direction. So it's all fine. And we discussed the situation now like it's a hmm, a struggle, surprise. Yeah, we we take we take the money and throw it against them, four hundred fifty million. Yeah, but they earned two hundred odd million

• 1:28:54Speaker 00

  as well. So it's all fine. If you're with Liverpool, and only these people are really, there's only only people who matter. If you are with Liverpool, yeah, you trust them, and they do the right, they did the right stuff, they do the right things. So work on it and become the best football team this team can be.

• 1:29:14Steven Bartlett?

  You never had a transfer window like that, where you spent that much money?

• 1:29:17Speaker 00

  No, we built we built three stands and a and a training ground.

• 1:29:20Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, exactly. And and I remember the press conference, I think when you were referring to City's ability to spend money.

• 1:29:26Speaker 00

  I had no clue that this is possible. Nobody, nobody ever told me that it's possible, that we can that we can spend like that. My last year, Liverpool, so we obviously, so the Adidas deal, the new stadium, all these kind of things, yeah, they earn more money, but it was never, no, never ever I I could have asked for the amount of money. But that's not a problem. That time, it was not there, no problem at all, really not. And I love the fact that we were as successful as we were and built new stands and build a training ground, because we talk now about a transfer window and the way you want to

• 1:30:07Speaker 00

  talk about it, hmm, spend a lot of money. Um, but there's no discussion about the stands and no discussion about the training ground. They are second to none, the training ground, the stands are wonderful. So and and at the same place where Anfield is, they could build pretty much a new stadium without leaving the old one. So that's a fantastic story, and that will stay forever. Maybe at one point, they decide the corp could be even for more people or whatever. I don't know if that ever will happen, but you could do stuff there. And that's what I love about this. And I think I really want. As much as I can, it's not my first target because I have to win football games with my team.

• 1:30:47Speaker 00

  But I want that a club benefits from the time we were together after we left. I want that.

• 1:30:54Steven Bartlett?

  This might be quite a naive observation, but in the time when you were at Liverpool, my assessment of Liverpool was you never, you didn't necessarily have the world's most famous starting eleven team, but you could beat anybody. So, you know, when you brought in Milner, who was at City before, and when you brought in these other players, I would see, I'd be like, why are they signing him? He's not. But then when they'd play for Liverpool, they would be unbelievable players and you could beat anybody. So there was almost this culture at Liverpool, which I observed, where you didn't necessarily go for the Galactico players. You weren't trying to get Ronaldo or Messi. You were going for sort of these players that had character and a culture fit. And ultimately that meant that, you know, you, at times it looked like you were playing with 12 men.

• 1:31:39Steven Bartlett?

  And so this new, this transfer window that I've just observed, where you have gone for the very, very best names, you know, some of the best players on planet earth that were number one choices for Real Madrid and the biggest clubs on earth. I almost don't recognise Liverpool, it moving like that in a window. There's part of me that I'm like, I hope, hopefully that this is their Falcao, Di Maria moment, Ronaldo moment, where they, where they bought big players, but they didn't think of culture. I'm praying.

• 1:32:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, you wish.

• 1:32:10Speaker 00

  That's the difference. You wish.

• 1:32:13Speaker 00

  It's, I guess, an incredible striker, incredible striker, Flo Verci, I will eat your words if you have the wrong, use the wrong words, or he's an incredible talent. And to get there, incredible player.

• 1:32:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, just offensive players. It's a really, really, really good, well, squad.

• 1:32:35Speaker 00

  If the young centre-half is not getting injured, it's the perfect squad. Now he's injured, that doesn't help, then you might be a majority on the centre-half position. Besides that, it's a perfect squad. Two super-left backs, really super-right backs. So it's just a really good football. That's how you set a team up. And now you have to deal with the situation. And they all think they have to start the game, but that's the normal job. It's not that it's difficult, or that's the normal job. You have this discussion, who will start a week or two? In the third week, one is injured and you're happy that the other can start. So that's the world a football manager is living in. So we don't have to worry about...

• 1:33:15Speaker 00

  What's that? I'm really interested. So you don't have to worry about Liverpool, they will be fine.

• 1:33:22Steven Bartlett?

  This was just the net spend graph of the different clubs.

• 1:33:28Steven Bartlett?

  While you were there, and it's quite clear that you weren't spending the same as your rivals during your time. And a lot of the fans in the media speculated that the owners, the Family Sports Group, just weren't giving you the money. But you were still getting the results, which is pretty...

• 1:33:43Speaker 00

  No, no, no. So, yeah. What's the public perception? That I didn't ask for the money, that's probably not right. I probably had these conversations, but I didn't ask in a way, if you don't get it,

• 1:33:56Speaker 00

  we can do it. It's not my job to think about how much we can squeeze out of whatever area. I felt massively responsible. My idea was always with the boys we have,

• 1:34:12Speaker 00

  become the best team you can be. And you were right when you said we were maybe not the best team. I think there was a period when we played football, you could have thought that's maybe the best played by the best team. I don't know exactly, between 18 and 20, it was a pretty long spell.

• 1:34:32Speaker 00

  But we always, and it was the idea, we always were able to beat the best team. And that was the idea, because that's a constant thing. The next best, the next best, we can beat you, we can beat you, be the best. You know, you are the one everybody wants to beat. I love that, so that's net spend and stuff like this, I was never too worried about. We had all these conversations. Yeah, I was happy with how it was. I couldn't have discussions with people. Now, I cannot decide how much money we spend. It's just not possible. And Arne Slot cannot decide how much money Liverpool spend. That's how it is. There are other people who decide that. And if you have the money, then you spend for really good players, what Liverpool did this year. And I think it was the right thing to do.

• 1:35:17Speaker 00

  And I'm pretty sure one specific moment changed the whole transfer window. Yeah, that was the saddest day of last year. And how do you, how do you replace somebody like Jogo? It's not about the player itself, it's about the guy he was. He was good with absolutely everybody, absolutely everybody. He arrived, he had no real, I think he was a bit surprised that we approached him, that we asked for him, then he came, and then he delivered from day one.

• 1:36:02Speaker 00

  I remember still when I saw him the first time playing for Wolves. He said, phew, what's that? When I went to the, you always hear these stories when people tell me, and it's true that Mo Salah, they had to convince me and stuff like that. It's not convinced that I take him, but it was like, there were other players as well, and Mo was one of the others, and then we decided all together for Mo, but it's fine. But this, nobody came to me and told me, come on, let's have a look at Jogo Jota. I saw him and I said, please, give me more material, I have to see him. And that's, and he excelled all the expectations as a guy, super smart, super teammate. And now...

• 1:36:43Speaker 00

  He sits in a dressing room and I I cannot imagine right now the dressing room without him being there. That's so hard, it's so hard. I still cannot speak properly about it. It's it's really like that. It was an incredible shock and that's for the boys as well. And I don't, we could think we don't speak about it because otherwise some bad journalists make a story of it. What I said about him and how it, what it means. Nobody at Liverpool will ever use it as an excuse, but it is the situation. You walk every day in this room where he was omnipresent. He was, can you imagine? To to to talk about him, he was so close with James Milner.

• 1:37:27Speaker 00

  They are not the same age group, they are nothing the same. It's just he was so, but on the other side, very close with Costa Simicas. That's like Mount and Mo- um, Moon and Mars. So, that's, that was him. And dealing with that as a per- on a personal level, not easy, impossible. And now as a club, take all the the emotional stuff out and think how do we replace him? And you have to think about that. Wow, that's difficult. Impossible, I would say. And now we charge a transfer window where they buy the players. There was not the plan, I'm pretty sure, the two, that he had to get um, replaced.

• 1:38:07Steven Bartlett?

  Do you remember where you were when you heard the news?

• 1:38:10Speaker 00

  Yeah. I got a message in the morning, the boss, I have bad news. And then I got, and I got a message from a, from a friend from Liverpool. And I I I couldn't believe it. I I was not possible. I heard it and I know what it means, but I couldn't believe it. The whole story, I saw all the pictures, obviously, from the wedding and all the boys were there and stuff like that. And it was so, it was only before that and um, I know exactly where I was. I was, I was exactly how long I sat there without speaking a word.

• 1:38:51Speaker 00

  So, it is, it is, it is a family member, it is exactly like that.

• 1:39:03Speaker 00

  So, look, it's really like that, it's an example for the things you have to deal with without knowing at all, you cannot be prepared to deal with things like that. And today, we talk about the trends of Indonesia, if you want of Liverpool, that would have looked completely different. So you have to sort the things you never expected, yet you have to think about. Everybody wanted this boy to play the next

• 1:39:33Speaker 00

  ten years at Liverpool, all around player, all positions can play, put both smart.

• 1:39:41Steven Bartlett?

  On July the 3rd, 2025, Diego was killed in a car crash alongside his brother in Spain. I think just before then, he had got married to his partner and he had several beautiful children. He said of you, he said, the first time you and him met, he just felt your presence. He said, I think that's one of his main characteristics, the way you can, you can just feel him only with his presence.

• 1:40:08Steven Bartlett?

  And Diego went on to be incredibly successful under your leadership at Liverpool.

• 1:40:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's true. Yeah, same, I could say the same, I could say the same about him, I was as impressed with his presence, very, very special, very special young man, I have to say.

• 1:40:30Steven Bartlett?

  How much of a role do, does a manager like you play in the transfer window? This is something that's always speculated by the fans.

• 1:40:37Speaker 00

  Do you remember the first when I came and told me about a transfer committee? I never had, they told me that the journalists asked me, yeah, because they implemented a transfer committee because they didn't want to have the managers that decisive in a transfer window. Obviously, before me, there were some issues.

• 1:40:55Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:55Speaker 00

  There's no problem with that, I can discuss with everyone, as long as no player signs for the club, I don't want. I'm used to not getting all the players I want, that's completely normal. It's not up to the coaches, we say we need one player and they say, yeah, it's too expensive. And you can ask again, sorry, can we make it happen? And knowing they all try up through everything to get the right price and get the player in, you cannot do anything with that. That anybody in a club would bring in a player you don't you don't agree on, that does that that's not possible. But it's very, very normal in a football coach manager's life that you don't get all the players you want. So, no problem with that.

• 1:41:35Speaker 00

  As long as the transfer window is open, you try to create, build the best possible squad. On the day after the transfer window, you have the best possible squad, whichever transfers you made. And that's the way you go into the rest of the season.

• 1:41:53Steven Bartlett?

  Michael Edwards left during your tenure. He was sort of one of the key people that was responsible for looking for players and signing them, and he's back now.

• 1:42:05Speaker 00

  So, first and foremost, before I don't want to say anything else because I really have a really good relationship. Michael is absolutely great in what he's doing. But it was not on one day, his job alone to bring in players. There were a lot of other, Julian Board, Ian Graham, so many people that were involved in Barry Hunter. All these kind of things were involved in these kind of things. It was a process. We were really, we were really close together. It's not one sitting there and being the genius and having producing ideas and you think, oh my god. He's available. I didn't even know him. He's, yeah, so like we know, we know football players. It's like negotiating, finding the right moment to sell, finding the right moment to buy.

• 1:42:48Speaker 00

  That's a sporting director's job, what he was before, and now I don't even know exactly the role.

• 1:42:54Steven Bartlett?

  Something in a holding company.

• 1:42:56Speaker 00

  Yeah. So, Richard Hughes is now there doing incredible job. So, these kind of things, it's, it's, it's all in a world. So like people from outside are idolizing, sometimes people like that, definitely some of them with me. And they do with Michael, but Michael never did the job alone. I never did the job alone. It was always like a really good, yeah, they worked together just really well. We didn't have a lot of disagreements where you think, boof, where is that coming from? Why you want him? It's a process and football team is an open book. Everybody can read it every day. So, if you want to add something, it should not be a surprise to everybody and think, huh?

• 1:43:40Speaker 00

  Where is that idea coming from? You think we need a left back? Why? We have already four. That doesn't happen. You are, it's a work on progress all the time during a season, but the transfer windows.

• 1:43:51Speaker 00

  It clashes, obviously, and English people in professional football enjoy the day a bit more than probably in other countries. So that's what I didn't get that to a full extent, but I learned a lot about the excitement of a good transfer window.

• 1:44:10Steven Bartlett?

  Did you always get on with him?

• 1:44:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, I would say one hundred percent. And Michael definitely, and Richard, I don't know, we spoke quite a few times after I left. So I like him. So and I think they did an incredible job, honestly.

• 1:44:24Steven Bartlett?

  Because you became bigger than the coach. You became such a huge, I mean, you still are such a huge figure in the in the city. I mean, my assistant, who's been with me, my peer has been with me for ten years, she's from Liverpool, and she, I'm probably going to embarrass her now, but you're like the king to her. Not even in Liverpool, you're the king globally.

• 1:44:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:44:46Steven Bartlett?

  Because we did that. So I'm thinking, if I was, if I was a Michael Edwards or someone else at the club, and I was trying to, that you have, you had ultimate power, kind of like Sir Alex Ferguson, he became, you know, he was everything. He is the, he's on the stadium, he is the club. So I always wondered how anyone would be able to overturn your opinion or argue with you when you are the city. You're like, you're the great Jürgen Klopp.

• 1:45:11Speaker 00

  But that's the outside world. Come on, I'm not, I'm a idiot. I don't, I don't sit there. And I always said, I need other people to understand things. It's like, my own opinion, opinion, I know already. Well, the morning I get up, I know my opinion. So come on, how can you get a better view on it, on things? That's how it is. It's just by discussing with people. Yes, the final decision I have to make, and I have no problem with that. But for that, I need all people being really involved. And if you want to have an argument, have an argument. In the end, I will make the decision, absolutely no problem. Did we have argument? Maybe, yes. I don't remember them. But it's not important, because it's just, in the end, it's about the outcome. It's about what is best for the club. And

• 1:45:53Speaker 00

  I never had a problem with that. I never thought they all have to please me. So I realized.

• 1:46:02Speaker 00

  How famous I am after I left Liverpool. I have no clue, I was never in Liverpool out there. And on the bus, it's normal that the people cheer because they cheer for everybody. So I realized how good I was as a coach since I'm not in the job anymore. So because I thought what I can do, everybody can do. I realized, hmm, maybe not. So it's 100% the truth. Because in the job, you just do, try to sort every day the things in front of you. That's what you try.

• 1:46:34Steven Bartlett?

  Can I ask you about Nunes? He didn't seem very happy on your last, your last day.

• 1:46:37Speaker 00

  Darwin.

• 1:46:38Steven Bartlett?

  Darwin.

• 1:46:38Speaker 00

  Yeah. We had an absolutely good relationship, as good as can be. With a striker who is not scoring as often as he wants, as the people want, and as I think he could have. And with a striker who didn't play as often as definitely he wants. So how can you have a fantastic relationship? Would it be, if he would, I don't, I didn't see that picture, I heard about it. If he would have stand there and be the number one and jumping after me, crying his eyes out and hugging me for 10 minutes. I was, okay, what's going on here? Completely normal situation. I cannot.

• 1:47:19Speaker 00

  My first concern cannot be to please everybody, it's just not possible. It's not possible in that job. Easy, the first problem starts with 25 players, 11 starting positions. So, sorry, more players are not happy than you make happy. That's already where it starts the problem. So now you have to get through this. And I'm pretty sure he had super moments at Liverpool. We had super moments together. And in my last day, if I would have been him, I would have thought as well, okay, come on, the next one is a new chance for me. Because players do that. If it goes really well for them, it's not that they think thanks to the coach. If it's not going well, they think, hmm.

• 1:48:03Speaker 00

  It doesn't bring me often enough, it's not my fault, blah, blah, blah, all this kind of. We are humans, we are all the same. So it's not that they are special in that moment and some of them think, yeah, I have to do more. I have to do more for the week one, week two, week three, and then think. Now I did three weeks more, it's still not picking, it's not picking me. So it's this, it's, it's a bit, you cannot have always harmony and, and flowers and all this kind of things. That's a competitive environment and you need to perform to get what you think you deserve.

• 1:48:34Steven Bartlett?

  When did you decide, did you decide that you wanted to sign Darwin? How was that, how did that decision?

• 1:48:39Speaker 00

  We decided exactly like before, we decided all to, all together involved in that, in that process. And yes, that's how it is nowadays. We would have loved to sign him for lesser money, of course. But it wasn't at the moment not possible, we needed a striker, we only wanted to have. An, an extra, like an extra option for striker, like we had Bobby always the, the best false nine in the world. Yeah, and now we needed somebody with a bit more speed and stuff like this. We need to, the actions are more and, and Sadio, I'm not sure if Sadio was still there, probably not, so.

• 1:49:15Steven Bartlett?

  Sadio went that year.

• 1:49:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think Sadio went that year. So we had to, we had to change as well, so we, Luis Diaz great, Cody Gakpo great, what kind of player we don't have. I thought Cody can play a little bit like Bobby, good footballer on the side, but feels much better on the, on the, on the wing. All these kind of things, so yeah, of course, we all signed him together, no problem. To, to, to admit that it maybe didn't work out as good as good, but. Without Darwin Yunus, so many things wouldn't have happened. The biggest comeback of all times at Newcastle, for example. Oh, I love that day, I love that day.

• 1:49:54Steven Bartlett?

  We came on.

• 1:49:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:49:56Steven Bartlett?

  Just give me 15 seconds to explain how you can build a viable business online. The people I see winning in life don't have a perfect plan. They just take the first step and then the next, and then they keep going. They stay obsessed and they stay consistent. And Stan Store, a platform I co-own and one of our sponsors, is the best first step to help turn your knowledge into income. It only takes a couple of minutes to launch your business and start selling digital products, coaching, memberships or communities online, without any tech headaches or endless setup. Thousands of entrepreneurs, creators and risk takers, you stand to take control of their future. Because Stan is for entrepreneurs, for those willing to put in the work and bet on themselves. If you're ready to start building, join us.

• 1:50:38Steven Bartlett?

  Launch your business today with a free 14-day trial at stevenbartlett.stan.store. We launched these conversation cards and they sold out. And we launched them again and they sold out again. We launched them again and they sold out again. Because people love playing these with colleagues at work, with friends at home and also with family. And we've also got a big audience that use them as journal prompts. Every single time a guest comes on the Diary of a CEO, they leave a question for the next guest in the diary. And I've sat here with some of the most incredible people in the world. And they've left all of these questions in the diary. And I've ranked them from one to three in terms of the depth. One being a starter question. And level three, if you look on the back here, this is a level three, becomes a much deeper question that builds even more connection.

• 1:51:23Steven Bartlett?

  If you turn the cards over and you scan that QR code, you can see who answered the card and watch the video of them answering it in real time. So if you would like to get your hands on some of these conversation cards, go to the diary.com or look at the link in the description below. Why did you leave Liverpool? I watched your videos announcing your departure so many times. And I was almost trying to read between the lines.

• 1:51:48Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 1:51:48Steven Bartlett?

  I was trying to read between the lines.

• 1:51:49Speaker 00

  Tell me what you read.

• 1:51:51Steven Bartlett?

  No, I was just, you know, because you talk about just the energy, not having the energy for it. That's kind of how I was interpreting it, you know. You sat down with your board, your board talked about plans for next year. And you realised in that moment that you didn't have the energy to rebuild and go again, et cetera.

• 1:52:07Speaker 00

  No, not to rebuild. That we didn't have to rebuild. I know that the team is a good team, John. My expectation of myself is I'm the energy giver to everybody in this environment. If somebody have struggled, go on, you can have my word, don't need it, let's go. I have to be on top of, absolute top of my game to be the guy who deserves to be the Liverpool manager. That's what I said when I said, but Dave, when I feel, ah, I don't know that anymore, then I don't. So that I say, okay, let's wait until everybody sees it and then they can give it a second, la la la, all these kind of things. I cannot do it like that, not after the time we had together.

• 1:52:49Speaker 00

  I realized I don't want to be there after all the time we had together. I don't want to be the guy, I don't want to go on tour to USA. But why? Because I loved it all, every year. So it's then you realize, phew, I need a break, whatever, I need to have something else. And you cannot do that in that business. You cannot say, ladies and gentlemen, give me a year, see you later. And it's just not like that. And I really think we did what we had to do to say what we felt and thought in that moment. And it was exactly like that. I didn't have the energy to think about what's next. I didn't want to think about what's next. I just wanted to go.

• 1:53:34Speaker 00

  I was happy with finishing the season, but then don't ask me, what can we do here? What can we do there? It was all my responsibility for all the time. Because yes, I don't decide money, but all the rest, it was in my hands from a specific moment on. Covid kicked in, no sporting director, Michael came after I left. He was not there anymore. It was not because we had a problem or whatever, not at all. It was just they wanted to find a leader for the pack and found it with Michael and Richard. And Arne obviously now working really close together. So that was the decision. But there was a time, there was no Richard, no Michael, no Julian Ward.

• 1:54:18Speaker 00

  So it was just me sitting there, like on the top of all the things. And we had to win football games, but all the rest was on my plate as well. It was an intense time. There wasn't a structure around you in that regard?

• 1:54:35Speaker 00

  Covid changed a lot. I mean, people didn't fly as much anymore. The owners didn't come that often over. It was like budget calls were on the phone. More or less, we brought in Jörg Schmattke, the German, because we didn't have a sporting director at the time. In fact, Julian came back, but then, I don't even know exactly why he left again. So these kind of things that just happened. And the only guys who were over there were we, the coaches and the football team. So there were just the normal stuff over a day.

• 1:55:06Steven Bartlett?

  So who was doing the sporting director stuff?

• 1:55:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, us and together with in that one, in that one window with, I think it was with Jörg Schmattke, the German guy we brought over. I don't even know if Julian Ward was still there, the lawyers, the scouts, so.

• 1:55:25Steven Bartlett?

  Do you think you could ever go back and manage Liverpool again? Is that within the realm of possibilities?

• 1:55:31Speaker 00

  I said I'd build another coach and a different team in England. So that means if, then it's Liverpool. Yeah, so, yeah, theoretically it's possible.

• 1:55:44Steven Bartlett?

  What would it take theoretically for you to want to do that psychologically?

• 1:55:49Speaker 00

  I don't, I don't even know exactly. I just, there must be.

• 1:55:56Speaker 00

  I love what I do right now. I don't miss coaching. I don't. I mean, I do coach, but just different, not players. So, and I don't miss it. I don't miss standing in the rain, two and a half, three hours, and I don't miss going to press conference

• 1:56:14Speaker 00

  four times, three times a week. Having

• 1:56:21Speaker 00

  12, 10, 12 interviews a week, I don't miss that. I don't. So.

• 1:56:28Speaker 00

  I don't miss being in the dressing room, like in a sense of that I didn't have it often. I coached 1,080 something games. So I was in a dressing room very, very often. And I don't wanna die in a dressing room just because it's so nice, it smells. So it's these kind of things. So but there might be something, I'm 58, that's from your perspective old. From other perspective, from the other side, it's not that old. That means I could make the decision in a few years. I don't know. Do I have to make the decision today? I will not coach again. But thank God, I don't have to do that. I can just see what the future brings. But now I'm involved in a project I really love and I love the people I'm working together with

• 1:57:13Speaker 00

  and the clubs we are responsible for and the countries the clubs are in. So I like doing what I'm doing right now. And in my mind, only if I'm focused 100% on it, I can do it really good. And that's what I always wanted to do. Those are the things you don't miss. What do you miss? Sometimes people. So yeah, sometimes I miss people. Like, I wish I... So that's I don't miss the dressing room as a dressing room, but sitting there in a restaurant with the players and having a nice chat. That it's nice. It was always nice. When they were just in a good mood. We won a lot of games.

• 1:57:57Speaker 00

  And so like there was often a very good mood in the building. And standing there, hearing them laugh. I still have Virgil's laugh in my ear, for example. Yes, this kind, this part of the job. It is obviously... But that's for these players, which I had the last time. It's now, um... Do I miss it in general? With football players, not right now. It's not like that. But I... There is, there's really not a lot, to be honest, what I miss. Because I'm still... In the business I I I know most about. So the football part, I don't miss because I have it. And the only thing is like I don't have to be outside.

• 1:58:40Speaker 00

  I'm not the guy in the chair before a game and stuff like this. No, I I honestly, that's that's probably the best. I don't miss anything. That's how it is.

• 1:58:51Steven Bartlett?

  When I look at your career, mines, Dortmund, Liverpool, you seem to always be successful. And it's it's extremely rare. It's extremely rare. And you seem to always succeed with a lot of passion and all those things. But my question is, and I think about the audience we have, which are often business people, leaders, CEOs. Is there anything else that we haven't touched upon that is central to your idea of getting the best out of a group of people? We talked about being a sort of bespoke leader, being the jigsaw piece you need to be to get the best out of a person. We talked about giving everything. Is there anything else that's really central to your philosophy of leadership? And management that you think is important that we haven't touched upon yet? That young coaches might be able to.

• 1:59:34Speaker 00

  Create create the best team possible. And I mean, in understanding of team, like really, there's there must be a reason why this team wins and not the other team. Because there are other teams out there, they try absolutely everything. So don't waste time with walking next to each other, not knowing anything about each other, not being bothered about the problems of each other, not being interested about each other. No, no, no, I want to grow together and it was my job to help them to grow to create a situation where they could do that. To make sure, and if I had to be harsh to all of them, that they found a way to get together, I did that. It was not what I said, it was what they needed to understand why we are a very special team in a very hard and difficult competition.

• 2:00:20Speaker 00

  But we have to find a reason why we deserve it more than others. Yes, that's what I what I say, what you have to do. And that's what I people want to convince today with knowledge. They want to say, I know everything about that. Look, I can tell you, I can explain it to you, sir. But it's in the end, that's one thing and other people can know as well. It's about how close can we really grow together to go out there and smash the whatever out of them. So that's the that's the the thing what what what I wanted to, what I always did. So it was always clear.

• 2:00:55Speaker 00

  For us, we would walk, I don't know, we would go through fire. I'm not sure if you say that anything, but we really would do absolutely everything. And without me telling every day to find it, so to find a way to grow as much together. That was obvious.

• 2:01:08Steven Bartlett?

  How do I get people to walk through fire? So you you're talking about making sure the bonds amongst themselves are strong. I heard stories of you making sure everybody knew everybody's name when you first arrived and things like that.

• 2:01:19Speaker 00

  Players, it was staff.

• 2:01:20Steven Bartlett?

  The staff names, et cetera. What were you doing to get people to walk through fire?

• 2:01:25Speaker 00

  And that's exactly, that's exactly, that's a good question. There's no answer for the question because it means that it would mean you say, you say one thing and for everybody runs. That's not like that. You have to create a culture and an environment, a situation, a vibe where everybody realized this is special. The underlying message is this is special and now let's go for it. This is worth it. This it means really more to all of us that we really can fight more for it.

• 2:01:54Steven Bartlett?

  What is special?

• 2:01:56Speaker 00

  The togetherness, the way we we had, we we, the the way we. And that that people can say that's in our club the same, but the way we interacted in the training ground with the kitchen staff, with the with the respect we we showed every day with the kit man, with the gardeners, with all the people there. There that was for me most important because it just you just realize that's the respect you show is the respect you get. You can't show respect, you don't deserve any. So that's how it is and you don't have, it's not a lesson in the sense of that I tell you, wait, sit here. You have to respect the gardener and then the other people will respect you as well. It's that you don't do it like that. It's just you learn that show respect, you get respect. Don't show respect, you don't deserve it.

• 2:02:41Speaker 00

  So all these little things over there, that's not a big thing. It's not that every day I go for them and tell them why is this different? Why is that different? The way you deal with situations, we found a way for us.

• 2:02:54Speaker 00

  That the most important information about the game was what I said and not was in the media, not was in social media. And I said, it was good. It was good. There was still all the things out there were written, but that were not important anymore. When I said it was not good, then could they write, yeah, but you won 3-0. And then we found a way to talk about it and worked on it. We created our own world in that time, which was more important than the outside world.

• 2:03:23Steven Bartlett?

  How is not being respectful to the gardener going to lose you the Champions League? What is the through line?

• 2:03:30Speaker 00

  I believe just in, if you cannot do that, if you don't appreciate what other people do, then you can't appreciate what your teammate is doing. If you don't, that's just a little sign. It's not that, of course, there's not direct impact from here to there. But in the end, I'm pretty sure if you would really have a brief look at it in one or two situations.

• 2:03:51Steven Bartlett?

  Like don't.

• 2:03:52Speaker 00

  Wow, it doesn't look like a proper fella. And then you go back to the beginning with, yeah, because it isn't, I can tell you.

• 2:03:58Steven Bartlett?

  I'm fascinated by this point because when I was, when I was at Old Trafford and the ladies who served the food in the boxes and lounges, when I'd ask them what was different after Fergie left, the thing they kept saying to me was, oh, it's just so different around here. And I'd say, explain to me how. They go, I don't know, just Sir Alex Ferguson just knew our names.

• 2:04:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:04:19Steven Bartlett?

  That's what they would say. And it's a strange thing to hear that the only symptom that some of the staff in the stadium could point at was just the new leadership don't know our names.

• 2:04:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, but this is obviously not the answer to the Man United problems. That's just the situation with the ladies or whoever working in that area. But it shows if that doesn't, then you don't know theoretically their names. What it shows is the togetherness is not there anymore. It starts already with, Sir Alex, it was just different. And then you, yep, but not on day one, but after 23 years, of course, it was different. Of course, he knew your name. He saw you growing up. So how can you compare that?

• 2:04:59Steven Bartlett?

  This was under Ed Woodward, just for the context. This wasn't under any of those or Amorim. This was before then, a couple of years ago.

• 2:05:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:05:05Steven Bartlett?

  And I just always found that for me, that as a business leader. Became a really interesting reference point because as you said, it's just a downstream symptom of something where the club has gone from feeling like a family and special and, you know, close and tight and these values to the decay of the values and it's all the way down to the the stream at the bottom.

• 2:05:27Speaker 00

  But this is this is a generation discussion, isn't it? So like in the past, again, I'm not that old that I say in the past, everything was better, for sure not, but we are differently raised. That's how it is. I came home, I walked home in a one thousand two hundred people village. I had a four hundred meter walk from the bus station to my home. I walked home, obviously a lady crossed my way. I didn't can remember it. I arrived at home after two hundred meters, more meters, and then my mom said, why you didn't say hello to Mrs. So and so? What? So does that help me in life? I'm not sure. It's just how you

• 2:06:10Speaker 00

  get raised. It's just how you get raised. So I didn't run back and say, sorry, hello. But next time, believe me, it leaded to in my life where everybody, a lot of people recognized me. So it made difficult not to say hello to people because of that. But I start obviously getting attention. If I can't get through something, now I would say hello. That doesn't work properly for me anymore, but it's still in me. One thing is the things we read. The other thing is the things we feel. The other thing is how we get treated. We all are the result of a lot of things what happened to us. And as long as we are together, let's make sure that we influence each other as positive as somehow possible. And let's see where it leads us to. That's the idea I have.

• 2:06:54Steven Bartlett?

  A lot of managers or leaders or CEOs would focus on tactics and strategy first and foremost. And as you say, the information and all those things. But it appears that you focus somewhere else.

• 2:07:07Speaker 00

  Same time. It's not first, it's not same time, it's it's same time. I, twenty four hours a day, two hours time for training. There's not a lot more you can do. Maybe you have another in the preseason, definitely more another session, two hours, four hours. Twenty hours left, seven, eight hours sleep, twelve more hours. Welcome. What can we do with that? That's become the best group we can be. So that's I'm one hundred percent interested in, definitely.

• 2:07:33Steven Bartlett?

  The best group we can be.

• 2:07:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:07:35Steven Bartlett?

  That's those relationships, those values.

• 2:07:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:07:38Steven Bartlett?

  And were there any particular changes you made to how the team interacted with each other? I know that the Ineos guys told me at Manchester United, they've changed the like canteens so that people don't sit on separate tables now and the team are together when they eat. Just small things like this that some people might think are inconsequential. Are there any things that you changed? Any rules or policies?

• 2:08:01Speaker 00

  I don't like these obvious things too much.

• 2:08:06Speaker 00

  If you don't like each other.

• 2:08:09Speaker 00

  The size of the table makes no difference, to be honest. I don't say that's not important. I don't, I don't see the real effect. I, I want to reach it in a different way.

• 2:08:25Speaker 00

  I want to, to introduce them to each other in a specific, on the pitch, by the way. That's where it starts because we are a football team, we are not a community and just sit there and drink tea and, and biscuits. It's a, it's a real competitive environment and it's all to get the best out of the boys on the football pitch, so.

• 2:08:45Speaker 00

  Rules, pitch, rules, dressing room. But then there's so many things, left and right of the rules, there's so many things you can do together. There's so much to talk about, so much to know about. And that's what life is. Otherwise, we just live next to each other and we don't benefit from each other. That makes no sense. I don't want to make it bigger than it is, but my general understanding from football team is to become the best football team you can be. This is the, this is as important as tactics, as important as tactics. If the best tactics, the guys don't respect, don't like each other, nobody will see them ever, ever. So if the worst tactics by the law of each other, boy, they still can win. That's possible.

• 2:09:31Speaker 00

  Isleworld, great team.

• 2:09:34Speaker 00

  Good coach, you have a good chance to be successful.

• 2:09:39Steven Bartlett?

  I have, I have two pictures that we haven't shown yet, but this, this particular picture is of Elizabeth.

• 2:09:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, mama.

• 2:09:46Steven Bartlett?

  Your mama.

• 2:09:47Speaker 00

  Yeah. Two thousand eleven, we became champion with Dortmund, my home club. S V Klatten invited me, built a stage. My elder sister wrote a poem. My mom couldn't have been prouder, obviously.

• 2:10:10Speaker 00

  That day, I saw my teammates from my first football team, they were all there. Nobody would have thought that somebody from there would arrive where I was there.

• 2:10:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, great day. Elizabeth was a really, really nice woman, I have to say.

• 2:10:28Steven Bartlett?

  She, she passed away in two thousand twenty one, um, after falling ill.

• 2:10:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:10:33Steven Bartlett?

  Because of everything that was going on at the time with the pandemic, you weren't able to attend her funeral because of the travel restrictions and all those kinds of things.

• 2:10:42Steven Bartlett?

  She did get to see your, your success, she got to see.

• 2:10:46Speaker 00

  That's a big difference. So I was not in her funeral and that was the, the, it sounds crazy. The online funeral was one of the saddest things I, I experienced in my life. Uh, but I made it happen at least. That was good that we could see it, that we could be part of it. We couldn't be there.

• 2:11:05Speaker 00

  My mom had in the end had dementia, so it's not that she would have known that I was not there when she was lying there. She, that, that's not a nice thing, but she saw the majority of

• 2:11:21Speaker 00

  my working life, if you want. My dad didn't see my coaching life, so that's, is the, there's no, nothing is perfect. But mom was, was super happy, was a very happy lady until she could remember us and see us and recognize us. And the time when he could, when she couldn't do that anymore, yeah. That's not too long, but that's a, can't wait for the day when somebody finds a solution for these kind of things. Uh, for these kind of diseases and, um.

• 2:11:57Speaker 00

  Because in your age, obviously, you don't think about it. But if you come older, they think, who dies today just of a heart attack? And not by having already dementia or stuff like this? And don't recognize the kids anymore and stuff like this. You don't want that. You just can't get through this by ignoring the fact and hoping that science will find a way until we get there.

• 2:12:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:12:26Steven Bartlett?

  She started to lose her memories of her family because of dementia?

• 2:12:31Speaker 00

  Yeah. So like the normal things on phone, she didn't know, didn't recognize my voice first. This is a, this is a strange, strange disease or whatever, however you call it. You close so many doors and opens others. So long time memory, incredible. She recognized ladies in the street. They were together in primary school, stuff like this, but didn't know.

• 2:12:59Speaker 00

  Who we were, such as these kind of things. It's not, it's not a competition of things you, you forget or whatever. There are a lot of things you forget and especially for the people. And it was my sisters who took care of her, obviously. That's not nice. If she don't recognize you, who are you, go away, these things.

• 2:13:17Steven Bartlett?

  How is that to do, how is that to deal with as a family member? When someone you love, a parent, can no longer recognize who you are? Like you, it's almost like, it sounds like a grief, it's a heartbreak.

• 2:13:29Speaker 00

  Yeah. I think, but obviously my sisters were around, so for them it's harder, of course, because they were around. For me, it's not a problem at all because I knew she loved me more than our life. In a moment, she can't recognize me anymore. That was not a problem for me, I just felt for her. That is, that is really, that is really so, that's so hard, must be so hard. If you have bright moments where, oh, I know, oh my God, you are here, what are you doing here? And then, go again. It's, it's really, it's really not nice. And I, I, I really sincerely hope that we find, yeah, medication for that. I think science is, you know, yeah, in a good way, but still a long way to go. But thanks for this picture.

• 2:14:14Speaker 00

  I don't, I have it on my phone somewhere, but I don't have it as a, yeah, thank you very much.

• 2:14:20Steven Bartlett?

  Faith is a big part of your life as well?

• 2:14:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:14:22Steven Bartlett?

  You believe in God?

• 2:14:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:14:25Steven Bartlett?

  And from what I understood, that's not always been the case. When you're a younger man, you weren't religious in the same way that you are now. Is that accurate or?

• 2:14:33Speaker 00

  I wouldn't even say I'm religious. I believe, but I don't, but I don't know 100% what religious means, to be 100% honest. But it's, um, this lady, my mom, um, prayed every night before going to bed. But the problem, the one thing we prayed, the other thing she said, because she couldn't be hard with me. She could, she just had no weapons. The only thing she could say, don't forget if you do that again, I will have to tell the dad at the weekend when he's coming back. So it was like the only threat she had, the only weapon she, she carried around. Um, and I obviously was smart enough to realize that whatever I did, she never told my dad. Um, um, from time that I went to church, I had a, a short spell where I thought,

• 2:15:15Speaker 00

  because Sunday morning church was when I played games. I have to go to church. I'm not, I cannot play football anymore. But that lasted exactly one game. So one Sunday, I thought, God cannot be that hard. He cannot think that I have to go to church when I love football so much. It cannot, that's just, it can't be like that. Um, and he isn't, I'm pretty sure. So, um, yeah, I found my way. For me, it's, for me, it's

• 2:15:48Speaker 00

  to live together, we have to make sure that we, that we don't think the only thing what is interesting is my own well-being. We have to make sure that we understand being alone in a good position doesn't help. Yes, it's completely normal that we all try to get as far as we can in our career, in our life, and all these kind of things. But it's really important that we make sure that we, that we really try to, to work properly together, to live properly together and all these kind of things. For me, this is my faith. It's based on my, my, this, this.

• 2:16:21Speaker 00

  This understanding is based on my faith. So, and, and common sense, obviously. And that's the way I believe. And I think that's the best thing you can say about religion. When it's like that, that it keeps people in a good place. If religion can't do that, then that's not the right religion for me. So it's really about that. We have to be tolerant. We have to. It's no problem. It's a wonderful planet. It's a wonderful world we are living in. But it's not for one or two. It's for all of us and we have to make sure that that works out. And I think the right faith can help you with that. But I don't, I don't know what is the right faith. I only know what is for me.

• 2:17:06Speaker 00

  So, yeah, for me, it's the right thing to do. And I never doubted it, to be honest. With all the information you get in life,

• 2:17:16Speaker 00

  God is real for me and, and Jesus, of course. Yeah.

• 2:17:23Steven Bartlett?

  What goals have you got left to accomplish, Jürgen? What is, what's, what is left on your list, if anything at all? Because you've got, you're right, you're probably halfway through your life, the way things are going in terms of people, the life expectancy increasing.

• 2:17:35Speaker 00

  Halfway through, one hundred and sixteen. We have the next podcast, yeah. I want to traverse what we are doing, start now. I want to be together with Ulla as much as I can, but not, not that much that she or I don't want to be around each other anymore. Because I really think you see people and think, what is your husband doing? Oh, he's at home, oh, God. So, no, no, no, I'm not that. But I'm very busy, so I'm, I'm a lot away. So that's fine. But I want to spend with her, with the kids, with the grandkids. I don't have this kind of ambitions. I want to do really well for Red Bull, really well. I, I feel already responsible for all the people I work together with. That's a.

• 2:18:13Speaker 00

  Very interesting thing for me, that feels so quick, really responsible, but I do. So I wanna do it as good as we can, have the best time possible, let's see what happens then. But on a private basis, I can tell you, with all the things happening around, stay healthy and enjoy this part of life. Because you know now, most things happened and most things were really good. There was another time, um, your age when you're not sure where you wanna go, where, where, where can, what's possible, how safe you will be, um, and all these kind of things. Where will you live in the future? So I know where we will live, I know how things worked out, that's really good. I'm not that old that I cannot move, so move. And try and do sports and travel and all these kind of things.

• 2:18:58Speaker 00

  So I, I'm more than happy with the things, how they,

• 2:19:04Speaker 00

  how they, and how they happened, I'm really, really happy. I'm surprised how my career was. I, I never thought that, and you cannot plan it and stuff like this. I'm super happy with my private life, how it is. Super happy with the misses, super happy with the kids, super happy with the grandkids. It's all really good. So what can you want more really, without sounding ridiculous? That you think, oh, you always do on that? And the rest is job, and the job I always wanted to do as somehow possible. And that's still the case.

• 2:19:46Speaker 00

  Is he a Man United fan?

• 2:19:49Speaker 00

  My god.

• 2:19:50Steven Bartlett?

  If you ever want a job at a football club, Manchester United would, uh.

• 2:19:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. After all the time we spent together, you wanna tell me that? Yeah.

• 2:19:59Steven Bartlett?

  No, but you know, it's, um, it's really, it's really interesting to me, because I think there's always an assumption that people wanna continue to.

• 2:20:06Speaker 00

  I don't, I don't understand that. Do the same because that's what you are good at. I know I'm good as a manager, I know. So why should I, I don't have to prove that, not even to me, I have to prove that. I can raise my hand and tomorrow I can coach club X, Y and Z clubs who are happy now with their manager and I don't want that. So, so, but to be my best friend, that might come back that I say, okay, I'm ready, that might, I don't know today, but in this moment, it's not that I cannot do what I do, why I think with on leg being still there. I was never like that. I never looked right or left when I was at Mainz. I could have changed the club every year for the first seven.

• 2:20:49Speaker 00

  It was so obvious that something is going on there pretty special, the clubs want, oh, we want to have him. And I never thought a second that I want to go there. I wanted to stay at Mainz to, to, to do what we do and to learn what I thought I have to learn. Same at Dortmund, same at Liverpool, until I thought, it's not right. If that comes again, let's see what we can, what we will do. That's what the decision I wanted, I want, didn't want to make the job until I barely can move, I barely can travel, I barely, Mrs, can you help me? I don't want, I didn't want to do that. Here, we're sitting and yes, I'm twenty five years older than you, but we both could probably run around the corner now and it would not be the biggest difference.

• 2:21:31Steven Bartlett?

  You're in great shape.

• 2:21:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's it, because I train, that's how it is. But I never did while I was a manager, that's the next thing. I just grew more and more and more and now we have time for that as well. So, it's good how it is.

• 2:21:47Steven Bartlett?

  Well, you, even as a United fan, you, you brought so much to the Premier League that it was, it was weirdly sad, also very happy, when you decided that you were going to leave. I, I, I felt two feelings at the same time. I felt very, very happy that this was, this Liverpool era, in my view, was over because I thought there's no way you leaving, you're more than just a manager, you're the spirit of the city, you're the spirit of the fanbase, you're actually sort of personify the Liverpool fanbase in my mind, extremely passionate, all in togetherness. And as, you know, your former, I think he was your chairman or owner of Mainz said, you did, you brought, you brought the team together, you then brought the city together and that had a profound impact both on Liverpool but also on the Premier League and on my enjoyment and my misery as a rival fan.

• 2:22:31Steven Bartlett?

  And that's a really, really remarkable thing. You've also inspired me as a lot on a personal level as a leader. Just about, you know, everything you said there about how important it is to focus equally on the people and the team and the togetherness and not just on the tactics and the strategy and how passion can be and wonderful accelerant for performance and for feeling like this is special. And that's something that I think you've personified as a leader. We um, we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're leaving it for.

• 2:23:03Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 2:23:04Steven Bartlett?

  And the question.

• 2:23:05Speaker 00

  Oh, it's for me now, a message.

• 2:23:06Steven Bartlett?

  Yes. Question that's been left for you.

• 2:23:13Steven Bartlett?

  As you look back on your career,

• 2:23:17Steven Bartlett?

  is there a particular moment, a particular conversation, a particular day, that if you could, you would go back and change or say something you wish you had said?

• 2:23:30Speaker 00

  I honestly, the problem is,

• 2:23:34Speaker 00

  I would probably would say no. I don't, I wouldn't go back and, and, and try to change it because it wouldn't have a big impact. The situations we had, the big situations I could influence with the things I said, the specific moments which were then decisive, you just stand there and watch Aguero in or not in. We had the same problem with United. You will have things that he scored, the ball goes in or the ball is over the line for 11 million or not. That has nothing to do with what I say. Would I wish if I could go there and give it a little push? Yes. Would I wish James Madison would

• 2:24:18Speaker 00

  block the shot of Vincent Kompany that he cannot score the goal against Leicester? Yes, but it had nothing to do with what I said. And so, the things I said, I said in the moment for the right reasons.

• 2:24:34Speaker 00

  And sometimes they had the impact I wished and wanted and sometimes not.

• 2:24:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, I had to accept that.

• 2:24:45Steven Bartlett?

  That was the other thing that Jamie Carragher asked. He said, when you see, when you see Klopp, ask him how he feels about his former assistant manager Pep Lenges going and working, going and working at Manchester City.

• 2:24:57Speaker 00

  Absolutely, no problem. I like it. I like both Pep's. That's how it is. No problem with that. I worked together with Pep Lenges. He was an inspiration for me every day when we worked together. Absolutely. Every day I learned a lot from him. And Pep Guardiola, I couldn't respect a manager more.

• 2:25:18Speaker 00

  And when they ask me, like a bit, hmm, what do you think? Can we? Of course you can. Pep Lenges said, come on, find a guy who worked together with Pep Lenges, Pep Guardiola and Jürgen Klopp. Ooh, I would read the book.

• 2:25:35Speaker 00

  And yeah, and Pep knew exactly, Pep Guardiola knew exactly what he was looking for. Yeah. He wanted to, he wanted exactly this kind of spark fire from, and Pep has that. Pep is, Pep Lenges has that. He's an extreme well of, of energy. And so I'm happy for them both.

• 2:25:58Steven Bartlett?

  We're playing you guys this week, this weekend on Sunday.

• 2:26:02Speaker 00

  What?

• 2:26:02Steven Bartlett?

  Manchester United, Liverpool this Sunday. You didn't know? It's at Anfield. It's the Premier League. That's crazy that you don't know.

• 2:26:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:26:12Steven Bartlett?

  But hopefully after, so this will come out just after that. So I'm hoping that's four losses.

• 2:26:16Speaker 00

  Oh, we come after that?

• 2:26:17Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:18Speaker 00

  When, when, when do we get there?

• 2:26:20Steven Bartlett?

  Hopefully the day after, but we'll see. So hopefully this is your fourth, Liverpool's fourth loss in a row. And the fan base are growing increasingly impatient and they're annoyed. And Amorim has now won another, another game in a row. So this is, this conversation will come out straight after.

• 2:26:38Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 2:26:40Speaker 00

  Now, playing at Anfield. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, good luck.

• 2:26:48Speaker 00

  They have to strike back, you know. I'm gonna be there. That's never a good situation. You know, two days ago, so I just in the morning, I wake up pretty early in the morning. So I throw on YouTube and have a look and it shows me behind the scenes footage from the 7-0. The 7-0, oh gosh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I never saw that. I never saw it, but it's like the 7-0, obviously, I know the goals and stuff, but it's the camera difference, it's in the stances, it's really good. So, okay, fine, I watch it, 19 minutes, really good. So all the goals again and you see players in the dressing room all the way to the dressing room. Really good. The next day, I open and because you know how it is with the algorithm,

• 2:27:26Speaker 00

  now I see the 5-0 at Manchester. So I watched that and today I come here and had no clue that you are Manchester United fans. So I was really well prepared for that talk, I have to say.

• 2:27:42Speaker 00

  Without knowing. Yeah, damn. Yeah.

• 2:27:45Steven Bartlett?

  Thank you so much, Jürgen. Thank you for taking the time. Thank you for being an inspiration to me, but also thank you for all that you brought to the North West and to Liverpool.

• 2:27:52Speaker 00

  Sure, thanks. You're welcome. It was my pleasure.

• 2:27:55Steven Bartlett?

  Honestly, thank you so much. And I've learned so much from you as a leader and also as a man. And in the lead up to this, I spoke to so many people around you that have worked with you. I contacted Jordan Henderson, I spoke to Carragher, who knows you through various people. I think you managed him for one game, he said.

• 2:28:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, Australia.

• 2:28:09Steven Bartlett?

  The Australia game. And they all said the same thing. They all said that you're the same man on and off the camera. You're a person that brings people together, you're extremely likeable, but you have high standards and are an incredibly passionate person. And the narrative was consistently, he is the same man on and off camera, which is a credit to yourself. And no wonder why people were willing to walk through fire with you.

• 2:28:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:28:31Steven Bartlett?

  It's incredible what you've accomplished and I hope, selfishly as a football fan, I hope we see you back in the game at some point. Maybe Real Madrid or Manchester United, you know, whatever.

• 2:28:39Speaker 00

  You never know. You never know.

• 2:28:41Steven Bartlett?

  Thank you so much.