The Liverpool FC manager spent the past decade revitalising one of England's biggest clubs. His departure is a reminder of the legacy he leaves behind.
It was 2015, the German's first summer at the club, and all the players and staff went out for a pre-season meal at an Italian joint in the middle of the city. Towards the end of the evening, Klopp and his wife, Ulla, were looking for a secret spot to smoke a cigarette, but the only place available was the owner's office at the back of the restaurant.
"We felt like naughty little school kids. Fair to say, it was brilliant: in some ways just three lads talking footy, but for me and my lad, a memory for a lifetime." The team's first game under Klopp — a 0-0 draw against Tottenham — showed the early symbols of the emotion-filled, heavy-metal side they would become, running more than they had ever in the previous season and then running some more, filled with the same electricity that their new manager seemed to contain within him wherever he went.
Looking back, it is hard to imagine the Premier League without this slapstick routine of a man as one of its protagonists: him sprinting down the touchline with his big white teeth clenched, him leaping up and punching the air with his closed right hand, him slapping the left side of his chest where the club crest always sat.
His passion grew to encompass the entire city, a city built upon the same left-leaning collective principles that he and his teams have been the manifestations of, familiarising himself with countless local businesses, hospitals, grassroots clubs, pubs, charities, retirement homes and everything in between.
All the time, he was there: grinning through an ever-greying beard, wiping tears from beneath his thick-rimmed glasses, writing letters and sending video messages and speaking on broadcasts to the whole world of Liverpool fans he'd created and connected with along the way.
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