In his first season with Liverpool, Jurgen Klopp lost only one match in his first five matches with the Reds. Germany hopes that its new coach will be able to follow the same path, especially after the sudden defeat to the Greek national team with an unanswered goal. Jurgen Klopp settled for only one point in his first two matches with Germany. (A draw with the Netherlands, one to the same, and a loss to Greece).
As usual, the response of Germany national team coach Jurgen Klopp was familiar. Klopp took responsibility for the loss and tried to protect a group of new players from the fire of criticism.
Klopp said after the match: “We have only been together for a week, and we come from different backgrounds, and this matter takes time.” He added: "Let the new players develop. The key players are big stars in their clubs, and they have my support. You can criticize me all you want, but do not criticize the players. We do not need to completely demolish everything."
Klopp continued: "I was surprised when some fans booed. The future is only as bright as we make it. We will face this challenge with everything we have."
Likewise, Klopp stressed the importance of development rather than giving in to fear due to short-term results, explaining that the German national team needs more training sessions, in order to consolidate the automatic reactions required to penetrate well-organized defenses.
Training national teams is a different matter!
Club training is different from national teams, as here lies one of the most prominent challenges facing the greatest coaches in the world of football. It is believed that Klopp's coaching mission for the German national team will be the last in his long coaching career. Here several questions arise, most notably: Can a coach who has won several league titles adapt his training methods to suit working with a national team?
Klopp was famous for his personality and ability to build close relationships with players, develop them and train them in order to build a strong team. Klopp believes that he is able to adapt to this type of work.
There is no doubt that his style of communication is what this team needs. His charismatic focus on building a collective culture and jointly developing the team, while strengthening the relationship with the fans, is something the German national team needs.
After many years of frustration and disappointment following the German national team in major tournaments, the biggest mistake would be to dismantle this new group before it even gets a real chance to start.
This group needs, and deserves, time to see how far it can go. Both Bambasi Conte and Hennis Burns made their debuts against Greece, after a number of other players made their debuts in the match against the Netherlands.
Jurgen Klopp summoned a large number of players, in order to find out who among them will be able to represent Germany in Euro 2028.
Can Klopp alone compensate for the lack of capabilities?
But what if, despite all of Klopp's positivity and efforts to build a team culture, it turns out that this new generation of German players does not have the sufficient level to win a championship?
It seems very early to answer this question, and this was confirmed by Jurgen Klopp himself. In the press conference during his introduction as coach of the German national team, Klopp said: “We want to help these players prepare to compete at the highest level during the next two or three years.”
He continued: "We followed a different approach, as we did not focus on what we lack, but rather on what we have."
What Germany has at the moment is a new team seeking to develop, but at the same time it has just suffered its first defeat in its history against Greece.
As for the Liverpool team, whose training was supervised by Klopp, the German coach needed two years and about 500 training sessions until the team reached the stage where it began to play with its own identity.
In the 2017-2018 season, Liverpool reached the Champions League final. In parallel with the time the team needed to adapt to the new system, the new deals, led by Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane, contributed to raising the quality of the team.
However, Klopp does not have this option with the German national team. He must achieve more through fewer training sessions, and Klopp is expected to participate in only about 200 training sessions before the Euro 2028 tournament.
Since Klopp cannot conclude football deals, the closest thing he can do is call up German players who have never represented the national team, and Germany’s list included 11 players who were called up for the first time.
Klopp (59 years old) said that his entire career led him to this task (coaching the German national team). This task may also prove to be the greatest challenge in his coaching career.
Translated into Arabic: R.M
