Jürgen Klopp Appointed Head Coach of Germany Men's National Team Until 2030

Jürgen Klopp is to return to the dugout after being appointed head coach of the Germany men’s national side until 2030. The 59-year-old takes over from Julian Nagelsmann in the job after Germany’s humbling last-32 defeat by Paraguay at the World Cup.

Klopp has been away from frontline management since leaving Liverpool at the end of the 2023-24 season, when he cited fatigue as his principal reason for stepping away after a hugely successful nine-season spell in which he won the Premier League and Champions League, among other trophies. He won two Bundesliga titles in charge of Borussia Dortmund in the early 2010s.

“It’s a great honour for me to be sitting here today,” Klopp told a press conference in Frankfurt on Friday morning. “This is ideally the high point of my career, of my life, my professional life. I will give it everything I have. The national team brings us Germans together like almost nothing else can. That’s what makes this task so special for me.”

Klopp added that he would be prepared to leave without any severance pay if the job doesn’t work out, and threatened to resign if the media doesn’t “leave my family in peace”.

Klopp was made Red Bull’s head of global soccer in October 2024, working in the background for the multiclub organisation. He also worked as a pundit for German TV during the World Cup in the US, Mexico and Canada.

“We’re very happy to be able to present Jürgen Klopp today as the new coach,” the German Football Association [DFB] president, Bernd Neuendorf, said. “We’ve had very intense discussions. He was our ideal solution from the start. We at the DFB were unanimous in saying he was the candidate we had to talk to. Our talks with Jürgen only strengthened our belief that he’s the right man at the right time.“

Neuendorf also thanked Red Bull for ending its contract with Klopp early. Klopp’s release was secured by the German FA making a €1m donation to the company’s Wings for Life foundation and agreeing to play three internationals in Leipzig, where Red Bull backs the city’s Bundesliga team, by 2030.

His first game in charge of the four-time World ⁠Cup winners will come away to their bitter rivals the Netherlands on 24 September in the Nations League. Klopp’s side will also face Greece and Serbia in Group A2 before preparing for their Euro 2028 qualifying campaign. His contract will run until the end of the 2030 World Cup in Morocco, Portugal and Spain. He will be assisted by Peter Krawietz, Pep Lijnders and former Germany international Sven Bender.

Klopp faces a daunting task in turning around the fortunes of the national side, which has failed to win a knockout game at a World Cup since beating Argentina in the 2014 final, after exiting at the group stages in 2018 and in 2022 before this year’s last-32 knockout. They showed promising signs of improvement in their home Euros in 2024 under Nagelsmann before losing to eventual winners Spain in the quarter-final.

The former Germany defender Per Mertesacker is also joining the national side set-up as the new managing director for sport, with a role overseeing the the men’s national teams and an emphasis on bringing players through youth national teams for the senior team. He will start the role in January and joins after eight years running Arsenal’s academy.