Jurgen Klopp’s move to Red Bull seems surprising but it shouldn’t be

As Liverpool’s manager, Jurgen Klopp did not like long meetings. Rather than sitting around, poring over the latest big decision, he would regularly have important conversations in the canteen of the training ground while eating his lunch. 

Klopp was anything but formal, yet Mike Gordon — the president of Liverpool’s owner, Fenway Sports Group, a man who also operates with the sort of casual confidence you normally get from a dot com entrepreneur — placed the German on the same level as a corporate leader. He was, according to Gordon, “someone you would choose to run your company”, as he told Raphael Honigstein in his book, Bring the Noise.

Klopp’s new role as Red Bull’s global head of soccer, which he starts at the beginning of next year, potentially offers that kind of overarching responsibility. As a statement from Red Bull explained, the day-to-day running of the five clubs it owns, sponsors or has a minority stake in will not concern him but he will be helping sporting directors, scouting departments and coaches, ensuring Red Bull’s “philosophy” runs through each of its interests.

The decision, which arrived suddenly — nine years and a day since his arrival at Liverpool — might, on the face of it, be surprising, given how drained Klopp seemed when he departed Anfield in May. Back then, he said he had run out of energy and needed a total rest from football management.

He had left Borussia Dortmund with a similar message at the end of the 2014-15 season, before quickly landing on Merseyside after a summer largely spent playing tennis.

Klopp finds it hard to sit still for any length of time, but his new job at Red Bull invites a slower and less stressful route back into the game he loves — and, in all likelihood, a precursor to the German national team job he has long coveted, given that reports in the country suggest a get-out clause exists in his contract.

Gordon’s comments about Klopp’s capabilities were made in 2017 and in the years that followed, as Liverpool became more and more successful, his power grew. With that, the support network that had also contributed to Liverpool’s rise was dismantled. Klopp was not running Liverpool because the most important financial decisions were still made by Gordon, yet he was the public face of a multi-national company, and the football department became his. It explains why Liverpool now employs a head coach rather than a manager and the club’s sporting director leads strategic and staffing decisions. It would be good to hear from Klopp on whether he thinks taking on too much contributed to his burnout. 

Perhaps the Red Bull gig gives him the opportunity to understand a world he is curious about. Last year, there was some talk of him enrolling on a sporting directorship course, something his representatives did not confirm or deny. Unlike at Liverpool, he will be able to do his job without the pressures of preparing a team, matches, and press conferences. In an Instagram post on Tuesday, he indicated that this treadmill had stopped him from learning as much as he would like. From here, if he ends up taking charge of Germany, he will surely understand better the responsibilities that come with different stations of leadership.

Klopp is not the first former Liverpool manager to take on this particular title at Red Bull. In 2012, after Gerard Houllier was forced into retirement due to deteriorating health, he met with the founder of the company, Dietrich Mateschitz, who turned up for a meeting in Austria on a motorbike, wearing jeans.

Quite how influential Houllier became depends on the impression of who you speak to. While he would later claim that he played a leading role in the organisation’s attempt to bring Sadio Mane into its fold from Metz in 2012, those closer to its running suggest his responsibilities were closer to that of an ambassador: turning up in various countries, shaking hands with partners, and occasionally whispering advice.

Will Klopp’s duties even be as all-encompassing as they might sound? He is certainly useful for Red Bull’s brand, one which has needed a touch of legitimacy ever since it started investing in football in 2005.

Houllier was eight years out of Liverpool by the point his involvement started, while the Red Bull group had not yet produced a team talented enough to qualify for the group stage of the Champions League. Though its club in Leipzig has since made it through to that round of the competition in seven of the last eight seasons, the tale of a team rising up from the regional divisions has not exactly been met with encouragement in Germany, where the rules lean in favour of fan representation and significant outside investment is treated with suspicion. 

At Dortmund and Liverpool, Klopp harnessed the authenticity of each club’s following, occasionally taking sideswipes at the artificial elements of rivals and other places. Had he been in charge of Dortmund in 2016 when they faced a recently promoted RB Leipzig in the Bundesliga for the first time, it would have been interesting to hear his thoughts on the actions of the Dortmund supporters who boycotted the fixture in protest at their opponents’ ownership model.

“Dortmund makes money, but we do it to play football,” said Jan-Henrik Gruszecki, one of the protest’s organisers, told The Guardian. “But Leipzig plays football to sell a product and a lifestyle. That’s the difference.”

Klopp, therefore, may have chipped his reputation by aligning himself with the fizzy drinks manufacturer — the antithesis of what he once represented. Perhaps this will be determined, particularly in Germany, by how visible he is while on Red Bull duty. 

Back in England, the company has a minority stake in Leeds United, having taken over as the club’s shirt sponsor. “The ambition to bring Leeds United back to the Premier League and establish themselves in the best football league in the world fits very well with Red Bull,” said Oliver Mintzlaff in May. Mintzlaff, Red Bull’s corporate projects CEO, played a significant role in Klopp’s appointment.

Klopp suggested on his exit from Liverpool in the same month that he would never manage another Premier League club. But it is not too hard to imagine Leeds back in the top flight soon, and if that happens — and Red Bull lends its technical support, as expected — it will be fascinating to see where Klopp, if he remains in the position, fits in. Might he end up helping plot, even in some small way, Liverpool’s downfall come matchday?

Immediately, many have chortled at the suggestion that one of his first tasks might involve the sacking of Pep Lijnders, his former assistant at Liverpool, whose Red Bull Salzburg team were thrashed by Brest and Sturm Graz in successive games last week.

There is no plan to remove the Dutch coach, but Klopp does not begin with Red Bull officially until January. Given how close they were at Liverpool, with Lijnders entrusted to lead training sessions, it seems unthinkable that Klopp, if asked, would suggest making a change. Instead, surely Klopp’s arrival at the Red Bull stable increases the chances of him surviving.

For the time being, Klopp is removed from the grind of the daily management, with this role seeming to strike a neat balance of involvement at the elite end through a new challenge, but without the pressure, and scrutiny, that comes from being a manager. Whether Klopp can resist the buzz of the latter in the long term remains to be seen. 

(Top photos: Getty Images)