Jürgen Klopp, who has announced his farewell to Liverpool, and Pep Guardiola will today complete one of the most extraordinary cycles in the history of football, a transformative period in the teams they have managed, the Leagues in which they have competed and the national teams they have They have benefited from his influence. At Anfield, the perfect sentimental setting, Liverpool and Manchester City will face each other, separated by one point at the top of the Premier League and led by two coaches who have met 29 times since their first meeting in August 2013: Borussia Dortmund-Bayern Munich, final of the German Super Cup.
That match - Borussia's victory by four to two - marked the beginning of a different time. Guardiola and Klopp had been in charge of the novelties in previous years, one at Barça that captivated the world and established horizons unsuspected until then, the other at Borussia that refused to capitulate to the Bayern dictatorship and won two successive editions ( 2011, 2012) of the Bundesliga. Guardiola, exhausted and captured by his frustrations with the Barça leaders, had taken a sabbatical year in New York. It didn't take long for him to receive the offer from Bayern, which offered him an appetizing challenge: lead the team that had just won the treble of major titles (European Cup, Bundesliga and German Cup).
Their history was linked to a single team, Barça, in a championship with characteristics radically different from the German one. The bets were divided, but Guardiola won. He won the Bundesliga in each of his three years in Munich. Profile that countercultural Bayern, patient and controlling, with a goalkeeper (Neuer) who played miles away from the goal, a right back (Lahm) incorporated into the midfield as an inside player and not as a winger, was not easy, nor was it easy for him. easy for Guardiola to arbitrate countermeasures to stop Klopp's explosive Borussia. That epic struggle had visible consequences in the German team that won the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, with a mix of the control that Guardiola preached and the noise that Klopp demanded.
Klopp's mandate at Liverpool was to revive a team that had not won the English championship since 1990. As for Guardiola, he denied those who predicted his failure in vigorous German football and, for a moment, granted minimal satisfaction to those who They predicted his shipwreck in England. In his first year at City (2016-17), he did not win any title, an unprecedented circumstance in his career. Jürgen Klopp also found it difficult to achieve success, but from the beginning he earned the unconditional support of the fans at Anfield.
Mourinho, who intended to repeat his fight with Guardiola in Spain in England, disappeared from the scene, reduced to the status of an undesirable troublemaker. Klopp took his place due to merit, ambition and leadership capacity. His groundbreaking version of Liverpool has combined vertigo and energy with order and good handwriting. Guardiola has won six English championships in his eight years at City, where the bare former shelves are beginning to fill with trophies. Klopp ended Liverpool's 30-year drought in the League in 2020 and won the European Cup in 2019.
The two teams have had memorable seasons and, in the process, have changed the pace of English football, which has emerged from its self-absorbed insularity. With the best generation of players in its history, England is in the best conditions to be a dominant power on the world stage.
Klopp will leave Liverpool at the end of this season. His announcement caused a biblical shock in his club and in English football. The German coach has acquired a consideration similar to that of the sacred Bill Shankly. His mark will be so deep that he will distress his successors. The same will happen when Pep Guardiola leaves Manchester City. Meanwhile, they have one last date to resolve in the Premier. It will be today, at Anfield, and the world will be more aware of the two masters than ever.
