The Liverpool-Klopp one year anniversary: Can you name Klopp’s first XI?
By Tom Bogert
In Jurgen Klopp’s first game for Liverpool, he wasn’t given a fully fit team to choose from. Do you remember who was included in his very first XI?
What a year it’s been. Last October, Liverpool pulled the early trigger on a floundering Brendan Rodgers before any of their rivals could tap into the pool of unemployed managers. Jurgen Klopp may well have been the best of the bunch. He said he wouldn’t work for a year, but admitted he couldn’t resist when Liverpool came calling.
Klopp took over on October 8, 2015. It’s been an invigorating ride with the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. The manager has led his new club on two unlikely cup runs, but both were lost in the final. The journeys were special and it was only the beginning. This week, we’ll look back on Klopp’s first season with Liverpool. It’s their one year anniversary and still a happy marriage.
It’s ironic how Jurgen Klopp’s first game in charge of his new club transpired a year ago. They played Tottenham at White Hart Lane and it was the antithesis of what we’re accustomed to with Klopp… a 0-0 draw.
The opening 20 minutes of the match, the players did their best to implement what their manager would want to see and ran frantically. Then they regressed below the mean as far as running was concerned.
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They clearly were not in Klopp shape, nor did they have much time to do much more than the basics in training of what he wanted. But it was encouraging, because for 20 minutes there was that heavy metal football we were promised.
Klopp didn’t have the luxury of choosing from a fully fit team and the side is more disappointing than I remembered but there’s more than a few pieces that are still integral to Klopp’s team a year on.
I surely wouldn’t have been able to remember these eleven, can you?