Klopp’s manager at Mainz was Wolfgang Frank, a man credited with introducing the 4-4-2 to German football, Frank is often cited by Klopp as his biggest inspiration. He’s certainly entertaining but he uses that skill to make people feel closer to him. And it certainly works. Here he’s giving a press conference after a win. The first thing that defines the Klopp culture is that it is inclusive and this approach goes a long way beyond the first team. When Klopp was approached to be Liverpool manager he was on a year’s break. He famously won people over by contrasting his own style to the last decade’s bombast of Mourinho’s Special One as being far more humble.

This brings us on to our final part of the Klopp formula. We’ve looked at Data, a clear plan, inclusivity and finally psychological safety. PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY Liverpool’s owners The Fenway Group, also were responsible for bringing the same mathematical rigours to baseball to last year’s World Series winners the Boston Red Sox. He goes on: “Of course he has learned. In 2. Bundesliga he seemed to be sent to the stands [by referees] every four weeks because he often had no control over his emotions. Now he has them mostly under control. He is sincere and honest”. This is very important. What we need to create is where they understand completely that the only criticism they need to take is mine – not because I’m the only one that knows anything, but because I’m the one they have to pay attention to,” he explains. Let’s make a contrast at this point. It is not the norm to have such a close bond in a team of football players. In fact even the most successful manager of the last decade Pep Guardiola doesn’t get close.This psychological safety is reliant on honesty and candid discussion. One Dortmund player who Klopp was trying to woo reported that unlike other managers Klopp didn’t over promise. He didn’t make empty promises. Asking what a player expected from Dortmund the player said ‘to play as much as possible’, the manager replied ‘That’s not possible. I can’t promise you’ll play that often, but you’ll learn an incredible amount’. A few of Liverpool’s longest-serving employees have commented that the culture of closeness and excellence fostered under Klopp in West Derby has never been stronger during the modern era. Psychological safety is about letting players know they won’t be blamed for giving everything they’ve got. One of the ways that this safety is reinforced is the way that mistakes are dealt with. Aside from this year’s Champions League final Liverpool of course were the defeated finalists in 2018 – a 3-1 loss to Madrid in Kiev. The story of that game was of the two goal deficit being down to two calamitous goal keeping errors by loris karius. The first where karius absent mindedly rolled the ball into the path of the right foot of Karim Benzema. Repeated viewing doesn’t overcome the sense of WTF. But here is Klopp minutes after that defeat unwilling to blame the keeper. An article by the journalist Melissa Reddy in October 2018 reports that the culture of closeness had never felt better.

It might be strange talking about a manager being inclusive but even though the job appears to be just a coach and a squad of 20 or so player breaking down barriers is very much Klopp’s way to build a rapport with the team. Said “There are coaches that are world class in terms of tactics, but on the human side of things aren’t that good,Pep Guardiola doesn’t talk with the players so you never know what is going on.” According to Soccernomics what determines success is principally the wage bill of clubs. There’s a very strong correlation between the highest wage bill and the biggest success.And there’s why a fascination with this data is never easy. We get lost in a mess of anecdote, exceptions and narrative fallacy. Watching Klopp’s interactions with his team it would be easy to say the secret is his charisma. But it’s not that. As we’ve said before he values entertainment and is no fan of hierarchy. Goodhart’s law is an adage named after British economist Charles Goodhart. Goodhart’s law says that “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” A boss decides that when his team makes more calls they generate more revenue. So he sets the goal to double the number of calls. Sure enough the number of calls double but business falls, why? Because low quality easy calls are prioritised rather than the lengthier calls that end in business. Targeting engagement doesn’t always achieve the right result. Hans-Joachim Watzke at Dortmund said that of Klopp: “his punchlines are perfect. Jurgen is never monotonously or predictable, that keeps everyone’s attention”.