Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola gets a warm welcome from his Liverpool counterpart Jurgen Klopp, who wants to make life ‘really uncomfortable’ for the champions on Saturday afternoon
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Jurgen Klopp cast himself as the philosophical opposite of his rival for Saturday’s crunch match. They have been pitted against each other for a decade now, Klopp and Pep Guardiola, over 28 meetings from the German Super Cup to the Community Shield, via the FA, Carabao and German cups, the Bundesliga, the Premier League and the Champions League. They will be in neighbouring technical areas at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday when Manchester City host Liverpool, just as they are side by side again in the league table, for a game Klopp said he “would watch wherever I was on the planet”.
But, once again, he is up against the man he deems the finest in his business. “I don't know how often I have said it but he's the best manager in the world,” he said.
And while he will willingly admit that Guardiola is an influence, he compared himself to his great rival by drawing a distinction between them.
“Defending is an important part of the game,” he said. “That is where my philosophy starts and his maybe ends.”
Guardiola may disagree on that point, given the importance he attaches to pressing. As Klopp accepted: “We are not that close that we have spoken about it.”
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But Klopp’s blueprint against Guardiola involves defending; which, in turn, is the basis of his attacking. Gegenpressing, after all, is his best playmaker.
“I love preparing for a game when the opponent wants the ball because it gives you an opportunity to create something,” he said.
Devastating transitions have been at the heart of his blueprint to beat Guardiola.
It is one that no one else has been able to copy; not with any consistency. Only one manager has faced Guardiola at least eight times and has won more often than he has lost, and that is the man who has taken him on most often. Klopp’s 12 victories have been spread across Germany and England but have had certain common denominators.
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Klopp’s teams don’t dominate the ball, and nor do they try to. But nor do they give it up altogether: beating Manchester City with 20 per cent possession, he rationalised, “is really rare and your counterattacks have to be spot on”.
And if Liverpool’s sometimes are, they had 37 per cent of the ball when they won 1-0 at Anfield last season, 32 per cent in the 2-1 Champions League victory at the Etihad Stadium, 36 per cent in 2018’s 4-3 triumph at Anfield.
Klopp’s sides have to defend well, but the scorelines indicate that the games have not been defensive. Perhaps it is simply testament to the attacking quality on the pitch but those 28 matches have produced 93 goals, an average of 3.32 each.
While winning more – 12 to 11 – Klopp’s teams have conceded more goals, 48 to 45; as he knows from 5-0, 4-0, 4-1 and 4-1 results, when City are on top, they can seem unstoppable. “If we can make it really uncomfortable for them, we have a chance,” Klopp said. “If they feel comfortable in their game, no team has a chance.”
Arguably, no one else has made life uncomfortable for Guardiola as often as Klopp. Some of the unconventional decisions that have led to accusations that the Catalan overthinks things have come against Liverpool: Aymeric Laporte has played at left-back at Anfield, Ilkay Gundogan as a quasi-right-winger and Jack Grealish as a false nine, none with any conspicuous success.
Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola meet at the DFB semi-final match between Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich in 2015
Klopp nevertheless argued that it will be hard for Guardiola to spring a surprise.
“We are all kind of predictable so it is not that we have a rabbit in our pocket and pull it out,” he said. “It is football, all the pitches are the same size and it is super interesting.”
He knows City want the ball and where they want it. The challenge lies in concentration and organisation, in when to try to take it off them, how and whether Liverpool can spring a break.
“Now it is about each space on the pitch you give them on the pitch that they want to explore,” he said. “They really want to play. They are the one team who have four at the back and one of them is the goalkeeper. They don’t only play around their own box, they move slightly higher as well. If we have a solution for that, they will step back and adapt.”
Guardiola can seem the control freak of the pair, Klopp the man with a brand of chaos theory. Yet he presented himself as the organiser, the defensive strategist, and the City manager as the ranter and raver.
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“I am not sure how deep you have to go into our personality to see what we are like,” he said. “I am 56 and I still don't know who I am but Pep is for sure this type of guy who likes to get angry with his boys if they don't want the ball. I have that a little bit. For me, I love to organise other things to get advantage from that and that is deep in my personality.”
And that personality, over the years, has equipped him for the seemingly impossible task of facing Guardiola.
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