New Germany manager Jurgen Klopp was introduced to the media on Friday and wasted little time making a stir.
Klopp, 59, hailed the job as the pinnacle of his career, saying it could well be his very last manager’s job in the sport, and also threatened to quit if the German media turned on him the way it did Julian Nagelsmann and Thomas Tuchel at this summer’s World Cup.
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“I’m doing the job even though I’ve heard how you treated Julian, although I’ve heard how England treats Tuchel,” Klopp said, later adding, “If you behave badly and don’t leave my family in peace, I’ll be gone. I’ll just turn away. I know there are other countries where national team head coaches are treated even worse. I love this job but I am also ready to call it quits if needs be.”
The former Liverpool boss has been serving as Red Bull’s head of global football since October 2024.
Here’s more from Klopp’s exceptional first time speaking to the media.
Jurgen Klopp: Germany job ‘the pinnacle of my career’
Klopp has been successful at each of his stops from Mainz to Dortmund then Liverpool, leading the first to promotion, the second to the Bundesliga and a Champions League Final, and the third to the Premier League and a Champions League trophy.
But this is different, he says.
“Jurgen Klopp is not going to have any ‘career’ after the national team,” Klopp said. “This is the pinnacle, the high point of my footballing career as a coach. I will give everything I’ve got, and I have the best possible assistant coaching team.”
Klopp has work to do after Germany were ousted from the 2026 World Cup in surprise fashion by Paraguay at the Round of 32. Germany won the 2014 World Cup but were grouped in 2018 and 2022. They also slipped out of EURO 2020 at the Round of 16 and EURO 2024 in the quarterfinals.
“Jurgen Klopp being in the job doesn’t automatically mean we’re going to be world champions,” Klopp warned, via Sky Sports. “Success is performance versus expectations. We need a new set of expectations. Many people have asked themselves, are we as good as France? If the answer is no, then that is not necessarily true. If the question is, do we have players like Dembele, Barcola, Mbappe? Then the answer is no, we don’t, but we can still beat them.
“We don’t want to play like Argentina, Spain, England or France. We want to play like Germany, do it the German way but very intense. Are we the number one team at the moment? No, we aren’t; I accept that. Would we be happy to be the number two team? Then people would say we aren’t number one. At the moment, we have 11 teams ahead of us. Yes, we can beat them, but for this to happen, you need to play very good, intense football.”
