When Hansi Flick was sacked as the manager of Germany on Sunday, it was inevitable that rumors around Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp would follow.
Reds midfielder Wataru Endō had a hand in Flick’s downfall, captaining Japan to a 4-1 victory in Wolfsburg on Saturday, but this was more the culmination of a miserable 12 months that has seen Germany crash out of the World Cup in the group stages and lose four of its six matches since.
Jan Åge Fjørtoft says that Klopp is the ‘dream’ appointment for the DFB, the German football association, while Sky Germany has named him as the ‘ideal’ candidate. That’s no surprise when you consider the scale of his achievements in his managerial career, including three league titles (two in his homeland and one in England) and a Champions League in 2019.
Such is the desperation to bring Klopp on board that Fjørtoft even claimed he may be offered a dual role, allowing him to continue as manager of Liverpool while coaching the national team when the club season paused.
But, according to Sky, Klopp has decided that any such arrangement is ‘definitely out of the question’, and it’s also ‘unrealistic’ that he’ll quit Liverpool altogether to take charge of Die Mannschaft, a stance that he’s seemingly already made public.
“The problem that stands in the way of the whole thing is my loyalty,” Klopp said back in July (via TalkSport). “I can’t just leave Liverpool now and say I’ll take over Germany for a moment. That does not work.
“If I’m supposed to do it at some point, then I have to be available. And that’s just not me at the moment.”
