Despite Franz Beckenbauer’s incomparable sporting career, Jürgen Klopp will always remember people first. “Meeting him was the greatest thing,” said the Liverpool FC team manager in an interview on the club’s website on Tuesday: “He was funny, he was intelligent – he was everything you wanted to be.”
The “Kaiser”, whom Klopp met during the World Cup in Germany in 2006, taught the now 56-year-old an important lesson. “He taught me something that I didn’t know back then that I would need in my life: You can be famous, present in the media and on everyone’s lips – and still be yourself. That was Franz Beckenbauer,” recalled Klopp.
Klopp didn’t just see the virtues of Beckenbauer off the pitch. “Becoming world champion as a player in 1974 and as a coach in 1990 is a special achievement,” said Klopp. Beckenbauer was always “light-hearted, friendly, smiling and serious at the right moments,” and “inspiring” for the star trainer.
“It’s the first day and the world is a different place,” said Klopp about Beckenbauer’s death, which became known on Monday: “We will miss him very much, I will miss him very much.”