Thank you, Jürgen

Dear Jürgen Klopp,

Your time as manager at Liverpool FC comes to an end after eight and a half unforgettable years. Together we’ve had highs, lows and everything in between. Tears and shouts of joy were balanced by those of despair and frustration. Hugs of celebration were tied with those of comfort and consolation. And after all, that is what makes life worth living. It’s in those things we find the meaning of it all.

Football is the most important of the less important things in life, and you showed us how to celebrate the wonderful and unique parts of the game that make us all so addicted to it, without ever allowing us to forget what is truly important: family, friends, good health and togetherness.

You leave Liverpool as their fourth most successful manager. In 131 years as a professional football club, only three men achieved more. They built statues of two of them, and the other has a stand at Anfield named after him.

You delivered what you said. You brought back the league title, you won another European Cup. You won just about everything you could have won. You built a team that empowered players to be leading figures, icons and role models in world football. You brought Liverpool FC to a place where it is competing consistently with the projects of nation-states.

You produced moments that will live forever in the minds of millions of Reds from L4 to supporters’ clubs in Tokyo. The Barcelona comeback, the Alisson Becker winner, the five-nil at Old Trafford, the seven-nil at Anfield.

You thrived in one of the toughest, most high-pressure (most least important) jobs. You were never sacked in a business where high-quality, high-achievers are so often dismissed and replaced at the highest level. You had three clubs and you parted them all on your own terms. You will be remembered and loved forever by each of them.

Football at the elite level has been heading to a place where fans feel disengaged, forgotten and left out as profits and marketability are placed higher than integrity, community and compassion. The roots of English football, of football at Liverpool FC, are anchored in those principles, and they have been nurtured by the spirit of the people. You took that principle, that truth, and you understood it, acknowledged it and championed it.

For the teams, and for the goals, and for the good times, and for making us remember what is truly important in life, thank you, Jürgen Klopp. We will never forget you.