Jurgen Klopp vs Pep Guardiola: An engrossing rivalry like no other

Jurgen Klopp perhaps said it best when he described choosing between his brand of football and that of enduring rival Pep Guardiola as ‘a question of taste’.

Football teams have long been built in their manager’s image, tending to become a product of one individual’s experiences not only as a player and coach but, most importantly, as a person.

And, when it comes to Klopp and Guardiola, the differences between the two men’s personalities and their paths to the summit of European football have been writ large across their many titanic tussles down the years.

For Guardiola, the journey to this point began at Barcelona’s famed La Masia academy and featured a formative spell at the heart of Johan Cruyff’s ‘Dream Team’. Already a deep thinker by nature, it is no surprise that he has since prized the cerebral, possession-based football arguably seen in its purest form during his time at Manchester City.

By contrast, Klopp’s playing career was defined by the fact he was a self-confessed ‘average’ player whose employment was consistently precarious as a result. As such, personal bonds and the emotion of football have defined him as a manager, even if he is by no means a slouch in terms of the tactical elements of the game.

Still, regardless of their source, the true beauty of these idiosyncrasies is that they have resulted in the creation of football teams whose characteristics also contrast vividly. 

Ultimately, when one side is always looking for control and the other simply wishes to embrace the chaos, the result tends to be an unforgettable game.

Fortunately for observers the thrill of this clash of styles has managed to persist across the 11 years since it was first witnessed in Germany largely thanks to both managers’ willingness to learn from the other.

Jurgen Klopp vs Pep Guardiola H2H record

As Guardiola put it when asked about his rival on Friday: “The way he makes his teams play football you always learn.”

As much has been evident in the tweaks the Spaniard has made at City since their possession-obsessed approach was made to look naive in being blown away in the Champions League at Anfield back in 2018. 

His use of four centre-backs in defence and embrace of an archetypal No.9 in Erling Haaland this season certainly feels like a previously unlikely acceptance that not everything can be controlled by diminutive technicians.

Similarly, Klopp realised two years into his Liverpool reign that aggressive pressing alone wasn’t going to be enough to win the Premier League when some of your opponents do not want the ball.

And so a more measured, possession-based version of his team emerged, one that had clearly taken tactical pointers from Guardiola. 

Of course, neither man has completely abandoned their roots, as evidenced by their response to the pre-match verbal jousting started by Trent Alexander-Arnold this week. 

It felt telling that Klopp opted to double down on his vice-captain’s claims that the silverware Liverpool have won in this era means more to them than City, declaring: “One of our slogans, which I love, is ‘This Means More’, and it means more – to us. If we feel it like, why shouldn’t we be allowed to say it?”

These were the remarks of a manager who knows he needs his players and the supporters to feel every emotion of Sunday’s game in order for Liverpool to show their best, as has always been the case with his teams.

As for Guardiola, his brand of football requires ice in the veins, and so he opted not to extend the war of words, instead opting for passive-aggressive pleasantries in saying: "I wish [Alexander-Arnold] a speedy recovery and to come back to the pitch as soon as possible."

In the end, the mind games will always be deemed to have been won by the manager whose team have emerged victorious on the pitch, and so it is hard to place too much value on such pre-match sparring.

But, if nothing else, these words served to underline the distinction between Klopp and Guardiola that has made their rivalry so engrossing down the years, and will provide the ingredients for another classic clash - their final one as Liverpool vs Manchester City - at Anfield on Sunday.

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