Jurgen Klopp has found things tough at Liverpool this season - and it’s not the first time the manager has been in trouble.
Fans have latched onto what they feel is a pattern around the German’s seventh season at a club. They have pointed to the relegation he suffered with Mainz, but also the horrific start in what ended up being his final season as Borussia Dortmund manager.
The 2014-15 campaign was a tough one for the German club, though the summer departure of Robert Lewandowski meant they knew it wouldn’t be entirely straightforward. Within a few months, though, the extent of the drop-off had gone beyond even the worst expectations of those around Signal Iduna Park.
"I chose this time to announce it because in the last few years some player decisions were made late and there was no time to react,” Klopp said in 2015 when confirming his departure from the club. Lewandowski’s move to Bayern Munich on a free transfer was the most obvious example, but Dortmund had also lost Mario Gotze to their rivals shortly after the 2013 Champions League final.
Adrian Ramos had come in, with the Colombian one of those tasked with replacing the goals of Lewandowski, and he scored twice as Klopp’s team won two of their first three games. However, a failure to keep a clean sheet - something we also saw with the manager’s Liverpool team at the start of this season - was one of the warning signs.
By the time goalkeeper Roman Weidenfeller registered his first shut-out of the season, it was November and Dortmund were well and truly in a relegation fight - one which Klopp would insist he had no plans to walk away from. That clean sheer in a win over Borussia Monchengladbach took them out of the bottom three, but they would find themselves rock bottom in February.
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One of those defeats, against promoted Koln, was met with comments about a “real crisis” from general manager Michael Zorc. Even the return of the likes of Ilkay Gundogan and Marco Reus from injury wasn’t enough to help results improve, and Klopp fell on his sword for what was neither the first or the last time, saying "At the critical moments in front of our goal, and in front of their goal, we lacked composure."
New striker Ramos, meanwhile, would not add to those first two Bundesliga goals until the next season. And, after a 1-0 defeat at home to 10-man Augsburg kept them dead last, Klopp had nowhere to hide.
“We can be accused of anything tonight and it is all justified,” the manager said. “Battling also means having the courage to take the right decision. We were missing that tonight."
Bafflingly, despite the struggles at home, Dortmund had experienced no such problems in Europe. Four wins in the Champions League group stage was the same number they managed in 19 league outings, though they would end up falling to Juventus in a last-16 clash.
Despite the struggles, plenty of members of that squad spoke highly of the manager further down the line. Ciro Immobile, for example, left with fond memories despite struggles for both player and club during his one season at Signal Iduna Park.
"Klopp leaves something behind for you. You don't forget someone like him," he later told Sport Bild .
"I was lucky to be able to play under him. He's a super emotional trainer. Someone for whom you fight for every ball.
"He demands that of you too, and you can see that in his behaviour on the sidelines.
The Italian felt it was a question of timing, rather than anything else, with circumstances on the pitch harming his chances. "I think that I just moved to Dortmund at an inconvenient time as far as the team was concerned," he said.
"With Klopp, BVB became champions in 2011 and 2012 and then came second twice. After the first half of my season there, we were second from last in the Bundesliga.”
There have been concerns at Liverpool that the success of recent years has been an issue. After thriving for so many years and winning everything there is to win, it can be tough to keep the intensity which brought you to that point.
That’s certainly how Neven Subotic appeared to feel about the situation. The Serbian defender opened up about the 2014-15 season when speaking to The Athletic in 2021, detailing the efforts made by Klopp to deal with such a situation.
“When you get the feeling as a player that you’ve already achieved something, that you have a bit of experience, you suddenly don’t want to say ‘Yes’ to everything any more,” the 33-year-old said. “I guess that’s human nature.
“If it was necessary, Klopp upped the volume. He shook us up a bit, to wake us up. Not by saying, ‘You have to play something different, boys, it’ll be tough’. No, he went up to a player and slapped him across the face. You think, ‘Oh, he might slap him back’.”
The Augsburg game was when things really came to a head, with Klopp not the only one to determine something needed to be done.
Weidenfeller and centre-back Mats Hummels were spotted going over to speak to fans after the loss, and Hummels was understanding of the disquiet. "If one is in this position after 19 games then it would be unacceptable not to have understanding for the fans' reactions," he explained.
After that game, a switch flicked. Dortmund won their next four in the league, and five of the next seven, including back-to-back clean sheets for the first time in nearly a full calendar year. A 3-0 victory over Schalke, the first of those four on the spin, saw Dortmund climb to 10th and was described by Klopp as a “perfect” display.
"Four weeks ago we were standing here talking about the relegation battle," added Reus, who celebrated the opener by donning a Robin mask while teammate Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang play-acted as Batman.
"We'll take this one game at a time. At the moment things look good but we have tough games ahead and there is still a long way to go."
A remarkable climb to the top four was too much to ask, but 30 points from the final 15 games was enough for European qualification. There was also a run to the DFB-Pokal final, something which would have seemed improbable at the turn of the year but became a reality when Pep Guardiola’s Bayern Munich failed to convert any of their four penalties in a semi-final shootout.
“I did not expect such a game,” said Klopp , who had announced his departure a fortnight before the game at the Allianz Arena. “I wanted us to play with more courage in the first half and I told my players that it is ok to lose here but not with this nonsense. Let’s go down fighting.”
Ahead of the final against Wolfsburg, he encouraged one final push , anticipating a “super-cool” final.It wasn’t to be, though, with Aubameyang’s early opener cancelled out by three Wolfsburg goals to hand the trophy to Dieter Hecking’s side.
“I have always said that the day I feel that I am no longer the perfect coach for this extraordinary club I will say that,” Klopp said in April 2015 as he announced his impending departure. “That is something I have thought about in every phase here at Dortmund and decided in the last few weeks, days, that I was no longer able to be absolutely sure about that.
“And then, because of the unusual relationship I have with this club, the trust we have for each other, it was my duty to tell the club. We reached the decision together. You can’t imagine how difficult it is when you have something so wonderful as here.”
Dortmund followed that announcement with four wins from six in the league and progress to the cup final, in what some may believe was a group of players showing they were still prepared to give everything for their manager, even when their time together was nearly up. Maybe especially for that reason.
Those around Liverpool will surely hope the challenging results are the only similarity with that ill-fated 2014-15 Dortmund season. They won’t feel the time to say goodbye is here just yet - after all, we haven’t even reached the original 2024 date which Klopp had earmarked for his departure before signing on for longer.
One thing which may be encouraging, though, is the response to those struggles. Once Dortmund got going that season, momentum grew under Klopp and continued into the following campaign under his successor, Thomas Tuchel. All that Liverpool are waiting for now is that first big win.
