Former Liverpool captain Sami Hyypia has hailed the mentality Jurgen Klopp has installed in recent years at Anfield as the major reason behind the club's extended success.
Since 2019, Klopp has led his team to Champions League and Premier League glory and also added the Super Cup, Club World Cup, League Cup and FA Cup to Anfield's trophy room, ensuring that his legacy is secure as one of the finest the red half of Merseyside has ever witnessed.
Though Hyypia is no stranger to trophy-laden success at Anfield, having captained Gerard Houllier's side to a cup treble in the 2000/20001 season, lifting the League Cup, FA Cup and UEFA Cup before securing Champions League football on the final day of the Premier League season.
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The 48-year-old, who currently serves as an ambassador to Liverpool, joined the club on their pre-season tour of Southeast Asia and appeared alongside Luis Garcia, Jose Enrique, Vladimir Smicer and Jason McAteer at a series of fan events and was quick to heap praise on the Reds' current manager when speaking to the media.
"I think Jurgen Klopp has created a great atmosphere, a supporting atmosphere, but he also demands a lot from the players and physically his way of playing is very demanding," he said, speaking to The Straits Times. "Obviously, the players are under big mental stress as well, you get big mental stress from playing for Liverpool because for the fans only a win is satisfactory.
"At Liverpool, if you win it's a formality but if you lose it's a catastrophe. The players are under different pressures to other teams, so mental strength is very important."
Ultimately, the Reds' 2021/22 season would span 63 games across four different competitions as an unprecedented quadruple appeared to be within touching distance in the early weeks of May before Manchester City dramatically came from behind to beat Aston Villa and claim the Premier League title on the final day of the season, and suffering defeat to Real Madrid in the Champions League final just six days later.
Hyypia is able to relate to the slog of a season Klopp and his players endured as they were pushed to their physical and mental limits, recalling his memories of the 2000/20001 treble-winning season.
"I would say that it [2000/20001] reminded me a lot of last season, the end of the season was very important. We had three important games in the last week of that season; FA Cup final, UEFA Cup and the last game of the final Premier League game and if we won it we finished in the Champions League places.
"We won all three games so that made our season. The last week, mentally, was the hardest. If you lose all three then it's a bad season but if you win all three it's a great season.
"Last season, we managed to win the FA Cup, the Champions League final we should have won, we were the better team, and then we didn't manage to win the league. So it was make or break in the final few weeks. It's tough, you have to be very tough.
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