In January 2024, Jürgen Klopp shocked the world by announcing that he will leave Liverpool at the end of the 2023/24 season.
According to the German, he had made the decision in November and had ratified it with the club’s management but chose the turn of the year to make the announcement.
It came as a surprise to both his players and the club’s fans as well as the football world, and many began to give their opinions on why he quit.
Despite having taken a back seat the season before, he was the only manager who was able to go toe-to-toe with Pep Guardiola at Manchester City for the better part of the last decade. In the 2023/24 season, in fact, he spent the most time at the top of the league table but injuries and a poor run of form saw his team finish in third place behind City and Arsenal.
Klopp is now enjoying his sabbatical and the world cannot wait to see him handle a new team soon. Former England striker Gary Lineker even posited that Klopp’s return will not be to management, but to administration.
In all of this, the question of why Klopp quit remains unanswered. And Real Madrid’s manager, Carlo Ancelotti, believes he knows the answer.
Having been an elite manager for over three decades, Don Carlo believes that Klopp quit because of the pressure that comes with the tag.
Ancelotti is not the most successful league manager but he has made himself out to be unbeatable in the UEFA Champions League by winning five from seven attempts – the only manager to have done so in the competition’s history. At league level, he has also managed teams to win in the top five leagues in Europe as the only manager to have done so.
If there is anyone who knows about the struggles of elite-level management, it is him, and he believes that Klopp chose to quit because of those struggles.
He told Italian outlet il Giornale: “I don’t see any particular news, this has always been our job but the Klopp case is significant. The continuous pressure, the load of responsibilities become excessive burdens, the obsession takes over. It also happened to Arrigo Sacchi [his former manager in his playing days at AC Milan].”
Ancelotti also surmised that Klopp had started to lose control of his relationships at Liverpool, which made it wise that he stepped down from the role.
“When relationships break down, not human ones but professional ones, it is better to leave without controversies and arguments,” said the Italian manager.
