Jurgen Klopp hits back to reject theory over his 'intimidating' Liverpool ritual

05 January 2024 , 07:30

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Jurgen Klopp hits back to reject theory over his 'intimidating' Liverpool ritual

Ben Foster and James Tarkowski have admitted they find Jurgen Klopp's pre-match ritual of standing on the halfway line and staring at the opposition 'intimidating', even though the Liverpool boss insists that is not why he does it.

Klopp is regularly seen intensely watching rival players in action before Liverpool's games, with former Premier League goalkeeper Foster discussing Klopp's actions with Everton defender Tarkowski on an episode of his Fozcast podcast.

When asked if he is aware of Klopp's presence while he is warming up, Tarkowski replied: "Always, because I always warm up right near the halfway line. I like to be that end of the warm ups so I'm always quite high and can see him gleaming at me from the side.

"I'm thinking 'I better make sure this pass is right', or he's going to walk into the dressing room and say 'that Tarkowski's having one in the warm-up, go and play on him'."

Foster then added that he also found the pre-match ritual intimidating and that Klopp had explained to him the reason why he does it. Foster recently interviewed Klopp for Amazon Prime Video and asked him if he was aware how much it can get inside the heads of opposition players.

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"That's not the reason," Klopp replied. "I just want to see, I want to understand. Sometimes you see a player limping a little bit, you see a player doing this or that and I just try to understand what they are doing.

Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp is often seen watching opposition sides warm up before games (PA Wire/PA Images)

"It's not so interesting when they are doing pure physical stuff, but when they start passing I have a look. Only one time I used it to intimidate an opponent, it's not nice to say that, but it was against my old club when we played Dortmund.

"I knew it would be strange for them so I thought 'come on, let's do it', but besides that if somebody said that I do that on purpose (to intimidate) it's not true. I just watch."

When Foster relayed Klopp's explanation to Tarkowski, the former Burnley and Brentford star responded: "It feels like he's attempting to do it even if he's not. It feels like he's attempting to intimidate players because he stands there with a very stern look on his face as well."

Matthew Cooper