Interesting comments from Jonathan Northcroft about Iraola on his football style/philosophy at 17:30.
Jonathan Northcroft:
But the most fascinating thing for me was given that he do at the end of his career played for New York City FC which is a Manchester City you know club. it’s one of their family and was schooled in the Guardiola style. He said to me, “Yeah, that’s, you know, while paying respect to Pep and that style of football.” He said, “I actually prefer German coaching. I prefer Jurgen Klopp.” And it really struck me back then. I hadn’t expected it. He talked about how he loves, in German football, the idea of a player being complete. And by complete, he meant somebody that’s incredible against the ball as well as with the ball. He talked about winning the ball high up and going as fast as possible to goal.
And he said, in terms of how he embodies risk, he said to me that when one of his players wins possession, no matter who they are, where they are on the pitch, he said, I tell them the first thing they have to look at is the opposition goalkeeper, not even our number nine. Where is the opposition goalkeeper? Can I lob him? You know, basically if I’m 70 yards, he’s doing that not because he expects them to do that, but he wants them to have that mindset that the first thought and prevailing thought has always got to be how quickly can we get to the opposition goal. And all of that aligns so much with with the style I think Jurgen brought to Liverpool. I went away then feeling like, wow, you know, from a club perspective, that’s how that’s how big his influence has been, that you got Spanish coaches now who are going: I don’t really fancy Guardiola. I fancy this a bit more.
The one thing that he’s never done in his career has been anywhere near a club with this kind of fan base. You know Bournemouth is more of a smaller club in the Premier League, before then Rio Valicano, which is very working class Madrid club, but a small club and Mirandez before then. I think this is the big area that that he’ll have to adjust to, actually is that role that a Liverpool manager has of being a leader of a community. Interestingly he’s from a kind of non- football family. His parents weren’t that into football. They wanted him to become a lawyer. He studied law at university. He was he was three years into his course when he he was playing for Bilbao every week and in the end he couldn’t do both. He says his wife and kids aren’t particularly into football. So he comes from a kind of middle class non football obsessed sort of background. Obviously, that’s that’s not necessarily the kind of classic Liverpool manager, the the Shankley template, but he’s a decent guy. He’s got a decency and an authenticity and an honesty about him. And an ability to defend his football club. You know, it fascinated me that this kind of rational bloke I met would get pretty angry in the post matches when he felt there’d been an injustice against Bournemouth. So he’s got tools that will connect with Liverpool supports, but he’s got to get his head around that part of the job if it is indeed him.
I think it’s even more basic than this. Everyone gets in to this because at some point they loved the game, but most pros dont really feel that way by this stage in their career. They like the money and lifestyle. The maybe even think they still love it, but really just dont know anything else and arent being honest enough with themselves to acknowledge that it really is just a job. And there are lots of coaches who make it actively a chore to play for them.
If you give players at this level a reason to enjoy it again they will work themselves into the ground for the opportunity to hang on to what is sadly a rare situation in professional football.
Delighted to see this guy coming in. Now let’s see if Hughes and Edwards can back him in the transfer market because it could be the most important one we’ve ever faced. We need big additions if we’re going back to ‘heavy flamenco’.
I would like us to go back to the Klopp model were we sign players who are close to being great (and therefore cost less) and jus need good coaching to get to greatness. I was reading someowhere that man united new model is to focus on signing quality players under 60 million and only one or two above that
Particularly about him coming from a middle class background and not having experienced a club as being the fabric of a city. I suspect that will be a bigger learning curve than midweek games.
It probably makes it even more important to make sure Curtis stays so he has someone from that background as a link to the fanbase.
A weird opinion piece though. He played for, and captained, Bilbao for the majority of his career, football is a way of life in Bilbao. He knows very well what that kind of atmosphere is like.
Off-topic, since I know Jonathan Norcroft doesn’t work for TAW and is just speaking to them here, but TAW are so high on the smell of their own farts it’s really annoying. Everytime I see any of them interviewed, and they seem to have taken the mantel of “we speak for Liverpool fans”, they have this air of being fucking politicians not wanted to get drawn too heavily on any opinion in fear that it could later be used against them. Feels like an act put on to endear themselves to non-Liverpool fans. “We are the rational fan channel”. You’re still a fan channel, shut up.
Ha a bit harsh. I listen to TAW because they try to be rational rather than reactive. Atkinson and Gibbons are generally great to listen to IMO. Gutmann seems like a plonker though
