Grade 12 student Oliver H. started supporting Liverpool F.C. (known as the “Reds”) during the 2014-15 season. Here he explains his emotional experience as a football fan, receiving the news of beloved manager, Jürgen Klopp, leaving the club.
What follows is Oliver’s story, in his own words:
Yes, so I think the most recent example [of a challenging experience as a Liverpool supporter] is Jürgen Klopp leaving the club, right? I mean, I think that’s what most Liverpool fans would say if you asked them that question. Yeah, it was a very big loss, ‘cause he was the only manager I kind of knew. I didn’t watch any other manager who managed Liverpool. And I felt it quite hard because I remember, when the news hit, it was November something, and I was going to class and I opened up my phone and I saw the news, and I’m like—‘cause it came out of nowhere! And you could see he was getting tired, but you didn’t expect he’d announce it in the middle of the season and I was like, damn. ‘Cause a Lot of people, including myself, were very doubtful as to where Liverpool would go after him ‘cause he is such a big man in football. He kind of brought us back from finishing 10th and 8th place to the top where we belong again and so you kind of have to think, like, where would we go without him, and yeah, I think that was pretty difficult for me.
So far [I have not been impacted by the loss of Klopp]. We’ve won three of our first three games, so that’s nine points. We started off with Ipswich; some people might say it’s not a difficult game, but they’re newly promoted so you don’t really know what to expect from them. They did challenge us a lot in the first half, as I remember, but eventually of course we won. And right now we’ve scored, I don’t know, is it seven goals? And zero goals conceded, which is a very good record at the moment. We’ve kept three clean sheets. You know it’s great for [Arne] Slot, and we’ve been playing great football. I watched all of the preseason games and they were really good to watch, to see, just how the team dynamic has changed, also seeing [Ryan] Gravenberch slide into the system a lot more effectively. It’s been very great. And seeing [Mohamed] Salah still at the top of the scoring charts is also very reassuring.