Gotze on Liverpool regret, Klopp, Pep and PSV Eindhoven's resurgence

Leicester City's Premier League title victory in 2016 made the club famous across the world yet on Thursday they will face an opponent who has scaled an even higher peak.

Mario Gotze is a key player for a PSV Eindhoven side who aim to end Leicester’s European hopes as they chase glory on three fronts. As well as trying to reach the semi-finals of the Europa Conference League, PSV are four points behind leaders Ajax in the Dutch top flight and also face the Amsterdam club in the Dutch Cup Final on Sunday.

Yet Gotze is used to such intense competition. Nearly eight years ago, the German did something that every young footballer dreams of by scoring the winning goal in the World Cup Final. He was barely 22 but had already worked with Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola and represented two of Europe’s giants, Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich.

That extra-time volley for Germany against Argentina at the Maracana felt like a natural outcome at the time for the gifted Gotze, who had won two Bundesliga titles before the age of 20 and become the most expensive German player in history when he left Dortmund, his boyhood club, to join Bayern Munich for £31.4million in summer 2013. 

Before sending him on as a substitute in the final, Germany coach Joachim Loew had told Gotze: ‘Show the world that you are better than Messi.’

It was a lot to handle for Gotze, who had just completed his first season under Guardiola at Bayern and had lost his place in the German starting XI during the knockout stages of the World Cup. As wonderful as the life-changing moment was, adapting to a new level of fame was complicated.

‘It took me a bit of time to really understand it because when you’re in the moment you don’t really know what’s happening,’