Jürgen Klopp loves underdog role against ‘the best team in the world’

Jürgen Klopp may be at the peak of his powers, weeks away from perhaps his greatest achievements, but his thoughts on the eve of facing Manchester City briefly turned to his retirement. This season may yield an unprecedented quadruple but, however much silverware it delivers, it will produce memories. The Liverpool manager can picture himself in his dotage, his days in the dugout behind him, reminiscing about the past with Pep Guardiola.

“Maybe when we both finish our careers we might meet somewhere and sit together for hours and hours and hours and just speak about the different things we saw before in this game and that game,” he said. “It would be interesting. No doubt.”

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In itself, that is instructive. Theirs is the defining managerial rivalry now but relations have never been toxic, as they were, say, between Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsène Wenger. The race for the Premier League instead doubles up as a mutual admiration society. “All I say about City I really mean,” Klopp said.

Perhaps Liverpool will kill City with kindness. They have certainly hunted them down with relentlessness: some 14 points behind in January, an 11th successive victory on Sunday would put them two ahead. “The 100% truth is that what we did was normal,” said Klopp, but what both sides have done over four seasons where they have taken 675 points between them is abnormal.

They have driven each other to new heights with sustained brilliance. Klopp drew a comparison between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, along with Novak Djokovic the male tennis players with the most grand slam titles. As Miguel Ángel Nadal, Rafael’s uncle, was a Barcelona teammate of Guardiola,