Jurgen Klopp once wore Cristiano Ronaldo-branded boxers to give huge CL team talk

After becoming Liverpool manager in October 2015, it didn’t take Jurgen Klopp long to endear himself to the club’s fanbase.

Reds supporters immediately warmed to the charismatic German, who impressed them with his infectious passion for the game.

Naturally, though, personality can only take a manager so far. Ultimately, it’s results on the pitch that matter – and Klopp has certainly delivered plenty of success in his time at Anfield.

His first major final on Merseyside, however, didn’t go to plan, as Liverpool were beaten 3-1 by Sevilla in the 2015/16 Europa League decider.

Klopp’s side were back in a European final just two years later, hoping to lift the 2017/18 Champions League trophy by conquering Real Madrid.

Nobody at Liverpool was under any illusions that defeating Los Blancos would be an easy task, though. Zinedine Zidane’s men had already won the competition in the previous two seasons and were hungry to secure a hat-trick of successive triumphs.

Realising that his side were underdogs against a Real team packed with superstars including Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and Luka Modric, Klopp opted to try and lighten the mood in the Liverpool dressing room with his pre-match team talk.

Speaking in a 2019 interview with The Athletic, former Reds midfielder Georginio Wijnaldum revealed that Klopp had conducted the briefing while wearing a pair of ‘CR7’ boxer shorts – the underwear brand of Real Madrid star man Ronaldo.

A strange choice of attire, undoubtedly, but one that definitely accomplished Klopp’s goal of relaxing his troops ahead of the crunch encounter.

“He did the meeting with his shirt stuffed inside his ‘CR7’ boxers,” recalled Wijnaldum, who moved to Paris Saint-Germain in July of last year. “The whole