Who are Liverpool's backroom staff? Jurgen Klopp introduces the people he is 'nothing' without in his own words
The German introduces the people he calls the 'heart', 'eye' and 'brain' of the club
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Your support makes all the difference.Jurgen Klopp has revealed that he is “nothing” without his backroom staff as he prepares for his first season in the Champions League with Liverpool.
The German has kept his assistant manager Zeljko Buvac – or his “brain” as he refers to him – in every managerial role he has undertaken, and knows the value of him to the side.
But he is not the only one who Klopp has heaped praise on, as he, in his own words, introduced each member of his backroom staff.
“I am nothing without them,” Klopp told Liverpool's official website. “I think the biggest strength of strong people is to put people around you who are stronger in specific cases than yourself. Only if you are insecure you wouldn’t do that and think, ‘Oh my god, maybe somebody sees he is better at this than I am…’ and all that stuff.
“I have absolutely no problem with this and that makes them so important for me. I like them all but we are only together because they have so many qualities. Without them, I didn’t want to do the job – and I couldn’t do the job anymore. That’s how it is.”
Zelko Buvac (assistant manager), Peter Krawietz (second assistant coach) and Pep Lijnders (first-team development coach)
“Zeljko is the brain, Pete is the eye. Pep has become unbelievably important in a short time because he writes everything down, he is also part of ‘the brain’ because he is our mind to remember the things what we did in previous sessions.
“He brings us the next coaching generation; we are not old but we are already that long in the business, so it’s normal that you have routines, you use them and they are good. We try to stay open all the time, but with Pep he is our connecting point to the present and the future, so that’s really, really important.”
John Achterberg (goalkeeper coach)
“What can I say about John? I’ve never met a guy like him! He is a goalkeeper coach 24 hours a day! That’s not always nice, actually, because if you want to talk to him about anything else, he can lead every conversation in a goalkeeping direction. That’s a skill, I think! In the end you think ‘Did we speak for five minutes about goalkeepers when we started with politics?’”
Mona Nemmer (head of nutrition)
“Mona is heart and soul, she is everything. She is so smart. Not one player is in doubt about her – that’s outstanding. Nobody likes it when someone tells you what you’re eating is not good, but Mona is really strong in this. In this department we have changed pretty much everything and the players like it because they know Mona is just there to help them and make their lives easier, at Melwood and at home because she works with their better halves.”
Andreas Kornmayer (fitness coach)
“Korny is kind of the drill sergeant here. He needs to be. We make the decisions what he has to do and he gives the advice of which specific areas we can improve. He needs to be the ‘bad boy’ from time to time because players don’t like running."
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