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Jürgen Klopp is back, but not as you know him. The former Liverpool manager has swapped the dugout for the directors’ box in taking on the role of head of global soccer for the Red Bull group, a move announced early Wednesday.
The man in the baseball cap and tracksuit is now going to have to find a suit.
Red Bull, whose portfolio of football clubs includes RB Leipzig, RB Salzburg, New York Red Bulls, and Brazilian club Red Bull Bragantino, as well as a minority stake in Leeds United, will be tapping into Klopp’s huge bank of experience and global reputation. The 57-year-old will be tasked with leading Red Bull’s “strategic vision” and mentoring the group’s coaches, as well as helping with its worldwide scouting operation.
But with reports stating that Klopp has secured a release clause in his Red Bull contract that allows him to manage the Germany national team if approached by the German Football Association (DFB), it would appear to be only a matter of time before he returns to the touchline.
Would it be a surprise to see Klopp in charge of Die Mannschaft at the 2026 World Cup in Canada, Mexico and the United States? Maybe, but the prospect of it happening has just become much more realistic with his return to the game at Red Bull.
When Klopp announced in January that he would leave Liverpool at the end of last season, after almost nine years in charge at Anfield, sources told ESPN that the physical and mental strain of managing one of the world’s most high-profile clubs and leading them to UEFA Champions League and Premier League titles had taken its toll. “There was a day — a week, two weeks, three weeks — when I realised I can’t do it anymore,” he said in his final interview as Liverpool boss. “You play the season while you play the season, but you plan the next season. It’s not that you talk about it, but it’s constant.”
Klopp needed a break, revealing that he wanted to spend more time with his family and recently-born grandchild. He was loosely linked with the England job once Gareth Southgate stepped down following Euro 2024, and when the United States Soccer Federation came calling in the summer, making a strong attempt to persuade him to take on the role as head coach of the men’s national team, he made clear that he was not ready to return to the game. Klopp ultimately said no and the USMNT job went to Mauricio Pochettino instead.
Sources told ESPN that Klopp was insistent on a 12-month sabbatical and that it was unlikely he would return to club management — a position that Klopp confirmed while speaking at the International Coaches Congress in July. Yet just like when he cut short plans for a year out of the game after leaving Borussia Dortmund in May 2015 — he took charge of Liverpool just five months later — Klopp will be back ahead of schedule when he assumes his role at Red Bull in January 2025.
Whether a man who is defined by his passion on the touchline and relationship with players and supporters can gain satisfaction by the football equivalent of a desk job remains to be seen. In Germany, it is commonplace for leading players to move quickly into the boardroom at the end of their careers, but but Klopp has made the move after a hugely successful 23 years as manager — unlike former top players such as Karl-Heinz Rummenigge (Bayern Munich), Michael Zorc (Dortmund) and Oliver Bierhoff (DFB) did not do so after building a hugely successful managerial career, unlike Klopp.
The challenges of being in Klopp’s role, when his track record surpasses anything achieved by the coaches employed throughout Red Bull’s group (including Klopp’s Liverpool assistant Pep Lijnders, now head coach at Salzburg) will heap pressure on those working underneath him. But the spotlight will also be focused on Klopp if, or when, any of the Red Bull clubs reaches a point where the coach has to be replaced.
Klopp has never enjoyed the internal politics of football, but he has just walked into a job that will inevitably lead him into areas of the sport he has always left to the directors in the past. He is now one of them, rather than the guy on the touchline charged with making the players better. His decision to return to the game with Red Bull only makes it more likely that Klopp will, sooner or later, be back where he made his name in the first place — on the touchline.
Sources close to Klopp have told ESPN that he really has little desire to take on another club job after his time at Liverpool. He will not manage a rival club in England, and it is difficult to envisage him to taking on the challenge of Bayern due to the twin tasks of having to manage both the boardroom and the dressing room at a club whose nickname of “FC Hollywood” has as much to do with its endless drama as much as its glamour and array of star names.
Managing Germany, however, is an obvious fit, whether it be in time for the 2026 World Cup or Euro 2028 in Great Britain and Ireland. Julian Nagelsmann is presently in that post, and he extended his contract until 2026 shortly before Euro 2024. But at 37, Nagelsmann is still regarded as one of the game’s brightest young coaches and his turbulent two seasons as Bayern coach, where he was dismissed despite winning the Bundesliga title in his first year in charge, has done nothing to diminish his reputation.
If a managerial vacancy arises at one of Europe’s biggest clubs between now and 2026 — Manchester City and Manchester United could both be in that situation — Nagelsmann will be a leading contender, and such an offer might be enough to tempt him away from the national team.
So Klopp’s time “upstairs” at Red Bull might turn out to be a brief interlude rather than permanent career change, and it could happen sooner than you think.