During the FIFA World Cup, Liverpool's former manager Jürgen Klopp discussed his role at the Red Bull Group, his connection to Liverpool, his assessment of Salah, and the 2026 FIFA World Cup, among other topics, in an exclusive interview with ESPN. The following is the second part of that interview.

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【Klopp: I don't miss coaching at all; Salah and I are friends now】

【Klopp: I hope it rains heavily during the FIFA World Cup final; a little rain would help】

【Klopp: If I were to manage one more game, I'd choose a Champions League night at Anfield】

Salah created incredible statistics for you at Liverpool. But at the same time, Steve Nicol, who also works with us at ESPN, often gets exasperated, saying Salah can be frustrating and then create magical moments. What's it like to coach a player like Salah, having to understand that he creates magic, but you also have to compensate when he doesn't?

Listen, I'm a pundit now. As a pundit, it's easy to nitpick every situation and say he should have done better here, he should have done better there. When you work with players every day, you get used to it. I want him to try, I want him to fail—if you don't fail, you don't take risks. And if you don't take risks, where's the excitement? Where are the results? How do you get to the next level if you don't try things others can't? Does he perform brilliantly every day? Probably not. But I honestly don't remember a player who could honestly do that. I'm afraid Steve Nicol couldn't either. I've never seen him play, but I've heard about it. So no problem, Steve. It's all good; we've all been there. You were a great player too, but that's football. Of course, as a coach, you stand on the sideline and think, yes, he could have done this better, he could have done that better. But looking back, we witnessed greatness—that's also true. Because for the vast majority of the time, he was incredible. For the vast majority of the time, he scored incredible goals. For the vast majority of the time, he decided games for us. For the vast majority of the time, he pushed us to the next level. To this day, he is an incredible professional. That's it. None of us are perfect. Messi is not perfect, Ronaldo is not perfect, and Salah is not perfect, but they are closer to perfection than we are.

Back to Liverpool. Even though you had incredible success there, you left, and Slot came in. Liverpool won titles, but last season was a bit disappointing. Why did the performance decline?

I don't know. I wasn't close enough to judge. I was very happy they won the league title the season before. I don't know what exactly went wrong in the second year. I don't think anyone was really happy with that season. That's obvious. But they still qualified for the Champions League, which is a huge success. Now they can start fresh with a new coach. Slot, like Iraola, is a great coach. But there needs to be chemistry, and it needs to be a long-term partnership. You need luck for that. Some unexpected things happened at Liverpool before last season. It's really difficult to deal with those things. So I don't know exactly what happened. But last season is also in the past. Now they can look to the future.

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