Article
Creed
Football
Leading
Sport
6 min read

Even the best have their limits: Jürgen Klopp’s lessons for life

A famed football manager’s resignation tells us a lot about human nature.
A football manager stands on the touchline and stares hard, dressed in a black coat and hat.
Klopp faces the future.
Liverpool FC.

10.36am, Friday 26 January 2024. A video is posted by Liverpool Football Club. It’s an interview with Jürgen Klopp himself. They only do this if it’s something big. Maybe he’s going to extend his contract at the club? Maybe they’ve found a replacement hamstring for Mo Salah?! 

“I will leave the club at the end of the season.” It is an absolute gut punch, and the sentence hits me like a truck. A feeling of shock washes over me. I’m reminded of a video of a young lad in Liverpool in 1974 being told Bill Shankly has resigned. He is in complete denial and just flat-out unable to accept the truth of the matter. Fifty years later, at 10.36am on Friday 26th January 2024, I am that young lad. This can’t be real. He’s not really going. This is one of those AI-deepfake things. Jürgen’s not leaving. Is he? I knew this was coming, but I didn’t think it would be so soon. I’m not ready.  

My mind is chaos, and I am a mess of contradictions. My wife is out and the only other person in the house I can talk to is a cat who does not understand the gravity of the situation. All too quickly it becomes painfully clear that this is real. He is leaving. And soon

The seeming mundanity of Klopp’s decision to leave, and his reason for doing so, speaks to his own philosophical nature.

When I return to reality, more questions emerge. Why is he leaving? Is he okay? Has he been offered a better job? Has he been sacked?! “I’m running out of energy,” he says. Jürgen Klopp, manager of Liverpool Football Club, has the best job in the world, is outstandingly good at it and, at only 56, feels as though he doesn’t have the energy for it anymore. What a thought. Surely there has to be more to his leaving than this? It can’t be that simple. 

But no; it really is that simple. It’s something unheard of in modern football. Jürgen hasn’t been sacked for poor results; Liverpool are flying at the moment and, at the time of writing, could still win every competition they’re in. He hasn’t been offered another job somewhere else; he says he won’t manage anywhere else for at least a year. He just hasn’t got the energy to do this anymore. Despite what everyone at Liverpool wants – himself included – he feels it’s the right time to acknowledge that he has simply reached his limit. He can do no more. 

Jürgen shares many similarities with the pantheon of great Liverpool managers, of which he is now a part; the likes of Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, Kenny Daglish, still sung about on the kop to this day. One characteristic, however, strikes me above all others.  All of Liverpool’s greatest managers have been deeply philosophical, both about football and about life itself. Klopp is no exception. The seeming mundanity of Klopp’s decision to leave, and his reason for doing so, speaks to his own philosophical nature. It also speaks to something seldom noted about human nature more generally: our finitude.  

There is goodness in finitude. Our creaturely limitations remind us that we are not God; our finitude reminds us that we come from infinitude. 

By finitude, I mean our inherent limitations are created beings. Put bluntly, one day, we will die. We are finite, not infinite. This finitude is an inalienable part of being human: to be human is to be limited rather than limitless. We encounter our finitude at all moments of our lives. In our need to sleep, rest, eat, drink, and so much more besides. Any moment at which we are not wholly self-sufficient (if we are ever wholly self-sufficient), when we rely on something beyond ourselves, we are faced with our own finitude. 

This finitude can certainly lead to difficult moments (like, for example, having to watch one of your footballing heroes suddenly announce he’s leaving your club). But despite this, there is goodness in finitude. Our creaturely limitations remind us that we are not God; our finitude reminds us that we come from infinitude. It reminds us that we need those around us and, in turn, that they need us. These are good things to be reminded of, that we always live in a complex web of dependence on one another, as we navigate our finitude together.  

Jürgen’s resignation is such a shock because it speaks directly to this often-unnamed aspect of our nature; this inter-dependence we all rely upon due to the limitations built into our human nature. He has simply recognised his finitude. It comes as such a shock, in part, because it is rare to see someone acknowledge their humanity and their limitations so plainly. Jürgen is running out of energy. Aren’t we all? 

It is also striking, as the UK endures the slow run up to what is likely to be an unedifying general election, that when faced with his own finitude, Jürgen has sought not to consolidate his own power and position, but freely to give it up. He could have had the run of the place for as long as he wanted. If he had asked for a life-time contract, few would have wanted to say no. This is part of what makes him such a compelling leader; his willingness to vacate positions of leadership when the time is right. Because it is this very vulnerability that makes him so authentically human. 

In the end, then, it is an act of love from Jürgen. Clearly the decision has weighed on him somewhat; he is clear that he doesn’t really want to go, but that he feels it’s the right thing to do. Faced with his own finitude, with the limitations of his own creatureliness as a human being, the most loving thing he can do for the club is to walk away, to admit his human fragility. There is something reminiscent here of the apostle Paul, who claimed he would boast in his weaknesses, because that was how Christ dwelled in him. “Whenever I am weak, then I am strong”. Jürgen, too, a devout Christian himself, has displayed immense strength in his weakness. I do not speak lightly when I say it is a deeply Christ-like decision on his part. 

To acknowledge our dependence on others, to acknowledge our inability always to be dependable; these things are acts of love born from recognition of our finitude. To love one another is not to pretend we can fix each other’s problems, nor is it to avoid being a burden on other people. In depending on others and being depended upon, we become more and more like that which God has called us to be: finite, limited creatures in need of those around us. Our limitations are an opportunity to display love, not a hindrance to it. 

In all this, Jürgen acknowledges his own finitude in a way that is rare to see and, clearly, difficult even for himself fully to come to terms with. Like Jürgen, we are all running out of energy. This need not be a cause for sadness; it merely points us towards the one from whom that energy comes and reminds us of our dependency on Him, and on those around us. Our finitude is a gift, releasing us from the burden of being all things to all people. I still wish Jürgen was staying, though. 

Article
Culture
Sport
Trauma
5 min read

Scottie Scheffler, Welsh Rugby and the fading of sporting glory

Scottie Scheffler has a lesson for this summer's fading sports teams

Graham is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and a former Bishop of Kensington.

A cricket batsman surrounded by opposition players leaves the crease.
A West Indies Batsman leaves the crease.
xcom/windiescricket.

This past week, while England were beating India at Lords in a nail-biting, high-quality Test match which was in the balance until the very last ball, on the other side of the world in Jamaica, something tragic was unfolding. The West Indies were bowled out for the paltry sum of 27 runs against the fearsome Australian bowling attack, the second lowest total of any team in around 150 years of Test cricket. 

Why tragic? People of my age remember the 1970s and 80s West Indies as one of the best cricket teams in the world. Superb bowlers such as Malcolm Marshall, Curtly Ambrose, Michael Holding and Joel Garner terrorised batsmen from Adelaide to Antigua, from Cape Town to Christchurch. They hurled down cricket balls at a frightening speed, whizzing past the heads of batsman who didn't even have the security of a helmet. At the other end, a succession of brilliant batsman like Viv Richards, Gordon Greenidge, Clive Lloyd and Alvin Kallicharan scored hundred after hundred, as together they made-up one of the greatest teams in the history of Test cricket.  

Since then, a sorry mess of dried-up funding, poor governance, neglect of grassroots cricket, and the competition of other sports such as athletics or basketball, has seen the standard of West Indian cricket decline dramatically, especially at the most complex form of the game - international 5-day Tests. So, the 27 was not a huge surprise. Something catastrophic like that was bound to happen one day.  

In those same 1970s, Wales boasted one of the best rugby teams in the world. Gareth Edwards, Barry John, JPR Williams and Phil Bennett were at the heart of a dazzling and brilliant team. Rugby is Wales's national sport, yet in recent years a similar story of incompetent governance, lack of funding, and an inefficient regional structure has led to its dramatic decline, and a harrowing 18-match losing streak, which finally came to an end with a narrow victory over Japan, hardly one of the world's greatest teams. Last year's Six Nations ended with an embarrassing 68-14 home defeat against the team they hate to lose to - England. The current Lions team contains no Welshmen at all - the first time since 1896.

Then there is the demise of Manchester United. “We’ve seen it all. We’ve won the lot. We’re Man United and we’re never going to stop” sing United fans at most games. All very grand, but these days they don't win anything. The great triumphs were back in the 1960s, and then the 90s and 2000s under the great Sir Alex Ferguson. After a takeover by the incompetent Glazer family, who have increased sponsorship revenue but leeched billions out of the club, and seem incapable of running a global football institution, United have declined dramatically, ending up 15th in the league last season, and with a failure to recruit new players this summer, look destined to do even worse next season. 

The fall of such sporting giants often elicits a strong dose of Schadenfreude in opposition fans. I was moaning about the fortunes of Man United to a Chelsea-supporting friend recently. He had zero sympathy. 

And yet there is something tragic about lost sporting glory. Watching the current West Indies, Wales and Man United teams getting beaten by mediocre opposition brings a heavy sense of sadness - even if you're not Welsh or West Indian. Like King Lear, reduced to wandering around a ‘blasted heath’ like a madman, Icarus falling to the sea after over-reaching, or Sisyphus, once a king, yet incurring the wrath of the gods and now condemned to eternally rolling a stone up a hill only for it to fall down the other side (sounds just like Man United’s recent seasons), these teams’ current manifestations can’t escape the glory that was once theirs but is no longer.  

Fading sports teams are our contemporary memento mori

“How the mighty are fallen.” The phrase comes from the Old Testament - when the young warrior David mourned for the slain King Saul. Reflecting on lost human glory was in the past thought to be a valuable thing. Churches up and down the country have effigies of dead local grandees, lying in stone with hands clasped in prayer, as a reminder that human glory fades, death comes to us all, that our wealth will be handed on to others, and the things we are most proud of most likely forgotten. 

Scottie Scheffler, the best golfer in the world recently spoke about winning a gold tournament, having a brief sense of euphoria, which then vanishes within a few minutes as life returns to normal. He wondered aloud whether it was all worth it: “There are a lot of people that make it to what they thought was going to fulfil them in life, and you get there, you get to number one in the world, and they're like, 'what's the point?'” 

Scheffler has made no secret of his Christian faith. It presumably lies behind his comments that golf can’t give what he called “fulfilment in the deepest places of your heart". And maybe that is the ultimate lesson of these teams that were once great and are no more - a reminder that sport can be a source of great joy and achievement, but ultimately is unable to satisfy our deepest longings, because its glory is fleeting.  

Fading sports teams are our contemporary memento mori. As humans we somehow yearn for something permanent, unshakeable, eternal, what our forebears found in God, but we moderns struggle to find anywhere. Wordsworth’s classic questions: “Whither is fled the visionary gleam? Where is it now, the glory and the dream?” are echoed in the demise of sporting greatness, and the existential musings of Scottie Scheffler. 

One day, every sportsman or woman, every team - in fact, every one of us - will experience what the West Indies, Wales and Man United experience right now. The flower fades and the grass withers. And perhaps in that moment of lost fame, we will find the wisdom to seek more lasting things than sporting glory. 

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