Social One

Marios Mantzos

Description

The Social One sets out why Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool Football Club are a match made in heaven. In 2015, a romantic German who had once dreamed of becoming a doctor found a pulse in the city of Liverpool and set about leading an intubated club back to the top of the English and European game. Klopp is not just the reformer of Liverpool FC, but a true leader and authentic father figure who has created the most beautiful working environment in modern football, based on his faith in the principles of teamwork and a love for his fellow human being. In the stronghold of socialism, Klopp, a man who says he would never vote for the right, spoke to the heart of the city, became an honorary Scouser and - in the eyes of many - the reincarnation of the legendary Liverpool leader Bill Shankly. Deep and engrossing, this detailed portrait of Klopp is not just a football book but a study of leadership and motivation.

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing
• Date de parution: 20 février 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781801505253
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2023
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Marios Mantzos, 2023
Every effort has been made to trace the copyright. Any oversight will be rectified in future editions at the earliest opportunity by the publisher.
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A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 9781801503860
eBook ISBN 9781801505253
eBook Conversion by www.eBookPartnership.com
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
I. From Doubters To Believers
II. In The Fortress Of Socialism
III. Boss Tha!
IV. Helping Syndrome
V. Never Give Up
VI. Making Stars
VII. Science Room
VIII. Future Manager
IX. What If Gerrard Had Not Slipped?
X. A Place in the Sun
Bibliography
Photos
Dedication
To my father, Sotiris, who passed away on 3 June 2019, less than 48 hours after Madrid glory. The strength with which he held my hand from the intensive care bed will live forever in me. And this strength makes me walk on, with hope in my heart. Because, I know, I will never walk alone
Acknowledgements
WORDS ARE not enough, but they are always a practical solution to thank people who put their precious stone into the realisation of a project.
Thanks from the bottom of my heart to:
Jane Camillin from Pitch Publishing, who really believed in my work and trusted me from day one.
Jeff Goulding, author and Liverpool specialist, who generously offered his help with suggestions.
Konstantina and Katerina Vardakastani, two sisters from Zakynthos, Greece, who used their skill and sacrificed valuable personal time to create an incredible eye-catching Greek version of my book.
Mariantonis Politis, author and former football rival of mine in Aigeira Achaea, Greece, who gave me valuable information and useful advice in the final stretch of the book publication.
J rgen Klopp for the great life lessons he has given me and the way he has helped me to deal with difficult times.
My family: my mother Nikolitsa, my brothers Dimitris and Dionysis and, of course, my father Sotiris, my grandfather Sakis and my aunt Fotini, who support me every single day remotely from heaven.
For everyone who was next to me during this process. I will always be grateful for what you did and you know that this book belongs to all of you as well. Thank you.
Introduction
SPEAKING ABOUT sports and football in terms of politics involves a significant risk. In a bloodthirsty society, words such as socialism can easily put a wrong label on a book, since, as you can easily comprehend through discussing with people and interpreting their way of thinking, there are only a handful of people out there who can treat notions as symbols rather than as indications of a certain philosophy of life. Besides, the writer s political views lack any importance whatsoever.
Nowadays, football has turned into a powerful global industry, in which natural persons and legal entities invest money recklessly, to maximise their profits, in a show of bigotry and financial looting that entices the protagonists of the sport, the footballers, who see absurd amounts of money being deposited in their bank accounts week by week. At the altar of money, many times of black money, our unfortunate football becomes the golden fleece and turns into cynical business.
It is true that the capitalist function of modern football bears no resemblance to the vision of the 19th-century English working class. In practice, however, on the pitch, is it that far from it? Eleven people work together harmoniously, playing with and for each other, aiming to achieve a common goal, with the active participation of thousands of people from the stands. They will reap the joy of victory together, they will celebrate it together, they will suffer and feel the bitterness of defeat together. The quote team comes first sounds so clich d that we rarely get into the process of thinking and realising it. But, indeed, in football, the ultimate team sport, the team comes first. It is true that football is a sport in which the best team does not always win. But this is the magic of football; it gives players of every level the opportunity to contribute to a team, to become an equal member of an organised plan and to achieve a common goal with their team-mates. If a political term can summarise this and match the essence of football that is obviously socialism.
If you ve got useful players and you get them all to do the little things that they can do well and you marry them all together, it s a form of socialism without politics, of course. They re all helping each other.
Bill Shankly, the man to whom these words belong, is a timeless symbol of the socialist approach to football, distancing himself as much as necessary from politics. And his legacy seems to be the answer to the eternal question why Liverpool? that is posed by those who fail to realise what can really charm a man born in the 90s to a team that missed league glory for 30 whole years.
The Scot was not just a manager who took Liverpool from the Second Division and made them world-class champions. He was the one who spoke as much as anyone to the soul of the city, to the heart of the working class, the man who made people happy , as written on his imposing statue outside Anfield. Since the mid-1960s, Liverpool s red football team has acquired a clear identity and formed a fan community, inextricably linked to the city s left-wing political approach, in a country that has always had a conservative drive.
Bill Shankly said goodbye to Liverpool in 1974 with three league championships, two FA Cups and one UEFA Cup, paving the way for assistant Bob Paisley, then Joe Fagan and Kenny Dalglish, who won a total of ten league titles and six European trophies until 1990. After that, the greatest team in England and Europe in the 70s and 80s went through a long period of drought that no one could have imagined would last three whole decades. Winning the UEFA Cup in 2001 with a golden own goal against Alav s and the legendary Champions League four years later with the unprecedented comeback against AC Milan in Istanbul, together with three FA Cup and an equal number of League Cup trophies were the only cracks of happiness in Liverpool until 2019 and 2020, the year of the big return to the European and British throne, respectively.
Thirty whole years for a league title. Why so many? Why had no one done it since Dalglish? Why did teams such as Blackburn Rovers and Leicester City stare at the Premier League trophy in their museum while Liverpool waited? Why should Federico Macheda score the goal of his life in 2009? Why should Steven Gerrard slip in 2014? Curse? Fate? Destiny?
Arranging facts, data and situations in a logical order, the harmony with which they relate, even if they have nothing to do with each other, spontaneously leads you to the eternal, secret belief that in life everything has an explanation and happens for a reason. Although it sounds like a purely religious point of view, everyone interprets it in their own way and judges accordingly. This book deals with a person who has deeply adopted this Aristotelian approach that everything in life happens for a good reason. One day we will find out why. It is this person who has watered Liverpool with the coveted nectar of success.
J rgen Klopp is not just a football coach or the saviour who finally managed to bring the Premier League trophy to Merseyside. He is the one who makes you believe for the first time and say freely, without a sense of sacrilege, that Liverpool, about 40 years later, found the closest they could to Bill Shankly. Clearly different, much more modern, but so common.
Liverpool not only regained their lost love with trophies but became the most mainstream football club in the world, coming out of obscurity and abandoning the loser label that followed them for years. It is not so much their performances on the pitch; it is not the fired-up offensive line; it is not purely football. It is the way. The honest, romantic but modern way in which J rgen Klopp chose to manage Liverpool and make them more than just a champion team.
The German introduced a great, unique method of operating an organisation that deals with equal seriousness and attention the starting line-up and the concerns of the restaurant chef of the training ground. Liverpool FC is the ultimate work environment that could be taught in seminars on how a business should operate and especially how vital the role of leader is, to which most companies never pay the required attention, ignoring the appropriate criteria. In the age of image and influencers, J rgen Klopp, a man who has no clue about social media, is the best one to teach what a leader and inspirer of a group means.
Liverpool may in fact be a business in the hands of American speculators, but the way the team operates under the guidance of a clearly left-wing man looks closer than ever in the post-Shankly era to the true socialist roots of the club. The 66m for Alisson Becker, the 75m for Virgil van Dijk or the 85m after add-ons for Darwin Nunez justifiably contradict the historical background that Liverpool want to defend, but the way the team operates inside the dressing room, where the moral right of intervention of the owners, Fenway Sports Group (FSG), stops and Klopp s absolute control begins, proves