Jurgen Klopp reunited with his former Borussia Dortmund stars to reminisce about their 2011 Bundesliga title triumph as the Liverpool boss joined Mats Hummels, Mario Gotze and Nuri Sahin on a Zoom call.
Klopp is on the verge of beating Pep Guardiola to the Premier League title with the Merseyside club, but it won't be the charismatic German's first domestic league title, having stormed the Bundesliga with Dortmund, seeing off arch rivals Bayern Munich nine years ago.
And the 52-year-old joined his class of 2011 on video conference platform Zoom to share his memories of that triumph, speaking fondly of his time in west Germany. 'It's right up there,' he revealed. 'I haven't been waking up every morning and thinking about April 30, 2011, but after you called I tried to do that for a few days to remind myself of it.
'Quite a lot has happened in my life, but it's not the case that I've won so much that I get it all mixed up. But 2011 and 12 aren't so easy because the team didn't change that much and when I was thinking about the games we played I was trying to remember: was that 2010-11 or 11-12?
'But I've got nothing but great memories and it probably had a huge impact on my career as a coach. We really made the most of what we had. Winning promotion with Mainz was unexpected for all of us and I didn't know what would happen next, that was such a big thing.'Klopp oversaw the development of a host of young promising talents, including the likes of Gotze, Robert Lewandowski and Marco Reus. Klopp reflected that he still saw those players as youth team starlets.
'To take these Under-19s to the German title - I felt like they were U-19s - was amazing,' he added. 'It changed our lives and thinking about it now, I'm still in touch with practically all of them.'
The Liverpool boss recalled the particular date when Dortmund were crowned champions - April 30, 2011 - when Signal Iduna Park went into ecstasy after hearing that Cologne had scored against Bayern Munich.
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