Higher release clauses, lower agent fees, bigger egos. Liverpool’s refusal to sell Coutinho will set a powerful precedent for clubs in the transfer market.
The German word for ‘disappointment’ is enttäuschen. It is an ‘inseparable’ verb. With separable verbs, the prefix comes at the end to provide a meaning that is different to what the root verb would suggest. Inseparable verbs are oft explicit. The root verb of enttäuschen translates to ‘deceive’. Make no mistake, Jürgen Klopp ist sehr, sehr enttäuscht-ed.
The brilliant Raphael Honigstein of the Das Reboot fame – a cleverly-named book on German football’s resurrection (the title inspired by Das Boot, a movie about a German WWII submarine which rose from the craggy blue jaws of death, despite sustaining heavy damage) – is writing Klopp’s biography. He states in the book that if there was one lesson the man with a heart the size of the Black Forest learned in his all his years of management, it is the importance of squad depth.
When John W. Henry leaned over the table, Jürgen Klopp met halfway. Liverpool’s golden handshake included a promise of squad depth, but along with it came the compromise of Klopp having to muster the reserves of all his managerial talent to bring the most out of the group of players he had and reach the Champions League.