Bring the Noise

Who doesn't love Jürgen Klopp? People who don't know who he is, that's who. As a fan of Liverpool FC, I'm down with what this manager is up to. I'm a fan of the way he pumps his fists and hugs his players. And I love his awkward Dylanesque interviews.

Given Klopp's earlier career as a player and Bundesliga manager, I learned a lot in Raphael Honigstein’s Bring the Noise about German soccer, but as I tweeted a couple of weeks ago, "So far my big takeaway is that I don’t understand German soccer team nomenclature to save my life. Puzzling initials and lots of strange two-digit numbers like 04, 05, and 09 got me überconfused." (The author subsequently educated me.)

I also learned a bit about Klopp himself – he's eccentric, excitable, brilliant, unpredictable, obsessive, a hugger. Scratch that last one; we’d already established that. This wasn't an "official" bio, so there's very little here from Klopp himself (apart from quotes from existing public statements and interviews), which is a moderate bummer. But as you can tell from everything else I've said, there's still plenty to love.