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Jurgen Klopp has previously disclosed that he rejected an opportunity to depart Liverpool and take charge of the German national side in 2023.
The Reds missed out on Champions League qualification during the 2022-23 season, securing a Europa League place after coming fifth in the Premier League. Speaking earlier this year, Liverpool's iconic former boss Klopp acknowledged he was ready for a fresh challenge at that point but believed he couldn't walk away following such an underwhelming campaign.
The 58-year-old, who now serves as Head of Global Soccer for the Red Bull organization, explained he felt obligated to restore success at Anfield before pursuing other opportunities.
Klopp told Welt: "The season before that (final one) didn't go so well for Liverpool - and in the summer after this season, Germany was looking for a new national coach. I could have said 'yes' because it might have been better to do something different.
"I didn't want to. And the decision was not about the job of the national coach itself. I couldn't leave Liverpool like that.
"There was a team, there were people with whom I had a relationship. I've never been so cold not to remember the good things I said to a player a week earlier.
"We had brought in new players like (Wataru) Endo, (Ryan) Gravenberch, (Dominik) Szoboszlai and (Alexis) Mac Allister. With them and the core team, I wanted to fix it again.
"That was important to me. We managed to do that. Nevertheless, the decision to stop in Liverpool matured."
He later revealed how his departure from the club unfolded in 2024. The German manager stunned the soccer world that January by announcing he would step down at the end of the season, with exhaustion cited as the primary factor.
Klopp added: "I communicated this internally early on, until we went public in January, also at the request of the owners.
"You talk about a perfect handover, but there are others who say that perhaps Liverpool would have become champions if we had only made it public later. But for me it felt right, just like it did back then in Mainz and later in Dortmund."
Klopp explained: "I communicated this internally early on, until we went public in January, also at the request of the owners. You talk about a perfect handover, but there are others who say that perhaps Liverpool would have become champions if we had only made it public later. But for me it felt right, just like it did back then in Mainz and later in Dortmund."
Reflecting on his choice to step away from management after almost 25 years, Klopp said: "I don't want it anymore.
I now have a job (as Red Bull's global head of soccer) that fulfils me and is also intense. I don't sleep longer in the morning, and I don't go to bed later in the evening, but I can organize my work much better.
"My wife, for example, is totally happy with it because we can plan things much better that we couldn't plan before. For me, it was never about not doing anything anymore, but about doing something else.
"I've coached 1081 games, and that's not including the friendly matches. If we add those from 23 years, we might come to 1200. Then the press conferences, the media appointments. I always just reacted. And in Liverpool there were also the tasks as manager.
"That was a lot, a lot."
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