Germany head coach Jürgen Klopp visits Bruchweg

A familiar face visited Mainz 05 first-team training at the WOLFGANG FRANK CAMPUS at Bruchweg on Tuesday. New Germany head coach Jürgen Klopp stopped off at his old place of work in Mainz as part of his tour of Bundesliga clubs.

“Something special,” as he emphasised. “In conversations just now, I realised again that I spent 18 years here. When I came here, I asked myself how many times in my life I must have driven this route. A lot has changed for the better. For example, there are now three grass pitches here where there used to be a hard pitch. That is simply good,” said Klopp, who had not come to Mainz “just for nostalgic reasons”. “But you can’t avoid that, and fortunately I also met a few familiar faces.”

Exchange and cooperation

Together with Mainz 05 board member for sport Christian Heidel and club and board chairman Stefan Hofmann, Klopp, who represented Mainz 05 as both a player and coach from 1990 to 2008 and led the club into the Bundesliga for the first time, watched head coach Urs Fischer’s side in a non-public training session. Afterwards, the 59-year-old exchanged views with his fellow coach and players from the Mainz squad.

Klopp had previously also visited FC Bayern Munich, Augsburg and Stuttgart. “In future, I want to work together with the coaches in the same way that I work together with the players. That is part of it, but above all it is about building a relationship of trust with the coaches. It should be a form of cooperation that I would have wanted when I was still a club coach. That is what I am offering,” said Klopp.

Debut in Amsterdam

Klopp will announce his first squad as Germany head coach on 17 September, before taking charge of the German national team from the touchline for the first time on 26 September at the Amsterdam Arena in the Nations League clash with the Netherlands. Further matches against Greece (27 September, Augsburg), Serbia (1 October, Munich) and Greece again (4 October, Thessaloniki) will follow.