Germany’s Jürgen Klopp has won the EFL Managers’ Association award as the best coach this season after leading Liverpool to the Cup double, the League Cup and the Champions League final, where he will face Real Madrid on Saturday.
Despite failing to lead the Reds to the Premier League title, which Manchester City retained on Sunday with a dramatic 3-2 final stage victory over Aston Villa after two goals behind, Klopp received this accolade as a result of a remarkable season he had with Liverpool and won two cup titles over Chelsea’s penalties in two competitions.
“It’s an honor and it’s been a crazy season,” the German coach said after receiving the award on Tuesday at Premier League Coaches’ Association headquarters in London, referring to finishing the league one point behind City.
Klopp stressed the importance of what Liverpool and City have been delivering all season, rather than the last two matches in which his team beat Wolves 3-1 after he also fell behind, adding: “It’s was not the final result we wanted, but we passed it.
The German praised his assistant, saying: “When you receive an award of this kind, you are either a genius or you have the best coaching staff in the world. I’m here with all my coaching staff and they know how much I appreciate them.”
Klopp also won the Sir Alex Ferguson Cup, an award named after the legendary Scottish Manchester United manager and voted on by coaches of all skill levels.
And the former Borussia Dortmund coach said: “The vote of my teammates is by far the most important prize you can get. I don’t believe in individual prizes in general. This is a team sport and without these guys I would not have achieved anything (in terms of its players and coaching staff).”
“It’s about what we can do together and what we’ve done together,” he added.
Klopp is looking to finish his season in the best possible way by leading the Reds to the Champions League title on Saturday in Paris against Real Madrid and depriving the latter of its fourteenth continental crown.
