Of all of the managers Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp might want to see join a Premier League club in the 2016-17 season, Bayern Munich manager Pep Guardiola might top the list by a mile. Nonetheless, Klopp was quick to credit Guardiola for his coaching excellence between the Bundesliga giants and Barcelona.
According to the Daily Mail, Klopp went so far as to refer to Guardiola as “perhaps the best coach in the world” and called the the rivalry between his former Borussia Dortmund team and Guardiola’s Bayern Munich team “honour.”
‘If this rumour (of Guardiola coming to England) is as well-tuned as all the other transfer rumours here then Pep will go somewhere else completely,” Klopp said.
‘But if it really happens, then in comes perhaps the best coach in the world. That would make it that bit harder for all the other teams.’
Klopp managed Dortmund from 2008 until the end of the 2014-15 season, winning the Bundesliga titles in 2011 and 2012. But his Dortmund teams finished in a distant second to Bayern Munich in 2013 and then again in the 2013-14 season when Guardiola took over as manager.
Guardiola won the Champions League twice and three La Liga titles with Barcelona along with nine other titles during his four-year tenure. He took a year off of coaching before accepting the job with Bayern Munich and leading the German giants to back-to-back Bundesliga titles.