Pep Guardiola did the same after the end of his Barcelona contract
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp is planning to take a year-long sabbatical away from football after honouring his contract with the Reds.
Klopp’s current deal at Anfield runs until 2024, by which time he’ll have been Liverpool manager for close to 10 years, and speaking to German media he reiterated his desire to take some time out of football when his contract expires.
“I’ll take a year off and ask myself if I miss football. If I say no, then that will be the end of coach Jurgen Klopp,” he told Sport Buzzer.
“If one day I am no longer a coach, there is one thing I will not miss: the brutal tension immediately before the game.”
Last year, prior to extending his Liverpool contract by a further two years, Klopp first expressed that he would look to take a year out of football, telling Kicker magazine: “I have absolute energy. But I have one problem. I can’t do ‘a little bit’. I can only do ‘all or nothing’. When I decide that I cannot do it any longer then I will take a break for a year.”
If he goes through with his sabbatical, he will be following a route taken by Pep Guardiola after his contract with Barcelona ended in 2012.
The Catalan coach spent the majority of that year in New York, where he was reportedly met by Sir Alex Ferguson, who attempted to convince Pep to replace him at Old Trafford.
In the end, Guardiola chose Bayern Munich as his next destination, before moving on to Manchester City.
