Jurgen Klopp’s first Red Bull task may be saving his former assistant from the sack

Jürgen Klopp does not start in his new job at the Red Bull football group until Jan 1 although if the famous Premier-League winning manager wants to save the coaching career of his long-serving Liverpool assistant Pep Lijnders he may have to intervene sooner.

The Dutchman, who served as an assistant to Klopp in two separate spells, and was a very influential figure at the club by the end, faces a battle to save his job at Red Bull Salzburg. That begins on Wednesday night against Hartberg, the first of four home games between now and Dec 14 after which the Austrian Bundesliga enters its Christmas break. If results have not improved by that point, Lijnders will surely be vulnerable.

The 41-year-old has overseen a precipitous decline in the fortunes of one of Europe’s most dominant clubs domestically. Salzburg won 10 Bundesliga titles in a row – including seven league and cup doubles – until the 2023-24 season, when they narrowly came second to Sturm Graz in the end-of-season play-offs.

Since Lijnders took over, fresh from leaving Anfield and with the Klopp stamp of approval, Salzburg have plummeted. They are seventh after 13 games, albeit with two in hand on those above, and have lost four times. They have won once in their past seven league games. With a squad valued at more than twice that of their nearest rivals, and with much greater wage capacity, Salzburg are expected to win.

The club’s Champions League form has been little better, with one win and four defeats, in 32nd place out of 36 teams. Salzburg announced last week that it was appointing as sporting director Rouven Schröder, formerly of sister club RB Leipzig, although what that means for Lijnders is not yet clear.

The two clubs need to demonstrate to Uefa a formal degree of separation, given both are in the Champions League. Leipzig, with five defeats from five in Europe, and on a bad run in the German Bundesliga, are struggling too.

Klopp to the rescue?

Enter Klopp in the new year. The nature of his job across the Red Bull clubs is not yet clear and largely will be for him to define. The announcement of his appointment as head of global soccer in October was vague: to provide “strategic vision, supporting individual sporting directors in advancing the Red Bull philosophy”. Depending on how Lijnders fares over the next 11 days, Klopp may have to intervene to save his former assistant.

When he takes over, Klopp is expected to visit all the Red Bull clubs, along with those in Leipzig and Salzburg. Those encompass New York Red Bulls; Red Bull Bragantino, recently relegated from the Brazilian top flight; and its second team; the new partnership with French billionaire Bernard Arnault at Paris FC, and third-tier Japanese club Omiya Ardija, of Saitama. Klopp is expected to look at the clubs’ overall structure and advise on changes. As things stand he is unlikely to be involved in the scouting and signing of players.

Red Bull’s German headquarters are in Munich, and Klopp is likely to be based there as well as at his homes near Mainz and in Majorca.

The Red Bull group built by the drinks brand, part of an enormous PR strategy that includes extreme sports, is likely to use Klopp in a public-facing role. He may be used as an asset to close negotiations with players. Whether he will advise on the sacking and appointment of managers is not yet clear. The official approach is each club are considered independent and experts in their domestic scene, while benefiting from the shared strengths of the group.

Lijnders took two of Klopp’s former staff with him when he joined Salzburg in the summer, the assistant Vitor Matos and fitness coach Andreas Kornmayer. He has Liverpool’s Stefan Bajcetic on loan, and signed the club’s teenage midfielder Bobby Clark in the summer.

An impressive academy coach with an eye for talent

Lijnders joined Liverpool in 2014 from Porto before Klopp’s arrival, first as the Under-16s academy coach. He was one of many involved in the development of Trent Alexander-Arnold, Curtis Jones and Caomhin Kelleher. He divided opinion at the club, with an energetic high-enthusiasm approach, but rose to prominence on the first-team staff.

Lijnders ultimately replaced Klopp’s longstanding No 2, Zeljko Buvac, but not before a five-month spell when Lijnders left to coach NEC, of Nijmegen, in the Dutch second tier. The club did not gain promotion and Lijnders returned to Liverpool.

As his influence grew in that second spell he advised on recruitment. Given his background in Dutch and Portuguese football, he advocated for the signings of Luis Diaz, Darwin Nunez and Cody Gakpo – all of whom have been successes to varying degrees. Ryan Gravenberch, another Dutchman, arrived in the summer of last year. Lijnders even wrote a book about the Klopp approach.

Lijnders attracted interest from Ajax in the summer, and there were suggestions that Porto and Stoke City also enquired. The Klopp endorsement would certainly have helped Lijnders get the Salzburg job. This time last year the pair were on a long unbeaten run domestically with Liverpool that would not come to an end until February, by which time Klopp had announced his departure. His old assistant will have to hope he is still at Salzburg long enough for them to be reunited.