Mark Clattenburg and Jurgen Klopp shared three years in the Premier League together before the official departed for Saudi Arabia
Former Premier League referee Mark Clattenburg has described Jurgen Klopp as a “strange bloke” and claimed the Liverpool boss tried to intimidate him before a big game.
Clattenburg and the German shared three years in the Premier League together before the official departed for Saudi Arabia in February 2017.
However, Klopp’s first meeting with Clattenburg came when he was in charge of Borussia Dortmund ahead of a Champions League game with Real Madrid.
Klopp’s Dortmund side would go on to lose the game 3-0 at the Santiago Bernabeu, and it was after the game that Clattenburg claims he saw a different side to the German.
“After the game, I came out of my dressing room and Real defender Marcelo and his wife asked for a picture. It was a private picture on their phone so I said yeah, no problem,” Clattenburg wrote in the Daily Mail.
“’Oh, so that’s why we got beat, is it?’ he said. He was not being humorous or friendly, he was being sarky.
“You’re lucky you only got beat 3-0, I said. The fact we were in Madrid probably gave me a bit of bravado to answer back. It annoyed me when managers could not be gracious in defeat.”
While in an another extract from Clattenburg’s new book the Whistle Blower, he goes on to explain the time he believes Klopp tried to intimidate before a Liverpool game. “Klopp never took losing well. When he was winning he was happy, he was good fun. When things were not going his way, he got prickly,” he wrote.
“My final game with Klopp was in January 2017 against Chelsea at Anfield. Managers rarely came into my dressing room for the exchange of team-sheets an hour before kick-off.
“On this occasion, Klopp came in with Jordan Henderson. It was bizarre, he stood and stared at me for about 30 seconds. I just stared back at him. I could see Jordan was a bit like, ‘What the hell’s going on?’ Did Klopp think I was stupid?
“I was not going to be bullied by him. He left and all I thought was: ‘What a strange bloke.’”
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