Jurgen Klopp Can Validate Liverpool Progress with Europa League Success

Reaching a European final is enough to distinguish the career of any football manager.

For Jurgen Klopp, Wednesday’s UEFA Europa League final will be the second such occasion he will have experienced. He will savour the moment just as he did with Borussia Dortmund at Wembley, and yet with Liverpool this time around a different tone has been set.

While Klopp’s surge to the UEFA Champions League final with his former club in 2013 was the pinnacle of Dortmund’s development under his control, Liverpool’s clash with Sevilla in Basel, Switzerland, feels like a precursor to what might follow.

The German has his sights set on more than just the Europa League.

David Ramos/Getty Images

That’s not to disregard the competition. There is a certain charm to the Europa League, with the competition particularly stiff this season. But Klopp was appointed to deliver more than just success in a second-tier competition. He is the man anointed to take the Reds back to the top of the domestic and continental game.

Victory over Sevilla in the Europa League final can validate the progress he is making at the club, though. It wouldn’t be enough to define his stewardship of Liverpool, but it would show that for the first time in a while the Reds are on an upward trajectory. If that peak can be scaled, even loftier heights will be next.

It’s in the Europa League where the Merseyside club have made their biggest statement of intent under Klopp so far.

The semi-final win over Villarreal at Anfield was the closest the Reds have come to the perfect performance since Klopp’s appointment. Gegenpressing the Yellow Submarine below the water line from start to finish, Liverpool were irrepressible as they overturned a 1-0 deficit to clinch a comprehensive 3-1 aggregate victory.

A similar display will be needed against Sevilla, who have become the Europa League’s predominant force in recent times. If Unai Emery’s side lift the trophy for a third successive year, UEFA might as well allow them to melt it down and do whatever they like with it.

JOHN MACDOUGALL/Getty Images

Of course, a Champions League spot is the prize for the winners of the final at St. Jakob-Park. That is the carrot dangling in front of Liverpool’s nose, with the Reds offered the opportunity of salvation following a disappointing Premier League campaign. After finishing a lowly eighth this season, the Reds could still pull up a seat at European football’s top table.

Not that the pressure is getting to Klopp. He is an intense character on the touchline, gurning and flailing his way through matches, but he has exuded composure in the build-up to Wednesday’s Europa League final. If Liverpool lose to Sevilla, it won’t be because their manager has ramped them up to the point of hysteria.

Per Andy Hunter of the Guardian, Klopp said:

"

I don’t feel the pressure. I cannot change. I feel opportunity. I don’t think I have all the time in the world but I don’t think I’ve ever felt doubt around me. If that’s right I don’t know, maybe I’m not sensitive, but it leaves me completely free to make decisions and completely free to get us all together. I came here because I was really convinced about the quality of these players. At the start I was the only person who thought this but that’s not a problem.

"

PAUL ELLIS/Getty Images

But while Klopp remains jovial and calm off the pitch, he will look for different traits from his side on the night itself.

Liverpool must be relentless in their efforts if they are to overcome a Sevilla side who themselves are something of a high-octane outfit. The Europa League final could be one of the most captivating continental showpieces in years.

Victory for Liverpool could provide the ideal platform for Klopp to build upon, even if the demands of the Champions League would stretch his squad significantly next season.

Recruitment over the summer might have to be ramped up, but the German will have already gone some way to delivering what his appointment promised. The precedent will have been established, with the current trajectory suggesting even bigger and better things are still to come.

“When I came here there was a real amount of doubt about these players so I am really happy they could show how strong they are,” Klopp continued when asked whether his faith in Liverpool’s squad had ever wavered. “Tomorrow is an opportunity to make the final step in this season and achieve something together. Let’s try it.”

Whether Klopp gets his hands on his first piece of silverware as Liverpool manager or not, the Reds are starting to forge an identity for themselves with him in charge—it’s an identity in the mould of the coach himself. So often the best teams are reflective of their managers, and that could soon be the case for the Reds.

JAVIER SORIANO/Getty Images

There is a case to be made that a lack of Champions League football next season could help Liverpool’s development. Brendan Rodgers’ team struggled with the additional demands of top-tier continental competition, and it might be too soon for Klopp’s squad to handle such rigours, regardless of what players are signed over the summer transfer window.

In that sense, perhaps victory against Sevilla would be something of an unwanted triumph. Although such sentiment would be abandoned upon the first airing of the famous Champions League tune at Anfield next season; such sentiment isn’t held by those counting the coins at the club either.

For now, however, focus is solely on overcoming Sevilla and securing Liverpool’s first European title since that night in Istanbul 11 years ago.

Rather unusually for an event of such magnitude, though, thoughts in Basel will be on what victory could lead to rather than what it will achieve.