Champions League: Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool look to break the mould against Bayern as last-eight spot beckons

“Nobody gets rid of us if we play as we played today (vs Burnley). We had the perfect mixture of fighting the situation and playing football.” These were Jurgen Klopp’s words following Liverpool’s 4-2 win against Burnley. The match was a testament to Liverpool’s fighting spirit in face of downpour and swirling winds around Anfield that went faster than 40 miles per hour, rending the ball to do unseemly un-physics-like things. [caption id=“attachment_6251071” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] For Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp, the match against Bayern will also be a clash of conflicting philosophies. AP[/caption] Forecasts in Bavaria point towards much of the same tonight, with abundant cloud cover, West-by-South-West winds, sleet and rain expected, and temperature to drop lower than six degrees. When Liverpool travel to the Allianz Arena in Munich, they will be up against more than just the fate and caprice of weather. Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp will have to face and break their own glass ceiling they have set for themselves over the years - the accusations of not having enough quality in depth or the resilience to contest on two fronts. There is an underlying cold front in the match’s narrative. For Jurgen Klopp, the former Borussia Dortmund manager, Bayern’s arch-nemesis, he’ll have more football scores to settle that go well beyond superficial grudges (Jurgen Klopp lost a UEFA Champions League Final with Dortmund vs Bayern at the Wembley in 2013). After Dortmund’s back-to-back Bundesliga wins, Bayern, out of spite, set out to systematically destabilise the Yellow Wall. Right before the above-mentioned final (Dortmund’s first Champions League Final in 16 years), Bayern not only tapped-up creator-in-chief Mario Goetze but leaked the report of an agreement to German tabloid Bild little less than 24 hours before kick-off. “They tried to destroy us,” protested Dortmund CEO, Hans-Joachim Watzke. Embittered by their financial powerplay, sabotage, lack of a moral compass, and incessant arm-twisting, Jurgen Klopp, a man who is never short of metaphors, compared Bayern to a diabolical James Bond villain “with a lot of dirty money.” Losing the Bundesliga to Dortmund, Bayern proceeded to hire some of the best video analysts to break down Jurgen Klopp’s gegenpressing into bite-sized chunks, and employed the best coaching in the world and procured the best players to complement it. Thus, replicating what Chinese cell-phone companies do. “Bayern are like the Chinese – they see what other people are doing and copy it – just with more money,” Klopp said in 2013. “We signed the wrong Jurgen”, admitted Bayern head-honcho Uli Hoeness upon dismissing coach Jurgen Klinsmann. They hired the former US national team coach and former German international, while Klopp was Mainz’s manager, as the Bayern brain-trust believed he was more of a fashionable choice than the trackpant-wearing Klopp from the working-class town of Glatten. Jurgen Klopp was courted by Bayern while in his later days at Mainz, and then at Dortmund, around the same time when Manchester United’s Ed Woodward came calling. On those occasions, Jurgen felt he was ill-fitted to the cash-throwing philosophy both of them embodied, and instead opted to stick to the development project of Dortmund. Bayern behaved like the spurned lover and were bent on making Klopp feel sorry for his decision. They sought and got the most high-profile coach in the world in Pep Guardiola (who now incidentally is his domestic rival in England with Manchester City.) Pep was tasked to deconstruct and decommission Klopp’s version of the gegenpress by evolving it into a more minimalist model, where the players didn’t quite have to run as much. Bayern, naturally, went onto knock Dortmund off its perch. What Bayern Munich stands for as a club is not something Jurgen Klopp can reconcile with philosophically. It would be fair to say Bayern’s throw-money-at-your-problems modus operandi goes utterly against the grain of Klopp’s beliefs of team-building and Erlebnisfußball (experience-football: where the impetus lay on player development). ‘You either win or you learn.’ Liverpool’s success or the lack of it (losing Cup finals) can be pinned to this. Defeat and pain associated with failure are merely seen as knowledge rushing in to fill a gap. It’s little surprise then that tone of his pre-match press conference alluded an intrinsic unfairness of the competition. “It (The Champions League) is a money-throwing competition and we have to stay in it long as possible because it helps the club financially. It’s not like we can always ask our owners: ‘Hello, do you have some more money? We have to earn most of the money for ourselves with the football that we play. That is exactly what you can do in the Champions League,” said Klopp in the build-up. The pragmatism in this approach underlines both the need and the want to stay in the competition. Europe’s elite club competition has generated £72 million for their coffers last season, on the back of their startling cup final run. This has and never will be a concern for Bayern Munich. So, when the Liverpool 11 lines up against Bayern’s 11, it’ll be more than just a tactical battle between Klopp and Niko Kovac, contained in a green rectangle. For Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool, it will be the eternal struggle they face against the institutions Bayern Munich represent. So, when pundits like Gary Neville offer their two cents, saying the Champions League is an obstruction for Liverpool’s ambitions, you can understand why Jurgen Klopp says, “That’s the reason why they don’t have a job on the sideline – one of the reasons.” Bayern Munich will have to contend without the reassuring presence of right-back Joshua Kimmich. For Liverpool, Roberto Firmino and Van Dijk are set to make their returns. Naby Keita has been left behind in Liverpool owning to the stellar showing from Adam Lallana over the weekend. Thomas Muller and Mats Hummels, in particular, will have a point to prove, having been permanently excluded from the German national team by Joachim Loew. Bayern are expected to field much of an unchanged side from the first-leg at Anfield. For Liverpool, the only unknown factor in their line-up is its midfield. The return to form of Jordan Henderson and Adam Lallana gives Klopp a selection headache with both Fabinho and Gini Wijnaldum working at optimal levels. It is there, as the cliche goes, where this battle will be won or lost.