Liverpool have reunited manager Jurgen Klopp with a member of his former Borussia Dortmund backroom staff by appointing Dr Andreas Schlumberger as head of recovery and performance.
Schlumberger joins Liverpool from Schalke, but he had previously worked as part of Klopp’s team at Dortmund between 2011 and 2015 as a rehabilitation coach.
Since leaving Dortmund five years ago, Schlumberger has also been employed at Bayern Munich and Borussia Monchengladbach, before moving to Schalke in early 2020. He will now begin 2021 at Liverpool, working in collaboration with the club’s existing medical and rehabilitation leaders.
Klopp’s backroom staff is made up of a diverse mixture of people he has worked with in the past, brought in from elsewhere because of their ability and vision or simply inherited from his predecessors in the Liverpool hotseat.
First-team coach Peter Krawietz worked with Klopp at both Mainz and Dortmund before moving to Liverpool, while long-time right-hand man Zeljko Buvac also stood beside Klopp at all three clubs before their working relationship came to an end quite suddenly in 2018.
Current assistant Pep Ljinders was inherited from Brendan Rodgers’ staff when Klopp arrived in 2015 and was brought back to the club in 2018 after a short spell in his native Netherlands. Goalkeeping coach John Achterberg was another inherited and has been at Liverpool since 2009.
Head of fitness and conditioning Andreas Kornmayer joined Liverpool in 2016 after spending the previous 15 years at Bayern Munich, while elite development coach Vitor Matos made the switch to Merseyside from Porto in 2019.
One of Klopp’s more fascinating coaching appointments has been a collaboration with throw-in specialist Thomas Gronnemark, focusing on positioning and movement in such situations that can help teams keep possession under pressure or create goalscoring chances.
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Source : 90min