Arne Slot makes Pep Guardiola admission and explains what Jurgen Klopp told him about Liverpool
Arne Slot has explained how Barcelona’s success under Pep Guardiola proved he was on the right path towards management as he prepares for his first Champions Leaguenight at Anfield as Liverpool boss. The Reds entertain Bologna on Wednesday having opened the new-look league stage with a 3-1 victory at another Serie A side, AC Milan, a fortnight ago.
It is the biggest home occasion yet for Slotsince taking over from Jurgen Klopp, who led Liverpool to three Champions League finals, winning once in 2019.
The Dutchman began his coaching career in his homeland at Cambur in 2016 before spells at AZ Alkmaar and Feyenoord on his way to the Reds’ hotseat.
But it was while still a player at Sparta Rotterdam that Slot began to envision a future in the dugout with his formative beliefs subsequently being strengthened by the approach of the Barcelona side that under Guardiola transformed the game.
“If you asked my father now, he would say ‘He does everything different as a manager to how he was as a player’,” said Slot. “I always make the same joke. I always say: I was not so fast, some people called me slow, and that helped me maybe a bit with game insight.
“I needed the team to get to a certain level because, individually, I couldn’t go around three players. I always needed my team-mates where I could play them my passes.
“I had to think a lot about the game; maybe that’s what helps me now. At a certain age, I felt like, ‘okay, if a team-mate of mine plays this ball, it normally leads to losing the ball, and if we play a different ball, it leads to success’. At the end of my career, that became more and more clear to me.
I was lucky enough that then the Barcelona team started playing, and I saw similar patterns, not in terms of how we play it, but more: okay, this ball which we sometimes play – and Barcelona constantly plays – leads to success. And that’s helped me create my own philosophy about football.”
Slot added: “I see a successful manager as a manager that has a playing style you can see day in and day out, and that he can combine that with success. For one team, success is winning the league, and for another team it’s staying up. But, developing individuals combined with the team will always generate success, in my opinion.
“If you work at a club like Liverpool, I think trophies, I wouldn’t say they’re expected, but in the last nine years that Jurgen worked here, he won a lot of trophies with a certain playing style. So, if you work at clubs like this, you always have to aim for winning something.”
Liverpool have made a strong start to the season under Slot, winning seven of their opening eight games to sit top of the formative Premier League table and progress to the last 16 of the League Cup. And the Reds head coach believes the handover message he was given by Klopp has thus far proven accurate.
“The culture of this team, the culture of this club, the hard work, the players showing up every day in training sessions, trying to bring the best out of them – sometimes, if you come to a new club, you need to get that culture in, but that was absolutely not necessary over here,” he said.
“I inherited a lot of quality, but maybe even more importantly, I inherited a team, a club that was already fully focused on hard work and trying to get the best out of the team and individuals every single day.
I wouldn’t say I was surprised by that, but it was nice to see that it was just like Jurgen told me, because he told me that that was the culture and I experienced this from the start.”
