Jürgen Klopp reluctantly recalls some of his training sessions as an active footballer. "You'd go to prison today for the athletics training we did back then. When I was young, we were given salt tablets and not allowed to drink - it was 40 degrees outside, we were dehydrated, we were supposed to power ourselves out," said the long-time star coach at a panel discussion on youth soccer in the Leipzig Arena.
Klopp, who comes from Württemberg, initially spent his youth at SV Glatten in the northern Black Forest, where he stood out as a goal scorer and was nicknamed "Der Lange". Another youth station was TuS Ergenzingen, 30 kilometers away. His coach at the time, Walter Baur, said of captain Klopp: "He wanted to become a professional footballer."
