It was during a training camp in Tenerife a few years ago when Jürgen Klopp and his staff discovered something exciting.

In addition to their hotel's tennis courts, they found two other fenced-in courts that they weren't sure what they were about.

They learned that pádel was played there, a combination of tennis and squash, in which the ball is held in play by glass walls.

That made her curious.

"We didn't know anything about it, but we started researching it straight away," Klopp recalls. "We had to google the rules at first, but we've been pretty addicted ever since." Klopp and his assistant Pepijn Lijnders in particular were immediately on fire and Flame.

Upon their return to Liverpool, the football club built their own padel court at the Melwood Training Centre.

When the club moved to new grounds in Kirkby, north Liverpool, they even had two pitches built there.

For Klopp and Lijnders, padel is the perfect way to unwind between training sessions.

They don't think about anything in particular, although there are times when they find a solution to a footballing dilemma during a break between games.

However, while they're on the pitch, they're into it.

“It's a tough fight.

Pep is a bit better but I can win against him.

And let's not underestimate the fact that he's 15 years younger."

Klopp tells this story at the end of March in one of the many rooms of the brand new training ground.

The fifty-four-year-old is in a good mood, in the middle of the tightly packed schedule with his team.

From time to time his contagious laugh fills the room when he tells an anecdote or when he wants to emphasize something.

He is very passionate when he talks about his employees and how closely they work together on a day-to-day basis.

It sparked immediately for Klopp

The many padel games between Klopp and Lijnders, for example, have strengthened the bond with each other.

In fact, their relationship was good from the start when Klopp joined Liverpool in the autumn of 2015.

At that time, the club had asked him to keep two assistants on his staff.

"I spoke to Mike Gordon (President of Fenway Sports Group, which owns Liverpool FC; ed.) who told me they would like to keep goalkeeping coach John Achterberg.

I didn't have a goalkeeping coach with me, so it made perfect sense.

And there was one more assistant I was supposed to keep: Pepijn Lijnders.

I asked Mike who that is.

'He is the link between the youth department and the first team,' I was told.

And that was fine with me.”

Klopp explains how there was an immediate spark with the Dutch duo, who impressed him with their commitment from day one.

"Johnny is like a kind of goalkeeper book," says Klopp about Achterberg: "He's always in the team room and prepares everything.

He's probably in the office right now preparing the training sessions for the 2025/2026 pre-season."