Jürgen Klopp is coaching again — and this time it's the biggest job in German football. The DFB has appointed the former Liverpool manager as head coach of the national team, ending a spell away from the touchline that had stretched more than two years.
ONE reports that Klopp has signed a four-year contract taking him through the 2030 World Cup, with the appointment confirmed after Julian Nagelsmann's departure in the wake of Germany's Round of 32 elimination at this summer's World Cup, where they were beaten by Paraguay on penalties.
Klopp, 59, formally takes charge on August 15, leaving him just over three weeks to prepare before his first assignment: Germany's Nations League fixtures in September.
"It's an enormous honour to sit here today," Klopp said at his unveiling. "When you become part of it, you feel the power and responsibility even more." He went on to call the role "the pinnacle of my career."
The move ends an 18-month spell away from coaching proper. Klopp stepped down at Liverpool in May 2024 after nine trophy-laden years, then took a front-office role in January 2025 as Red Bull's global head of soccer, overseeing a network of clubs that includes RB Leipzig and Red Bull Salzburg, before walking back into a dugout.
He arrives with familiar faces around him. Peter Krawietz and Pepijn Lijnders, both long-serving lieutenants from his Liverpool bench, join the Germany set-up alongside Sven Bender, the former Borussia Dortmund midfielder and ex-international who rounds out the new coaching staff.
The in-tray is heavy. Manuel Neuer is expected to retire from international football for a second time, and reports around the appointment suggest Klopp could also lose several senior figures — Antonio Rüdiger, Leroy Sané, Leon Goretzka, Pascal Groß and Oliver Baumann have all been mentioned as possible retirees as Germany rebuilds after a chastening World Cup.
Captain Joshua Kimmich stays on, and Klopp is expected to shape the new-look side around him alongside Florian Wirtz — now, like his new coach, at Liverpool — and Bayern Munich's Jamal Musiala, the two players widely seen as the spine of Germany's next generation.
Nagelsmann had taken Germany to the semi-finals of Euro 2024 on home soil, but the early World Cup exit to Paraguay, appearing at only their third finals since 1958, proved too costly for the DFB to overlook.
For a federation still absorbing that setback, handing the reins to a coach with Klopp's pedigree — a Bundesliga and Champions League winner at Dortmund, a Premier League and Champions League winner at Liverpool — is being read at home as a statement of ambition rather than a stopgap fix before the next World Cup cycle.
