Jurgen Klopp is poised to return to the Anfield dugout less than two years after stepping away from the Liverpool manager’s job
15:35, 29 Jan 2026Updated 15:41, 29 Jan 2026
Ulla Sandrock with Jurgen Klopp in 2024(Image: Quality Sport Images, Getty Images)
Jurgen Klopp’s upcoming return to Anfield has been met with excitement from a few directions. For his wife Ulla, though, it will represent an opportunity to revisit a city she truly embraced as her home.
Klopp announced his Liverpool exit in January 2024 and took charge of his final game at the end of the 2023/24 campaign before passing the baton to Arne Slot. He has vowed never to manage another Premier League side but has stayed within the football sphere, taking on a new post as Red Bull’s global head of soccer in 2025.
The German stayed away from Anfield until the end of the 2024/25 season, when he returned to watch Slot’s title winners in the flesh after they had already secured the Premier League crown. Now, he’s poised to return to the technical area he occupied for nearly nine years.
Klopp will team up with another ex-Reds manager, Kenny Dalglish, as part of the coaching set-up for a Liverpool Legends XI at the end of March. He serves as an honorary ambassador for the club’s official charity and will oversee a squad featuring former Reds skipper Steven Gerrard for a match against Borussia Dortmund to raise money for the LFC Foundation
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Klopp and Ulla have been married since 2005, when he was Mainz manager. She cared deeply about her local community when spending the best part of a decade on Merseyside, with contributions including a significant donation to Formby Community Football Club during the 2020 lockdown.
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The ECHO previously revealed she also distributed £1,000 worth of food vouchers to supermarket workers during the Covid-19 crisis. The gesture was a token of appreciation to those who served her at her local Waitrose branch in Formby and was divided equally amongst a number of employees.
A staff member was quoted as saying: “This was an incredible thing to do. Typically, Ulla didn’t want to make a fuss, or receive any recognition, and just wanted people working in shops to get the recognition they deserve.”
Jurgen Klopp and Ulla Sandrock watching Liverpool in May 2025(Image: Carl Recine, Getty Images)
Klopp and his wife settled in Formby and were frequently seen at neighbourhood pubs. The bond with the city meant Liverpool’s boss had to carefully weigh up his choice to depart Anfield following Ulla’s influence, and he indeed credited her for persuading him to remain in the hot seat as long as he managed.
Speaking in 2022 after prolonging his contract until 2026, Klopp said: “The most important contract I signed in my life was the one with Ulla. And that’s why it started again, because actually we sat at the kitchen table and Ulla said, ‘I can’t see us leaving in 2024.’
“I said, ‘What?’ That’s how it all started and when that started I thought, ‘Let’s have a think.’” Klopp eventually stepped away in 2024 regardless, but fans won’t have to wait much longer to see him return.
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