Klopp: I prefer Dortmund’s “Heavy Metal” over Arsenal’s “Orchestra”

“Not serenity football but fighting football, that is what I like. What we call in German ‘English’. Rainy day, heavy pitch, everybody dirty in the face and goes home and can’t play football for the next four weeks.” – Jurgen Klopp

Klopp and Borussia Dortmund have won the hearts of European football enthusiasts with their furious pressing and high-octane attacking style of football. And Klopp prefers it to the ‘serenity’ of Barcelona or the ‘orchestra’ of Arsenal.

On Wednesday evening, Klopp and his adoring 80,000 fans, welcome Arsenal to the Westfalenstadion for their all-important Champions League match.

Dortmund ran out 2-1 winners in the reverse fixture at the Emirates Stadium thanks to Robert Lewandowksi’s late winner.

Ahead of the the game in Dortmund, the German coach spoke extremely highly of his adversary on the night, Arsene Wenger.

“He is really something. I love him. He is Sir. Sir Arsène Wenger for me,” he told the Guardian.

The German is seen as the best candidate to replace Wenger when he eventually leaves Arsenal but they are very different, claims Klopp.

“I think he likes having the ball, playing football, passes, it’s like an orchestra. But it’s a silent song, yeah? And I like heavy metal more. I always want it loud! I want to have this ‘boom!’”

Klopp says it is a huge compliment to be spoken of as Wenger’s potential replacement but it is clear that attractive, passing football is not entirely his cup of tea.

“To enjoy football, you have to do this,” he said, while throwing himself around.

“He can win! Then he can win! Post! Goalkeeper! Save! That is what I love. If the Barcelona of the last four years were the first team I saw playing when I was four years old – this serenity, they win 5-0, 6-0 – I would have played tennis. Sorry, that is not enough for me.

“Not serenity football but fighting football, that is what I like. What we call in German ‘English’. Rainy day, heavy pitch, everybody dirty in the face and goes home and can’t play football for the next four weeks.”

Klopp, whose Dortmund side lost to Bayern Munich in the Champions League Final last season, demands his teams play the right way, but ‘then still run 10km more than the opponents’.

He celebrates every throw-in and tackle as if it were the dying embers of a match they were chasing to win and it is this exhilarating passion that drives his team and fans on, and what draws the neutral in.

“I can only see you have fun when you come to Dortmund. Maybe it’s because of the beer! But I think this club is worth falling in love with because this is pure football. It’s not like a big play like Romeo and Juliet or something. It’s always pure.”