Faith drives champion coach’s kind words for fan

“I’m Christian,” Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp reminded a terminally-ill fan ahead of the Merseyside team’s Champions League victory against Tottenham Hotspur.

The German coach sent a video message to Dave Evans, a Coventry-based Liverpool fan with terminal cancer, in response to former Reds striker Stan Collymore’s call for Liverpool stars to “let him know he’ll never walk alone”,

“Hi Dave, Jurgen Klopp here in Liverpool, an hour before we leave for Madrid,” the Stuttgart-born coach began, praising the fan’s courage and determination.

“It’s more than football. It’s about life. The only thing we try to do the whole year is to given people some hope, some joy, good moments to remember. We share these experiences in the three and a half years I have been here. That makes us friends.

“I wish you from the bottom of the part all the best – I’m Christian, so see you,” he said.

Believer

The German coach has spoken about his faith in the past, telling, for instance the Frankfurter Rundschau in 2013: “To be a believer, but not to want to talk about it – I do not know how it would work!”

“If anyone asks me about my faith, I give information. Not because I claim to be any sort of missionary,” he said, adding: “When I look at me and my life – and I take time for that every day – then I feel I am in sensationally good hands.”