Doubters to believers - New Amazon doc shows how Klopp reawakened Liverpool (2025)

REVIEW: Jurgen Klopp's managerial journey that took him to Liverpool - and then the ride he took the Reds on - is profiled in a four-part documentary released on Friday

"You cannot play football if you're not ready to lose."

In many ways those words uttered by Jurgen Klopp in episode one of 'Doubters To Believers - Liverpool FC: Klopp's Era' sum up the man and the manager. A figure adored and followed into the trenches by those devoted to him, but one who perhaps didn't win as often as he should have done.

Nine months on from Klopp and Liverpool parting ways - a separation that felt barely fathomable at the time, as millions of people around the world lost a spiritual leader - we've learned that you don't always need to be as close to the edge as Klopp would go to taste victory, as Arne Slot has proven.

However, the soon-to-be Premier League champion will be the first to tell you that he is benefitting from the work that Klopp put in, not just in rebuilding a squad but in repairing a club.

Doubters to Believers, the new four-part documentary from Amazon Prime Video which is released in its entirety on Friday, isn't really what it set out to be.

When Klopp shocked the world and announced the four-month run up to him leaving in January last year it was hoped that the cameras would be there to capture every leg of a glorious victory lap, with a Quadruple still possible. Until it wasn't.

Not that the documentary shies away from the pain. As well as the 4-3 FA Cup defeat at Manchester United there's the misery of the 3-0 home loss to Atalanta seen through the eyes of Harvey Elliott's demanding dad Scott, the 1-0 Anfield defeat to Crystal Palace with a watery-eyed Curtis Jones who missed a sitter, and a Merseyside derby defeat at Goodison Park complete with a family of Evertonians dancing around their living room.

Klopp's reflections on that nightmare 13-day run in April last year are genuinely moving, as we see the great motivator realise that he could no longer motivate. "I couldn't, for whatever reason - I still don't know - create the atmosphere where the boys wouldn't feel the pressure," he says, and it is at that moment that you realise he really did run out of energy.

But what an energy it was for 23 years in management. As the documentary skips back and forth in time we go through a life not so much in the dugout but stalking the touchline in front of it, as Klopp goes from Mainz's tall, awkward-looking centre-forward who was a natural in front of the camera, appearing on gameshows and explaining disappointing defeats, to becoming the boss through an act of quite extraordinary player power from a squad devoted to him.

Adapting his own style of aggression from playing to managing - "I know how people see me on the sideline but that's a problem with my face" - Klopp transforms the fortunes of Mainz before going on to success with Dortmund, and then arriving at a Liverpool that are drifting, dallying and losing 6-1 to Stoke.

The 'doubters to believers' speech comes in the introductory press conference, as does the promise of a title in four seasons, and while it is easy to remember those now because they were statements which came true, it is somewhat startling to recall the context in which this charismatic figure was making them.

We see a Klopp who was deeply unimpressed with the Anfield dressing rooms, and a figure who was mocked and criticised in his early months at the club, with radio phone-ins fielding calls to sack him. The infamous celebration in front of the Kop after the draw with West Brom - "embarrassing" says Adam Lallana - gets an airing too, but then gradually things begin to change for the better.

After he turned up at the academy on his first day in the job to cast an eye over promising youngsters to promote, just as he had with Mario Gotze at Dortmund, Klopp's trust in youth takes centre stage as a key theme.

Trent Alexander-Arnold is of course the jewel in the crown from the off, and we hear from him, Elliott, Jayden Danns, Conor Bradley and Jones, who was "not the nicest kid on the planet" when coming through the ranks according to his manager, but now comes across as hugely thoughtful and likeable.

The key victories and defeats are all covered along with the relevant talking heads as we progress through the Klopp era, with little new information added to them bar a 5am singing session post-Kyiv Champions League final defeat, but anyone hoping for a fly on the wall experience in Liverpool's inner sanctums might be left disappointed.

We see Pep Lijnders hold a video session with Darwin Nunez, urging the Uruguayan to believe in himself more, we get to see the wholesome joy of Danns, then 18, entering the dressing room as a conquering hero after his FA Cup brace against Southampton, and we get Klopp's final dressing room speech to his players urging them to go on and achieve everything they can.

And almost 10 years on from his appointment what comes across from Doubters to Believers is the clear evidence that he left behind a club, a city and a fanbase transformed for the better, as well as players inspired by what they could do and empowered to try and achieve it.

And while everything he touched didn't quite turn to gold, it sure was fun to watch.

Doubters To Believers Liverpool FC: Klopp’s Era is available exclusively on Prime Video now

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