Saturday may be Dortmund’s only shot at European glory

There is no word in English to describe the characteristic facial expression of Jurgen Klopp. "Smile" is not enough, "grin" doesn't do it justice either. More extreme terms like "rictus" are suggestive of insincerity, as though it's built into the language itself that anyone who is smiling that much isn't really smiling.

The German language allows you to build new words out of smaller ones. Instead of having to think up a new name like "Santa Claus", you can call the guy who delivers presents at Christmas "Weihnachtsmann", or "Christmasman". So Germans can call what Klopp has on his face a "Dauergrinsen", without it sounding as contrived as "perma-grin" would in English.

Klopp comes from the south-western county of Freudenstadt, which means "City of Joys." The 45-year old's boundless positive energy is unrivalled in the game. His relentless bonhomie can remind you of The S impsons tycoon Hank Scorpio.

Klopp would say he is just a regular guy with a lot to be happy about, a C-grade student and B-grade footballer who has risen to the top of coaching’s A-list. “I’m confidence made flesh,” he told an adoring audience at the Sports University of Cologne last year. “I should be a shining example to all of you. If I can make it, so can anybody. That’s a fact.”

There is nothing startlingly original in the way Klopp talks about football. He tells the media that he tells his players all the usual things. It’s an 11-man game. Work for each other and you will share in the rewards. Never give up. Don’t worry about the things you can’t change, and change the things you can. Be your own harshest critic. Give everything, even though you can’t get everything. Be yourself: the moment you try to be somebody else, you’ve already lost.

Nobody likes people who deal exclusively in inspirational slogans, so Klopp undercuts the Mr Motivator act with humour, by turns self-deprecating and ironically self-aggrandising. Reports of his Cologne lecture praised his use of "Running Gags" (a case where German borrows the phrase from English). When they asked Klopp if he'd come to save FC Cologne, who had just been relegated, he said: "A plastic surgeon would say: 'I don't deal with beheadings.'"

When Dortmund won the double last summer, the open-top bus parade took six hours to get through the packed city streets. Impressed by the hero-worship of Klopp, the football magazine 11 Freunde (11 Friends) asked him whether he was familiar with the ancient Roman custom of having a slave stand behind the triumphant conqueror, whispering in his ear: "Remember you are a man." Klopp replied that there was no chance of forgetting his humanity on that bus parade, as he drank so much beer that he had spent the whole time bursting for the toilet.

Celebrating goals
He projects a youthful zest, storming around his technical area and celebrating goals like a player. He uses the (English) word "cool" more than any other football manager. Dortmund were knocked out of last year's Champions League at the group stage because they struggled "cool zu bleiben", to stay cool. He used the same word about his hair transplant - "it looks pretty cool, don't you think?" – and his large salary – "it's cool to earn so much for doing what I love".

Klopp insists, however, that "money was never the reason for me to get out of bed in the morning." If so, that's one difference between him and a man who will command almost as much screen time during Saturday's Champions League final: FC Bayern president Uli Hoeness.

Hoeness' business nous built Bayern into Germany's richest club. Now it has emerged that he loved money not wisely but too well. Germany has been scandalised by the revelation that Hoeness controlled a secret Swiss bank account containing a slush fund provided by the billionaire former chief executive of adidas, Robert Louis-Dreyfus. Hoeness used the cash to speculate on stocks and neglected to pay tax on the proceeds.

The affair could well cost Hoeness his position at Bayern, but the financial power he built will remain. Bayern's players earn on average three times more than Dortmund's. The imbalance has not escaped the notice of the Dortmund players. Mario Götze has already agreed to join Bayern for next season, and Robert Lewandowski is thought likely to follow.

Watching his best players join Bayern must ruffle even Klopp’s legendary savoir-faire. He knows this is how football works, but that doesn’t make it easier to take. The Dortmund fans showed their contempt for Götze’s decision with a banner that read: “Striving after money shows how much heart one really has. F*** you Götze.”

Klopp was more diplomatic. He pointed out that Moenchengladbach probably hadn't liked it when Dortmund signed their best player, Marco Reus. After all, it would be foolish to act as though he himself would never be confronted with the same choice Götze had to make.

Dortmund have been praised for embodying the values of togetherness and team spirit in a sport that appeared to be ruled by money. Because football really is ruled by money, Saturday might be their only shot at European glory before the team crumbles. Then people will speculate whether Dortmund’s fans will one day have to make another angry banner, this time for Klopp.