Lewandowski Pays Glowing Tribute To Klopp For Career Highs

Klopp signed Lewandowski from Lech Poznan in the summer of 2010 for Borussia Dortmund and started the journey of transforming the Pole into one of Europe’s deadliest strikers.

Now considered a master of his craft, Lewandowski was recently named as the FIFA Men’s Best Player of the year for 2020 after helping Bayern Munich to the UEFA Champions League trophy, DFB-Pokal and the German Bundesliga.

The 32-year-old has also started the current season in stunning fashion, having already netted 20 times in the German top flight after just 14 games.

Writing in a reflective piece for the Players' Tribune in the wake of his FIFA award win, Lewandowski said of the current Liverpool boss: "Jurgen was not only a father figure to me. As a coach, he was like the 'bad teacher'. And I mean that in the best sense of the word.

"Not the one who made life easy for you and never expected anything from you, but the one who was strict with you. The one who put pressure on you and did everything to get the best out of you. That's the teacher who made you better. Jurgen was like that.

"He was not content to let you be a B-grade student. Jurgen wanted A+ students. He didn't want it for him. He wanted it for you.

"I could talk to Jurgen about anything. I could trust him. He is a family man, and he has so much empathy for what goes on in your private life."

"He taught me so much," the striker continued. "When I arrived at Dortmund, I wanted to do everything quickly: strong pass, one touch only. Jurgen showed me to calm down — to take two touches if necessary.

"It was totally against my nature, but soon I was scoring more goals. When I had that down, he challenged me to speed it up again.

"One touch. BANG. Goal. He slowed me down to speed me up. It sounds simple, but it was genius, really."