SPECIAL FIRST LUC

Jurgen's smile high arrival

- CHRIS MCKENNA

IT WAS October 2015 and a few Liverpool players who were not away on international duty nervously waited in the physio room at the club’s old training ground to meet their new boss.

“Well he was very tall,” said Lucas Leiva, when asked what his first impression of Jurgen Klopp was.

The German may have been imposing in size but he would go on to have a gargantuan impact on what was then a sleeping giant of a football club.

“He was smiling and very positive,” said the Brazilian midfielder. “From that moment we felt that something special was starting.”

It is impossible to build without foundations and Lucas was one of those who may not have been around to see the finished construction, but played a part in laying that groundwork.

Klopp was taking over from Brendan Rodgers. It was not a club in ruins but the buzz from a near-miss league title challenge 17 months previously had vanished.