Jurgen Klopp is German, born in Stuttgart on June 16, 1967, and for the past two weeks he has looked more and more like the answer to the question the German Football Association has been asking since early July: who takes over Die Mannschaft after a World Cup exit nobody in Frankfurt wanted to explain twice. DFB president Bernd Neuendorf and vice president Hans-Joachim Watzke sat down with Klopp in New York and, in the federation’s own words, reached “an understanding on essential key points of a potential contract.” That is not a signature. It is close to one.
The meeting matters because of what preceded it. Julian Nagelsmann’s Germany lost to Paraguay on penalties in the round of 32 of the 2026 World Cup, a stunning early exit for a four-time champion. Nagelsmann asked to be released from his contract on July 2, and the DFB’s supervisory board approved the split unanimously on July 3. In his farewell statement, Nagelsmann said the squad “deserved the chance of an unburdened fresh start” after such a bitter disappointment.
What Neuendorf and Watzke Actually Agreed To
Per the DFB’s own account of the July 10 meeting, first reported on the federation’s official site, this was only “a first intensive conversation” about Klopp taking the Bundestrainer job. The talks were set to continue the following week, and the DFB said in its statement that “both sides are confident that the negotiations, subject to an agreement with Klopp’s current employer, Red Bull, can ultimately be successfully concluded.” Even a completed handshake deal still needs sign-off from a joint session of the supervisory board and shareholders’ meeting of DFB GmbH & Co. KG before it is binding. Reports around the meeting put the contract length at roughly four years, through the 2030 World Cup, though the DFB has not confirmed that duration itself.
The Red Bull Complication
Klopp has spent the past year and a half as Head of Global Soccer for the Red Bull group, a role overseeing the club network that includes RB Leipzig and RB Salzburg. Multiple reports describe an exit arrangement that lets him leave without the DFB paying Red Bull a compensation fee, a notable concession given how central Klopp has been to that project. What happens to his relationship with Red Bull after that, whether he stays connected in some ambassador capacity or cuts ties entirely, is one of the details still being worked out, and reporting on that point has been inconsistent. Nothing here is finalized until Klopp’s release from Red Bull is.
Krawietz and Lijnders Would Follow Him
A new bench would not mean a solo act. Peter Krawietz, his longtime assistant dating back to their Mainz days and through Dortmund and Liverpool, and Pepijn Lijnders, who coached alongside him at Anfield, are both expected to join the staff. That would push out Nagelsmann’s remaining assistants, continuing a wholesale reset of the technical setup that started the moment the plane landed from North America.
Why the DFB Wants Him
The appeal goes well beyond a famous name. Klopp won two Bundesliga titles at Borussia Dortmund, in 2010-11 and 2011-12, plus the domestic double in the second of those seasons, before Watzke’s old employer lost him to Liverpool in 2015. Over nine seasons on Merseyside, Klopp collected seven major trophies: the 2019 Champions League, the 2019 UEFA Super Cup, the 2019 Club World Cup, the 2019-20 Premier League title with a club-record 99 points, the 2022 FA Cup and League Cup double, and another League Cup in 2024 before he left that May. Watzke worked with him for seven of those Dortmund years as club CEO, a relationship both sides have pointed to as the reason talks moved as fast as they did.
Unofficial reports on what Klopp would actually earn have varied widely, with some pegging the figure near €7 million a year and others as high as €10-12 million. Any of those figures would make him the best-paid coach in DFB history, and none have been confirmed by the federation itself. What is confirmed, straight from the DFB, is that he has “already signaled his fundamental willingness” to take the job, which is more than can be said for the contract itself right now.
For a federation trying to move past a round-of-16 exit it did not see coming, that willingness is the headline. The paperwork is still catching up. Follow the rest of the Soccer coverage on Playbook Wire as the World Cup itself heads into its final stretch, with Argentina already through to the final while Germany sorts out who leads it into the next one.
