Who is "unique" Liverpool assistant coach Pep Lijnders

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GiveMeSport

·27 January 2024

Who is "unique" Liverpool assistant coach Pep Lijnders

Highlights

Jurgen Klopp and his assistant manager, Pep Lijnders, will both leave Liverpool at the end of the 2023/24 season. Other coaches Peter Krawietz and Vitor Matos will also depart.
Lijnders had early coaching experience at PSV Eindhoven and Porto, where he worked under notable managers and developed his coaching philosophy.
Lijnders returned to Liverpool in 2018 and has been a key figure in the club's success, winning major trophies alongside Klopp. He is unlikely to take over as manager but is eager to pursue his own managerial career.

At the end of the 2023/24 season, Jurgen Klopp will leave Liverpool. The announcement of his exit shocked many and sent waves through the footballing community. However, he isn't the only coach to be leaving the Premier League club either.

It was also revealed that assistant manager Pep Lijnders will depart at the same time – alongside other coaches Peter Krawietz and Vitor Matos. CEO Billy Hogan explained that Lijnders and Matos "want to get going in their managerial careers", and so it looks as though Klopp's right-hand man will soon be calling the shots at a different football club.

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The charismatic German, naturally, gets most of the media attention. But here at GIVEMESPORT, we want to tell you more about the Liverpool assistant manager. And so, with his career set to potentially head in an exciting new direction, we've got all the information you could need on Lijnders. Read on to find out more below.

Early coaching career

PSV and Porto

Pepijn 'Pep' Lijnders was born in the Dutch village of Broekhuizen in Jnauary 1983. Now 41, he began his career in 2002 at PSV Eindhoven, working with youth players and helping with the individual development of the club's footballers as well.

In 2007, he joined Porto to help develop their youth academy. In his time with the Portuguese club, he worked under notable managers just as Jesualdo Ferreira, Andre Villas-Boas, Vítor Pereira and Paulo Fonseca. Lijnders would later explain how important his time here would be for his development as a coach, saying:

"'There is no collective without good players and there is no success without a collective' - this sentence captures best how my ideas evolved during my time with Porto. I changed from a coach who had, as a starting point, individual development to a coach who started looking differently to the game itself. "I never changed the essence - high-intensity, attacking football - I changed my way of thinking about [it], and especially the way to train it. I got more structure in my ideas, a better hierarchy of my principles. Tactical periodisation became my frame. It was a beautiful time."

First spell at Liverpool

Developing Alexander-Arnold

Having impressed at Porto, Lijnders moved to England in 2014, initially taking on a role as the U16s coach in the Liverpool Academy. After just one season, he was promoted to the newly created position of first-team development coach.

He worked under Brendan Rodgers during this period before Klopp arrived in October 2015. With the German at the helm, the Dutch coach took on even more responsibility, becoming a key figure in the new manager's backroom team.

On the official Liverpool website, Lijnders is even credited with specifically aiding the "progress of the likes of Trent Alexander-Arnold and Ben Woodburn". The former has gone on to become of of the club's best players and indeed one of the the Premier League's best players.

Teams coach

NEC Nijmegen

In January 2018, he left Anfield to embark on the first and only senior coaching role of his career. Lijnders would return to the Netherlands to take on a role as NEC Nijmegen manager.

It did not go well for the 41-year-old though as he was sacked in May 2018, just five months into his one-and-a-half-year contract. The issue was that the Dutchman failed to get the club promoted to the Eredivisie via the promotion play-offs. Although on paper, his time in charge wasn't a complete disaster.

Lijnders oversaw 22 games, winning half of them, but losing seven. He employed a 4-3-3 formation for the most part but his plans came undone during the semi-finals of the player-offs. NEC Nijmegen lost 4-0 in the first leg against FC Emmen and couldn't quite do enough in the home fixture, despite winning 4-1.

Return to Liverpool

Champions League and Premier League titles

After getting the sack, Klopp and co were more than happy to quickly bring him back to Merseyside. And so, Lijnders re-joined the staff as Liverpool assistant once more ahead of the 2018/19 campaign.

Since then, the club have gone from strength to strength. At the end of that season, they won the Champions League and then followed that up by lifting the Reds' first-ever Premier League title in 2019/20.

During his time with Liverpool, Lijnders has also won the Club World Cup, FA Cup, and League Cup. Notably, all of Klopp's honours at Anfield have come with the Dutchman by his side.

, Klopp was full of praise for Lijnders, saying:

“Pep is unique. I’ve never met anyone like him before and I’m not sure I’ll be fortunate enough to do so again in the future. He is studious and coaching-obsessed; he believes in the training process with a passion I’ve never seen before."

Job rumours

Won't take over from Klopp

The first thing to say about Lijnders is that he is very unlikely to take over from Klopp, despite some talk about him being an option. Before the German announced his departure, there was a feeling in certain quarters that his assistant was "very much the Reds’ next manager-in-waiting". However, this possibility has already been ruled out.

Indeed, the Dutch coach will leave Liverpool at the same time as his manager and head in a different direction instead. It remains unclear where that could take him at this stage, though.

It should come as no surprise that he wants to become a senior boss. After all, Lijnders told the TGG Podcast in 2023: “I only want to assist Jurgen. After that, I go for myself.”

Salary and book

Net worth: £787k - £2.36m

It's not known exactly how much Lijnders gets paid per week at Liverpool, but his net worth is estimated to be between US$1m-US$3m (£787k - £2.36m), per The Sports Grail. Interestingly enough, he once bet his entire salary on the idea that he could transform Alexander-Arnold's position.

With the Reds struggling to control games, the 41-year-old wanted to move the right-back into more of a central midfield position. His joking bet was enough to get Klopp on board and the plan worked perfectly as Liverpool went unbeaten in the 10 remaining games of the campaign.

Lijnders' net worth will also be helped by his book Intensity - Inside Liverpool FC. Published in 2022, it delivers a "compelling account of the 2021/22 season" and can be bought from the club's official website for £20.

Although, it hasn't been popular with everyone as former player Didi Hamann angrily said after the book's release: "The alarm bells should have been ringing for Liverpool fans when the current assistant manager wrote a book while still employed by the club. How he was allowed to do it I'm not too sure..."