THERE was disbelief on the streets of Liverpool. Supporters of Liverpool FC were shocked at the news that the club’s manager, who had created a sporting contender with the spirit of the city at its heart, had just announced he would leave the club.

This was July 12 1974, when Liverpool’s then chairman, John Smith, announced that Bill Shankly would retire.

“He said he gets very tired, the pressures are great and he wants a rest,” local reporter Tony Wilson told incredulous fans around Liverpool on that day.

The supporters refused to believe that Shankly, who had managed the club for 15 years and established its underlying, almost political principles, as well as a platform for sporting success, was packing it in.

Nearly 50 years later, there has been a similar reaction as Liverpool’s current manager, Jurgen Klopp, announced that he will leave the club at the end of the season.

“I am running out of energy,” said Klopp, in a video released by the club today.

The fatigue from building an institution to such a level, or in Klopp’s case rebuilding it to previous levels, takes its toll.

When Shankly was appointed manager in 1959, Liverpool were a second division club. By 1966 they had been promoted back to the First Division and had won two league titles and an FA Cup.

By the time Shankly left in ‘74, the club had won another league title and a Uefa Cup in 1973, and won the 1974 FA Cup final in what turned out to be Shankly’s last game in charge.

Even though silverware is required to show that this process could achieve sporting aims, Shankly’s 15 years as Liverpool's manager was about much more than trophies and titles.

It was about instilling a way of playing, changing the mentality, and forging the fabric of the club.

Shankly laid the foundations and Bob Paisley, Shankly’s successor who won six league titles and three European Cups in nine years, built the house.

By the time Klopp arrived in 2015, a huge rebuild and renovation job was required. The task facing him was almost as big as that facing Shankly and the subsequent job done just as significant.

Liverpool had still won the occasional trophy throughout the ’90s and ’00s but were not the force they once were. Opposition teams fancied their chances at Anfield and the “bastion of invincibility” Shankly strived to create was broken.

Nowadays, the big hurdles and chasms in football exist within the Premier League itself as well as across the first and second divisions.

The greatest, and in many ways defining challenge of Klopp’s Liverpool tenure was to be catching Manchester City, especially once Pep Guardiola arrived in Manchester in 2016.

But when Klopp joined Liverpool, they were not even regulars in the Champions League and regular title challenges seemed some way away.

Aside from finishing runners-up in 2014, Liverpool’s other league finishes prior to Klopp’s arrival were 7th, 6th, 8th, 7th, and 6th.

As much as that 2014 season offered momentary hope the club could win its first title of the Premier League era, it soon felt like an unrealistic aim once again.

Klopp joined mid-way through the 2015/16 season, on October 8, 2015, and the team finished the season in 8th.

The top four had become a league of its own which teams on the outside needed to break into.

That in itself was a difficult task, as shown by Liverpool’s league placings during that seven-year period.

Then Guardiola joined Man City and the task became even more difficult. City themselves were in a league of their own.

Merely challenging City, never mind overcoming them, required a monumental effort.

A 97-point haul for Liverpool in 2018-19 was only good enough for second as City finished top with 98 points. It was a similar story in 2022 when Liverpool finished second on 92 points but City won the league with 93.

The season they did win the league in 2020, Liverpool were almost perfect. They had to be, and Klopp made them so. They only dropped points in one of their first 27 league games of the 2019-20 season — a draw with Man United.

By the time the league was suspended due to the Covid pandemic in March, Liverpool had 82 points from 29 games. When the season resumed in June and all games had been played, the runners-up Man City themselves only had 82 points.

The necessity for near-perfection to win the league produced a spell of games prior to the Covid break that meant even if Liverpool had not resumed playing when all the other teams did, and not collected any more than that initial 82 points, they would still have won the league on goal difference.

It gave them a first title in the Premier League era. Their first in 30 years. But Klopp’s team was about much more than a league title.

It was arguably the best team Liverpool had ever had. It didn’t have the trophies of those ’80s sides, but it contained world-class players across the park, some of whom will go down as Liverpool’s best-ever in their respective positions.

This Klopp team also played outstanding football, drawing plaudits and influencing the game across the world.

Klopp brought Liverpool into the modern era. His arrival meant they now had a plan put in place by one of this era’s most influential tacticians and his coaching team, and a recruitment structure to find the players to fit these plans and this new mentality.

Liverpool were a European team again. A global team. Not just in terms of the competitions in which they played, but in the way their style of play transcended these competitions and influenced other teams, players, and coaches.

What Guardiola had done at Barcelona, Bayern, and Man City; Klopp had done in his own way at Mainz 05, Borussia Dortmund, and Liverpool. They each collected and absorbed their own influences, channelling them to produce something effective and entertaining at the top level.

For Klopp, these influences are primarily his old friend Wolfgang Frank, and Arrigo Sacchi. During their time together at Mainz, he and Frank would watch videos of Sacchi’s Milan.

“We used to think before then that if the other players are better, you have to lose,” Klopp said. “After that, we learned anything is possible. You can beat better teams by using tactics.”

Under Klopp, and using those tactics, Liverpool eventually became that better team once again. He has guided them to seven major finals during his tenure, winning both the EFL Cup and FA Cup last season — the club’s first FA Cup win since 2006.

There was a first-ever Club World Cup win in 2019 on the back of winning the Champions League in the same year — the club’s first since 2005.

This season, with a refreshed, new-look line-up consisting of new signings and academy graduates, Liverpool are still challenging in all four of the competitions they entered at the start of the season.

Klopp has turned Liverpool into challengers once again, but he has also rediscovered the spirit of the club that was instilled by Shankly.

His departure will be felt by fans just as much as Shankly’s was in 1974.