Jürgen Klopp Talks About ‘Absolutely Brilliant’ Initiation Night

Photo by Andrew Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images

The annual preseason karaoke night took place in Austria this year.

One of the famous rites of passage for a new Liverpool player is belting out a karaoke song during the annual initiation night at the end of preseason. This year, the Reds are in Austria, so their team building night took place in a restaurant in the mountains.

It always seems to be a fun time, but this year, Jürgen Klopp seems especially impressed with the atmosphere of the restaurant, the live band he name-checks several times - Son of Kurt! - the the top performances by the players and staff. The purpose of this event is to promote togetherness and let the players unwind after a heavy month of preparations for the new season.

Klopp talked about it with the official site and said, “So, I’m not a social media guy, obviously, for five million right reasons how I see it. But that was a night each second should have been on a video, and we should’ve thrown it into the world and it would have been, ‘What?! How is that possible?’ It was completely spontaneous and not planned.”

When asked who were the standout performers, Klopp shouted out several staff members.

“There were too many, too many. Yinka [Ademuyiwa] was great, absolutely, the kit man. Great. Brendan [McIlduff] was great as well. The boss! Billy Hogan! I have to say…” he enthused. “Lena [Aschenbrenner] looked like an angel, sang like an angel, then near the end, Dua Lipa… Dua and Lipa [Lorna and Shauna] – One Kiss Is All It Takes was really good. It’s so difficult because you always thought, ‘Oh my God. The next who is coming? How would we [top that]?’ Unbelievable but it happened quite a few times.”

The energy coming out of the club seems very high, with all of their transfer business done early and seamlessly, few injuries, and plenty of time for this new team to come together. That will be put to the test in only a week and a half when the new season kicks off and Liverpool go barreling headfirst into the thick of it once again.