Didi Hamann has claimed that ‘you cannot compare’ Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp and claimed the silverware that the Spaniard has won as Manchester City boss ‘has not been enough’.
The 51-year-old former Barcelona boss failed to win the Champions League with Bayern Munich and is yet to do so with the Premier League club, and because of this, Hamann has claimed that the former Borussia Dortmund boss is, therefore, the better manager after lifting the trophy with the Reds in 2019.
“If you look at what Carlo Ancelotti has done over the last 20 years with the clubs he won the Champions League with, Mourinho won it with Inter Milan and before that with Porto,” Hamann told talkSPORT.
“Pep won it with Barcelona, but in Munich he took over a Champions League winning side and was there for three years and didn’t get to the final, he got knocked out of the semis three times – and two or three years after he left they won it again!
“My point is that he hasn’t done anything somebody else before him hasn’t done already.
“If you look at Klopp, he took Borussia Dortmund to a Champions League final and the Bundesliga title – which hasn’t been done since.
“And obviously he won the league for the first time in 30 years for Liverpool – he really galvanised that football club.
“I just don’t think you can compare them. I think what Klopp has done at Liverpool rates far higher than what Guardiola has done at City.
Hamann commended Klopp for his ability to regularly challenge Guardiola’s side despite there being a huge difference between the money each club has spent.
The German also explained that Guardiola has ‘always managed the best teams’ and had significant financial backing from the club’s owners.
“Everybody is going on about Guardiola that he’s the Godfather of managers, but if you actually look at his record over the last three years – yes he’s done great with City to get 100 points in a season, but Klopp didn’t spend half the money, he’s probably spent a quarter of the money and they have been running them close with 98 or 99 points, and this season it’s the same thing.
“Pep has spent nearly half a billion on centre-backs alone, and obviously last year they got to the Champions League final and I’ve got to say he lost the final, because he didn’t play Rodri.
“So I don’t understand how people can say ‘what Guardiola has done for football’. Yes, they might play a different brand, but then again, if he hadn’t had Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Sergio Busquets and Lionel Messi in his Barcelona team, he probably couldn’t have played that way.
“He has always managed the best teams and for the clubs he’s managed, and the teams he’s had and the money he’s spent over the years, I think it’s not enough.”
Guardiola has won the Premier League in three of the last four seasons, as well as picking up an FA Cup in 2018/19. The Spaniard has also won for League Cup trophies.
Meanwhile, Klopp has won a Premier League title, the Champions League, Super Cup, World Club Cup and League Cup during his time on Merseyside.
The FA Cup is the one trophy still missing from our boss’s trophy cabinet – he’ll be looking to take a huge step closer to getting his hand on the silverware when we face City at Wembley in the semi-final on Saturday.
Firstly, though, we need to ensure we progress through to the semi-final of Europe’s premier competition when we host Benfica at Anfield on Wednesday.
We hold a 3-1 lead over the Portuguese outfit after the first leg in Lisbon last week.