Jürgen Klopp has not taken charge of a single Germany game yet, but the mood around the national team has already shifted. You can hear it in Robert Huth’s voice.
The former Germany defender, speaking to GOAL via SportsbookReview.com, did not bother dressing it up.
Asked what Klopp needs to deliver to trigger the huge performance-related bonuses in his contract, Huth fired back: “Be less sh*t! The bar isn't very high, I think, at the moment.”
That line is crude. It is also honest. Germany have not looked like Germany for a long time.
A country snapping back to attention
Klopp’s appointment, Huth says, has done something that results and slogans have failed to do in recent years: it has pulled the country together before a ball has even been kicked.
“I think what that appointment has done already in Germany, without Germany having played a game yet, is kind of brought that togetherness straight away – which kind of happened on the day he was appointed,” Huth said. “Everyone was going, ‘yes, yes, now we've got that guy who we wanted 10 years ago’.”
There is a sting in that line too. Germany wanted Klopp a decade ago. Liverpool and Borussia Dortmund had him instead. Now, finally, the federation has the coach whose football and personality have defined an era in Europe.
He is not promising miracles. He is promising standards.
No clever words, no excuses
Huth’s excitement really kicks in when he talks about Klopp’s first press conference as national coach. It hit him not as a pundit, but as a former pro who suddenly felt the itch again.
“I don't know if you saw his first press conference, I was like, ‘oh, where are my boots, I want to put my boots back on and start playing again!’ Not that I would be selected, but do you know what I mean?”
That reaction came from the simplicity of the message.
“I can only imagine being an active player and listening to a press conference because there was no BS. There were no clever words. It was like, ‘listen, if you want to play for Germany, you're going to have to run a bit harder, you're going to have to fight harder, this is going to mean a bit more when you put the badge on’.”
No tactical jargon. No soft-soaping. Just a clear demand: work harder, care more, treat the shirt like it matters again.
Klopp also refused the easy route of blaming his predecessors.
“It could have been very easy to throw the previous managers under the bus, ‘that was rubbish’, which I don't think he did,” Huth pointed out. “He just went, ‘well, we need that bit more when comparing Germany to other nations that got further in the Euros and in the World Cup’.”
The message is blunt: others have gone further because they have done more. Germany must close that gap with effort and edge, not nostalgia.
From paper to pitch
The early signs behind the scenes please Huth. Klopp has immersed himself in the domestic scene, making himself visible where it matters.
“So, so far, he talks a good game. The feedback's been good from the Bundesliga clubs. He's gone to plenty of games in pre-season and in the club games. So it looks great on paper.”
Looks great on paper. The real test, of course, will come at tournaments, starting with the Euros on home soil in 2028 and the competitions leading into it.
Huth expects a very different Germany to the one that has stumbled through recent major finals.
“I fully imagine Germany is going to be a lot better in the upcoming tournaments than they have been in the past,” he said. He stopped short of declaring them favourites. Klopp’s Germany, he knows, will have to scrap with the heavyweights.
“Not to say that they're going to win it. I think even themselves said, ‘listen, we're going to try and win it, of course, that's the aim, but there's France, there's England, there's Brazil, there's Argentina, there's some proper other football nations out there, but we're going to get out there and certainly leave everything on a pitch’.”
That last line is the one that has been missing. Leaving everything on the pitch. For Huth, that has not been Germany’s reality “over the last few years”.
No wonder he finishes that thought with a simple rallying cry: “So I'm excited. Come on, Germany!”
From 2014 champions to 2020s drift
Huth does not sugar-coat the decline since the 2014 World Cup triumph in Brazil.
“We've been sh*t since 2014 so a semi-final would be all right,” he admitted, setting a realistic benchmark for a nation that once treated last-four exits as failure.
The standard has dropped. The aura has faded. The expectation now is not automatic glory, but visible progress and a return to a recognisable identity.
That is where Klopp comes in.
Chasing Klopp’s chaos
What would success look like under Klopp? Huth’s answer does not start with silverware. It starts with style.
“If Germany can replicate any kind of Liverpool's and Dortmund's intensity, pace, energy, spirit, I'm getting excited!” he said.
The former defender knows the international game is a different beast. Less time on the training ground. Fewer matches. Less continuity.
“I know it's difficult to replicate it in the national team,” he admitted. “But if they can do it, if you can do it, that would be heavy metal football!”
Heavy metal football. The phrase that followed Klopp from Dortmund to Liverpool now hangs over the national team like a challenge.
Germany do not just want to win again. They want to sound like Klopp’s teams, feel like them, suffocate opponents with that same relentless, chest-thumping energy.
The bar, as Huth put it, “isn't very high” right now. The question is no longer whether Germany can be better.
It is whether Klopp can turn a drifting giant back into the loudest band on the international stage.
