‘I can’t believe what Jürgen Klopp just did for me – Liverpool boss is right about special club’

The end of the Jürgen Klopp era is almost upon us: with 489 games gone, two more remain. Labeling Liverpool a ‘special’ club in his very first press conference at Anfield, it would be an understatement to say the feeling of respect between manager and club is reciprocated.

And that was summed up last Thursday, when Liverpool-based artist Abigail Rudkin went viral after she was invited to meet the Liverpool manager. The video of the pair — requested by Klopp — has been viewed 1.7 million times on her Twitter/X page alone. “Getting four Klopp hugs in one day is my biggest achievement in life!” she wrote on Instagram.

“I did a female empowerment event with the LFC Foundation and I managed to mention at the time that my main aim for the year was to try and get Jürgen to see some of my artwork,” Rudkin tells Liverpool.com. “Thankfully, someone from the LFC Foundation managed to sort it out for me.

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“The next thing I knew, I was taking my painting down to see Jürgen and it was amazing! I never thought that he would be able to see my art. I’ve been a self-employed artist for about four years, painting especially moments that he has brought to us, and the fact that I was finally able to show him a big piece about his time at Liverpool, to commemorate him, was amazing.

“He absolutely loved it. I’ve had some of his backroom team like some of my work and I have thought sometimes, ‘I wonder if they have ever shown Jürgen?’. I’ve got a flag on The Kop as well with one of my artworks on, and I always think ‘I hope he’s seen that’.

“He asked me to do the video. It wasn’t asking me to do the video with him — he said ‘Come on, we need to do a video’. I couldn’t believe it. You can see in the video that I didn’t ask him to do it! I’d never been that cheeky!

“I just expected to go in, he’d see it, and we’d get a picture. He said that it nearly brought him to tears, and when I got home and rewatched the video, it was like a borderline out-of -body experience! Is that actually hugging me Jürgen?

“And then Virgil van Dijk turned up! He was walking down the stairs and I couldn’t believe it. He came over and spoke to us for a few minutes and he was asking me how long did the painting take.

“I couldn’t believe I was talking to Virgil van Dijk about the painting that I did for Jürgen Klopp! Honestly, it was a crazy experience. I said I’d do one for when Van Dijk leaves, but I said please don’ I won’t leave any time soon!”

Klopp was even asked about the heartwarming moment during his post-match press conference after the Reds beat Spurs at Anfield. “I met Abigail, what a wonderful girl she is, obviously very talented,” he replied.

“I’m really happy that we (Liverpool) have these kinds of people. We have thousands, maybe one hundred thousand people who are creative, who create things, who paint different faces on the wall, where you think ‘my god’! Other clubs don’t do that that frequently.”

“I was coming out of the ground and obviously the signal isn’t great,” Rudkin explains. “When we got to the car, I started getting texts saying ‘Jürgen’s just mentioned you in his press conference!’. People were tweeting me saying ‘he’s talking about you’.

“I got the video up on YouTube but it wasn’t mentioned until the end, so I was trying to fast-forward it and my signal wasn’t loading fast enough! Finally, the video caught up and we had it on in the car with my dad and my uncle and we were all sat there in disbelief.

“The person who asks the question says ‘The girl who did the painting’ and Jürgen goes ‘Abigail!’. He actually remembered what my name was! That was the maddest part for me — the fact that he mentioned my name. He makes everyone feels comfortable with him.”

It is for that reason that Klopp’s final game at Anfield, now less than a fortnight away, is going to be an emotional occasion. The German won’t want the day to be about him — and it would have been a monumental event had the Premier League title been on the line — but the fixture against Wolves will ultimately be all about his send-off.

No replacement has been officially named yet, but Feyenoord boss Arne Slot is expected to take over at Anfield. It will be some achievement to match the bond that Klopp has with the Liverpool fanbase but there is a precedent of sorts.

“If he can get us all behind him and have that sort of harmony between fans and players, that is the sort of thing that Jürgen brought to us — just the word unity,” Rudkin adds. “It looks like it will be Arne Slot and it looks like he has done that with Feyenoord. A lot of their fans are devastated to lose him and that is a good thing — that’s what I’m clinging onto.

“If they are devastated to lose him, there’s got to be something about him. It’s not just the style of football that they’re going to miss — it sounds as though they are all going to miss him. That’s what you want: we want someone who we can all adore and can sit in the stands with us, like I hope Jürgen does when he leaves.”