Jurgen Klopp was named men’s coach of the year at the FIFA Best Football Awards after Liverpool’s remarkable Premier League-winning season.
The Reds followed up their 2019 Champions League success by winning the domestic title in dominant fashion.
Here, the PA news agency looks at the results which earned Klopp the accolade for a second straight year.
Liverpool began the year as they meant to go on, in the midst of what would become an 18-match winning run in the Premier League before February’s defeat to Watford.
That sequence, which had started in October 2019, matched Manchester City’s record for the longest in the Premier League era and Liverpool also equalled City’s record of 32 wins in a season in the competition.
Three draws and three defeats meant a final tally of 99 points as the title was wrapped up with a record seven games still to play.
Results in other competitions were less spectacular, with last-16 exits in both the FA Cup and Champions League while their League Cup campaign ended early against Aston Villa.
The latter defeat, though, came with a shadow side while Klopp’s first team were busy winning the FIFA Club World Cup – an accolade which was wrapped up in 2019, but within the 12-month period up to the presentation of Klopp’s award.
Overall, the Reds’ record in all competitions in 2020, up to the awards ceremony, read played 47, won 29, drew 10, lost eight. That is a win rate of 61.7 per cent, while they have scored 91 goals and conceded 52.
Mohamed Salah scored 24 of those goals and Sadio Mane 14, with nine apiece for Roberto Firmino and summer signing Diogo Jota.
Klopp’s Premier League title win added to two in the German Bundesliga, in 2011 and 2012, with his Borussia Dortmund side also winning the domestic cup in the latter season.
He was named Premier League and LMA manager of the season after Liverpool’s title victory, following his FIFA, Onze d’Or and German football manager of the year nods in 2019 – his third German award, to add to both Dortmund’s title-winning seasons.
