Herve Renard has cultivated a recognisable image of a manager in a crisp white shirt, though insisted the decision was more to do with superstition than image.
The Saudi Arabia boss joked that Jurgen Klopp was most certainly concerned with his image to some degree given the efforts he’d taken to correct his eyesight and get ‘the perfect teeth’.
“I’m wearing the white shirt because it’s a winning shirt,” he says. “Now it has to be a winning shirt in Asia. I’m very comfortable. I’m a bit superstitious, like a lot of people in football. So now people are talking about it, I won’t change. I will finish my career like this even if I don’t win anything more, but I hope I will win something else.”
“Renard gives the impression of being more image-conscious than, say, Jurgen Klopp, with his baseball cap and tracksuit. But he points out the Liverpool manager “now has no glasses” (after laser eye surgery last year) and “has the perfect teeth… so he also is thinking about his image!”
“He laughs again. “I’m comfortable like this,” he says. “This is the most important thing.”
The French coach secured a dramatic win over Argentina in their opening group stage game at the World Cup, overcoming a first-half deficit to turn the tables on Leo Messi and Co.
As far as image is concerned, we’d argue that our Champions League-winning boss has absolutely no problems in that area – indeed, the cap and glasses was a trademark combo for the former Borussia Dortmund boss.
Ultimately, Klopp has followed a similar level of rationale as Renard in opting for a tracksuit in the pursuit of what he feels most comfortable in.
Frankly, we couldn’t really care what the German turns up in, as he’s more than earned the right to dress how he pleases.
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