Klopp Confirms He’ll Talk to Germany. But Red Bull Isn’t Letting Go Easy.

Jurgen Klopp is ready to sit down with the German Football Association (DFB) about taking over the national team job. Julian Nagelsmann resigned after Germany lost to Paraguay in a penalty shootout at the World Cup, marking another tournament where the four-time champions couldn’t win a knockout game since 2014.

The DFB moved fast. They confirmed they’d seek talks with Klopp and said he’d already shown a ‘general willingness’ to take the position. Klopp himself acknowledged the interest, telling Sky Sports Germany that only ‘time’ stands between now and an agreement.

But there’s a catch. Klopp is Red Bull’s Head of Global Soccer, a role he took in January 2025. He oversees their whole club network — RB Leipzig, Red Bull Salzburg, the New York Red Bulls, all of it. His contract reportedly includes a clause that lets him leave if the German national team job opens up, but he still wants to exit cleanly.

‘I have an existing contract with Red Bull. I like to honor contracts,’ Klopp said. ‘But I am interested in having talks. They will have to be intensive talks.’ He mentioned he needs to talk to his boss, Oliver Mintzlaff, who reportedly cares deeply about German soccer. ‘Red Bull needs to come out of this cleanly. It’s not that easy to step away from it.’

Germany is in full crisis mode. They hammered Curacao 7-1 in their World Cup opener, but then looked shaky against Ivory Coast and lost to Ecuador. The Paraguay game was their first ever shootout defeat at a World Cup. That’s a brutal stat for a program that used to own penalty kicks.

Klopp doesn’t think Nagelsmann was the problem. He called it a ‘turning point’ for the country and said Germany needs to ‘fundamentally change things.’ Whether it’s him or someone else, he argued, the changes have to happen.

Klopp has been working as a TV pundit at this World Cup. Right after the Paraguay loss, he shut down questions about his future, saying it wasn’t the time. But now it’s time. The DFB wants him. Red Bull has to decide if they’ll let him go. And Klopp has to decide if he’s ready to take on the biggest rebuilding job in world soccer.