The Melwood Training Ground lay wrapped in the thin, silver mist of early morning, the kind of mist that softens every edge and muffles every sound, as though the world itself were still half-asleep.
Frost lingered in the shadowed corners where the pale November sun hadn't yet reached, and the grass stretched out in a cool, unbroken carpet of damp green, each blade bowed under the weight of dew, glistening like scattered glass when the light caught it at just the right angle.
It felt unusually empty.
Even the groundskeepers hadn't arrived yet to run their heavy rollers across the pitch. The corridors of the training complex, normally active with the low beating of studs on concrete and the back-and-forth of squad banter, lay perfectly silent.
Liverpool had given the entire squad the day off in a rare and well-earned gift after the resounding derby victory that had sent Anfield into hours of roaring celebration.
Most players were still deep in warm beds across the city. Some were already boarding flights home to their families.
And yet, cutting through the silence like a metronome set against the stillness, a crisp and rhythmic sound rang out across the deserted pitch.
Thud.
Thud. Thud.
Julien was already there.
He had arranged a series of practice dummies around the penalty area in a careful formation of his own design—some positioned tightly together to simulate a packed defensive wall, others spaced wide to represent markers drifting out of position.
He moved through his shooting drills with precision: tight near-post finishes from the edge of the six-yard box, curling efforts from twenty-five yards that bent around the outermost dummy and dipped beneath an invisible crossbar, low driven strikes pulled hard across the face of goal.
His training kit was already dark with sweat. The hair at his temples clung in damp spirals against his skin.
Each strike carried the same focused intention from foot placement, hip angle, follow-throughs. Even alone, with no teammates or staff to observe him, there was nothing casual in how he moved.
Every repetition had the seriousness of a craftsman at his bench.
Again. Again. Again.
"Good rhythm, Julien."
The voice drifted across from the sideline warmly, carrying the faint texture of a German accent worn smooth by years abroad.
Klopp stood at the edge of the pitch, hands tucked into the front pocket of his signature dark tracksuit jacket, the Liverpool crest stitched neatly above his heart.
The morning mist curled lazily around his boots.
Beside him, half a step behind as was his habit, stood Željko Buvač—a lean, quietly attentive figure in a plain grey jacket, a tablet tucked under one arm, dark eyes already moving across the arrangement of practice dummies with what looked like tactical assessment.
He said nothing. He rarely did, at first.
Buvač had worked alongside Klopp for nearly thirteen years, following him from the modest terraces of Mainz to the roaring yellow wall of Dortmund to the red river of Anfield.
He was a man of remarkable air—no performance, no small talk, no sentiment that wasn't earned. Where Klopp filled a room with a pulling energy and warmth, Buvač observed everything and revealed little.
Within the coaching staff, it is said their was a nickname for him given by the gaffer himself: the brain.
Julien turned, spotted them both, and immediately stopped his drill. He jogged over with a wide grin, his breath misting faintly in the cold air. "Boss, Mr. Buvač—what brings you two in today? I thought it was a day off for everyone."
Klopp's laugh came out full and genuine, the kind that made nearby people instinctively smile in return. "Just checking whether the Premier League's top scorer is slacking off,"
He said with his eyes already crinkling at the corners with the joke because of course, if anyone in the entire squad was going to be out here at dawn on a rest day, hammering shots into a net alone in the mist, it was Julien.
Julien laughed along, running a forearm across his forehead.
"Take a breather," Klopp said, and his tone shifted, "Come have a look at this."
He nodded toward Buvač, who gave a single quiet nod in return, produced the tablet, and opened a folder of footage from the previous day's match—specifically the sequences in which Everton had organized their defensive shape around Julien.
They gathered near the edge of the penalty area, the three of them were standing close, shoulders almost touching, the mist drifting softly around them like students huddled over a diagram in a quiet library.
"Yesterday was a perfect performance from you," Klopp began, settling into the rhythm he used when analyzing with slower, precise, each word placed with care.
"But Barry and McCarthy's man-marking is worth taking seriously. It worked in patches, even if it didn't slow you down enough to matter. Željko has gone through every sequence. They used double-team pressing and early positioning to cut off your receiving lanes. Going forward, opponents will copy this blueprint. The footage will be on every scouting desk in the league by Monday."
He paused and glanced at Buvač. "Željko—walk him through the core weakness in their structure."
Buvač nodded once and brought up a series of tactical screenshots like pitch maps with colored arrows, freeze-frames with highlighted zones, player positions marked with small numbered circles.
"Their entire defensive scheme revolves around you personally," he said slowly without wasting a single word. "Which creates a structural problem they never resolved. They neglect the connection between the wide channels and the center. When you move laterally, both defenders track you in exact synchronization and at that precise moment, a gap of roughly three meters opens at the top of the penalty arc or in the half-space between the lines."
He tapped the screen, indicating the zone with one finger. "That is where we attack."
He let the silence sit for a beat, letting the explanation settle in Julien's mind before continuing.
"Your runs need to become more deceptive. Not simply to shake your markers—that is too obvious and expected. The goal is to manipulate them. To make them believe you intend one thing, commit fully to following it, and then do something completely different before they can recover."
Klopp pulled a battered notebook from the inside pocket of his jacket filled, as always, with cramped handwriting and rapid sketches—uncapped his pen, and began drawing movement arrows as he spoke.
"First principle: the dummy run. You move deliberately in the wrong direction, and then cut back sharply. Željko has clocked it—Everton's defenders were consistently slower than you when turning. That's the key, and it's exactly where your natural gifts come in. Your height is genuinely disorienting to opponents.
Nobody expects a player your size to reverse direction that quickly, link the movement to a pass in one fluid motion, and still arrive in position half a step ahead. That is your edge and most defenders haven't yet learned to account for it."
He motioned for Buvač to stand in as a defender, then demonstrated the movement himself with the notebook still open in one hand.
"Say you're coming to receive in the center. Instead of moving directly toward the ball, you jog three easy, relaxed steps toward the right flank—casual enough to draw Barry and McCarthy into tracking with you.
Will the central defender cover the space you've just vacated? No, because he doesn't dare move away from Suárez. The moment you stop, push hard off your left foot, cut back toward the center and Gerrard's pass drops exactly where you want it."
Julien mirrored the action immediately: three easy steps toward the right, Buvač moving alongside him like a shadow then a sudden, sharp stop. Weight shifted. Cut inside. The ball from Klopp's rolled pass landing cleanly at his feet in the exact pocket of space the two coaches had described.
"Yes—exactly like that." Buvač said with a rare approval in his voice.
"But watch your upper body. Don't allow your shoulders to transmit the direction too early—your eyes and the rhythm of your footsteps should be the deception, not your torso leaning before the move. Like yesterday, when you beat McCarthy. You executed it almost perfectly then. Your movement speed at that size is the fastest I have observed in fifteen years of coaching from a player your size."
They ran through it several more times from different starting positions, different approach angles, Buvač was switching between standing in as a defender and adjusting the drill setup, Klopp was narrating the principles between repetitions.
A rare strip of pale sunlight finally broke through Liverpool's low cloud cover and fell across the training pitch, turning the wet grass briefly golden.
As the sun climbed higher, the dew evaporated from the grass in slow, rising wisps. Julien's kit was soaked through completely, his lungs were steady, his focus as sharp as it had been at the first repetition.
Receive, run, shoot. Receive, run, shoot.
The dummies were rearranged. The angles changed. The principles deepened.
Klopp stood at the sideline, exchanging quiet remarks with Buvač occasionally disagreeing in short, low exchanges before arriving at agreement within seconds.
Thirteen years of partnership had given them something approaching a shared language. A raised eyebrow from Buvač could prompt a complete revision of what Klopp had just said. A single word from Klopp could confirm what Buvač had been turning over in silence for twenty minutes.
They had begun together at Mainz, two young coaches with ambition larger than their budget, and the years had worn away everything but the trust.
After the session wound down, Buvač handed Julien a cool bottle of sports drink without being asked, then spoke directly. "Tomorrow, I'll send you the tracking data on Arsenal's defensive positioning. Pay particular attention to Koscielny's covering patterns when the ball moves into wide areas—there's a habit there worth studying."
Klopp clapped a broad hand on Julien's back, and when he spoke there was a warmth in it that went beyond the professional. "You have the talent, and you put in the work. That combination is genuinely rare—is everything. We are behind you completely. And with Željko's analysis, I promise you: there is not a defense in this league that can shut you down for ninety minutes."
He held Julien's gaze for a moment longer, making sure what came next landed properly.
"But remember this. The truly elite players don't only beat defenders with technique. They make the entire defensive shape fall apart simply by running with or without the ball. Every run you make creates a calculation for the opposition. Every movement off the ball is creating space for someone else. That is what separates the very best from the merely excellent."
Julien nodded slowly.
He understood it well.
When Real Madrid or Barcelona faced Ronaldo or Messi, did the opposition ever truly take their eyes off any man, even for a second? Even without the ball, a world-class player rewrites the tactical map just by occupying space on the field.
That was the weight.
And the privilege of being a star.
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