Jurgen Klopp has fine record against Jose Mourinho... and Chelsea boss could lose his job if German masterminds another victory

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Jose Mourinho’s third and final season at Real Madrid came crashing down around him thanks in no small part to Jurgen Klopp. When the two men meet again on Saturday the Chelsea manager will hope that history is not about to repeat itself.

The three most important trophies to win as a Real Madrid manager are, in order of importance, the Copa del Rey, La Liga, and the Champions League. Mourinho had won the least of those - the Copa del Rey - in his first season. In year two he had won the league. 

Now he had to win the European Cup and having fallen at the semi-final stage in the previous two campaigns against Barcelona and Bayern Munich it was Klopp’s Dortmund that stood between him and a place in the final.

Jurgen Klopp (left) and Jose Mourinho (right) share a joke prior to kick-off in the Champions League in 2012

Klopp and Mourinho's sides have met each other four times with the German coming out on top so far

Klopp was already showing himself to be the antithesis of Mourinho. He was tipped as an eventual successor to the Portuguese coach in the 2012-13 season but when he gave interviews to various Spanish media while making the most of the German mid-winter break and taking his team to Southern Spain for a short training camp, he made it clear he had little interest in managing Real. He didn’t like the short-termism rife at Real Madrid. He wasn't keen on the clear economic advantage that they had over almost all over teams. He didn’t want Mourinho’s job but he certainly helped him lose it by winning the battle of the coaches hands down.

Klopp’s team had been assembled for less than the money it took Real to buy Ronaldo from Manchester United but they revelled in their underdog status and ripped Madrid to pieces winning the semi-final 4-1 over two legs.

The two teams had already met in the group stage. Dortmund had beaten Real Madrid 2-1 in the first meeting at the Westfalenstadion with Marco Reus magnificent in midfield and Robert Lewandowski giving Madrid defender Pepe a torrid time.

Jurgen Klopp celebrates Liverpool's 1-0 win over Bournemouth with Joao Carlos Teixeira

Chelsea boss Mourinho is under pressure ahead of the Premier League clash at Stamford Bridge on Saturday 

Klopp had understood that while Real Madrid were frighteningly good on the counter-attack, they found it far more difficult when they had to take the initiative. They liked to let other teams have the ball, wait for them to make mistakes and then destroy them. He decided that his Dortmund side would play exactly the same way.

They scored first. Mario Goetze sat on Xabi Alonso to stop him playing; and Madrid failed to create the chances that would have turned the match around.

After the game the statistics confirmed that Klopp’s plan had worked. Real Madrid had 56 per cent of possession but as Klopp famously commented: ‘They had more of the ball… but that was not a bad thing for us.’

In the second group game between the two sides at the Bernabeu, Mesut Ozil rescued a point for Real Madrid with an 89th minute free-kick that earned the home side a 2-2 draw. It meant Mourinho’s team had qualified but in the league things were already going badly. Having won the title the previous season they were 11 points off the lead before Christmas.

Mourinho wasn't too happy with the officials during the 4-1 defeat by Dortmund in April 2013

The Portuguese boss congratulates Klopp following the rout against his Real Madrid side in Dortmund

That made reaching the Champions League final even more important. The night before the first leg of the semi-final in Dortmund, Real Madrid were in good spirits because Barcelona had been thrashed 4-0 by Bayern Munich in the other semi-final. But the smile was soon wiped away.

Mourinho picked Sergio Ramos to play at right-back. There was tension between the two and so it was the Spain international who had to play slightly out of position to accommodate Pepe and Raphael Varane in the centre of defence. Lewandowski opened the scoring but Ronaldo equalised and so Real went down the tunnel at half time full of hope that finally they were close to reaching the Champions League final.

Mourinho instructed his players to sit deep in the second half and defend their away goal but they sat so deep that Lewandowski ended up scoring four on the night in a 4-1 win. ‘My team is so naive that Lewandowski scores four goals and we don’t foul him once,’ said Mourinho after the game.

Ramos responded: ‘Maybe it’s easier to foul him higher up the pitch where you are less likely to concede a penalty,’ he said when told what Mourinho had said.

Robert Lewandowski scored four as the Bundesliga side won the Champions League semi-final first leg 4-1

Cristiano Ronaldo looks dejected during the second leg, which finished 2-2 at the Bernabeu

Despite Ramos' comments, he was put back into the centre of the defence for the second game and scored as Madrid won 2-0. Some pride had been restored and at last in their four meetings Mourinho had beaten Klopp but only on the night. On aggregate – which was all that mattered – he had lost, and he lost his job at the end of the season.

The 2012-13 campaign had many of the same traits as the current one at Stamford Bridge. Mourinho had resorted to outing his players for not performing; he had fallen out with Ramos, Pepe and Iker Casillas and shows of indiscipline were more frequent – he was sent off in the Cup final that he lost at the end of his final season against Diego Simeone’s Atletico Madrid.

When he sees Klopp before the start of Saturday’s game much of that will perhaps flash before his eyes. He knows that another defeat against the German and his time at Chelsea could be over. 

Sergio Ramos was critical of Mourinho's tactics against Klopp's well-drilled Dortmund side in 2013