BOOK REVIEW: Bring the Noise by Raphael Honigstein

Pages: 352, Paperback

Publication: February 2018 by Nation Books

Cover Rating: 5/5

Das Reboot How German Football Reinvented Itself and Conquered the World which was published in 2015 after the German National Team won the FIFA World Cup and recent achievements of German Clubs in European Football.  It is written by Raphael Honigstein who has come up with another German Football related story for us, and this time a high profile manager Jurgen Klopp.

Bring the Noise: The Jürgen Klopp Story is expected to be release in February in 2018 yet I was tempted to read in whip. For those who are familiar or interested in modern day football, are familiar with the name Klopp. He is currently managing a top English Football Club, Liverpool who are rich in history but what made him famous is his skillfull, brave intention to coach a football team in Mainz. His coaching career began in the German second tier at the unfashionable club of FSV Mainz 05, whom he steered to the Bundesliga (German Top Division) for the first time in forty-one years. He then took the command of Borussia Dortmund, a club that is driven by its passionate uninamous stream of fans.  He achieved back-to-back league titles and took the club to the UEFA Champions League final. He left Germany for one of the England’s most challenging jobs: to manage Liverpool, a once-mighty club that had not managed sustained success since the 1980s.

There are occassional interviews in the book of people of have worked with Klopp. He holds an ecstatic personality, with passion for the sport in his body language and is famous for his teams to play a different kind of tactical game, called gegenpress. This biographical work is presented with occasional flashbacks but concentrate enough of Klopp’s life at Liverpool, for whom he is still the manager at the time of writing this book review. The book does take a deep dive in his management/coaching career.

The writing style of the book is not the most encouraging factor. Das Reboot had an influential way of telling the story of German Football to its readers, but this time Honigstein is plain and lacks a bit of creativity or just could not present an interesting personality in an interesting way enough.  Martí Perarnau has done a better job both times with Pep Guardiola’s biography. However, the book is still a good read for people who want to dive more into Klopp or for Liverpool fans who have high hopes for the club and share a similar trait as Dortmund fans in terms of being passionate.

3 out of 5!