A perfect match? It looks that way for now ...

According to British media, Liverpool are set to appoint Jurgen Klopp as their new manager by the end of this week. The Daily Telegraph explains why this will be a perfect match: The straight-shooting German manager has all the traits to bring joy back to Liverpool fans ...

“Ever watched a porn movie?” the interviewer asked.

“Yes,” Jurgen Klopp replied immediately.

The name of the porn movie Klopp watched, when he was about 15 or 16, was Josefine Mutzenbacher: Wie sie wirklich war (Josefine Mutzenbacher: How she really was). The film traces the sexual awakening of a young Austrian girl in the 19th century, from an innocent child to a high‑class Viennese prostitute.

“I don’t remember the plot,” Klopp admitted, “but it got right down to business.”

The point to make here is not the fact that Klopp once watched a blue movie, but that he admitted doing so when asked about it an interview with a Cologne radio station last year.

Freely. Instantly. With details. Put virtually any other manager in world football in that situation — Mark Hughes, Manuel Pellegrini, André Villas-Boas — and the strong likelihood is that, within a matter of seconds, you will be pointing your microphone at an empty chair.

For Klopp, on the other hand, honesty is almost a condition. It is a fearless honesty, an instinctive honesty; almost, in many ways, the honesty of a child. On some profound level, Klopp is still the child-manager who never quite grew up. There is a simple, crystalline certainty to the way he approaches football: Loyal, optimistic, fiercely devout. It is no surprise at all to learn that he strongly believes in God.

At a time when Liverpool fans are idly wondering what sort of manager he will make if he ends up taking the job vacated by Brendan Rodgers, this penchant for straight-talking should be kept in mind.

On the face of things, Klopp and Liverpool are a fit so snug they might have been matched on eHarmony.

Borussia Dortmund, where Klopp won two consecutive Bundesliga titles and reached a Champions League final, are a similar sort of club to Liverpool: Financially and competitively very much in the second rank of European powers, but with a big name, a gilded history and not so much a fan base as a congregation.

Both, essentially, are optimistic, dreaming clubs. The issue will come if and when Klopp’s candour collides head-on with English football’s ingrained culture of cynicism, innuendo and mirage.

Klopp’s relationships last. In the last 26 years, he has had a grand total of three jobs: Mainz player, Mainz manager, Dortmund manager. In a way, his great achievement at Dortmund was in maintaining some illusion of continuity in a world where there was none. For even as Dortmund were taking European football by storm, the plates of the game were shifting beneath them.

Key players were snatched away — first Nuri Sahin and Shinji Kagawa, then Mario Gotze and Robert Lewandowski went to Bayern Munich. Teams began to work out Dortmund’s signature “Gegenpressing” style, sitting deep and handing them the ball. Injuries bit hard. Halfway through last season, Dortmund were bottom of the Bundesliga. They recovered, but this particular arc had run its course. Time for a new challenge, Klopp realised.

The question is whether the last couple of years have taught one of modern football’s great ideologues the value of compromise.

One of the first things Klopp did when he arrived at Dortmund was to jettison perhaps the club’s two biggest stars, Alex Frei and Mladen Petric.

Rightly, he identified that neither player was appropriate for the high-energy, high-pressing game he wanted to implement. But these are now bigger stakes, and bigger egos. What if Klopp instantly decided that, say, Christian Benteke and Danny Ings were surplus to requirements?

If Klopp had a major weakness during his last few years at Dortmund, it was an over-reliance on favoured players. Sahin and Kagawa both made emotional returns to the club, but neither have been as effective in their second spells.

Meanwhile, players on the fringes tell a very different story.

“It is as if he has something against me,” midfielder Ivan Perisic complained after a long spell on the bench. “Klopp has his own three or four players, with whom he shares his opinions and his thoughts.”

“If he keeps his mouth shut,” Klopp retorted, “it is better for him.” Perisic was sold at the end of the season.

Yet for the majority, Klopp is an easy man to fall in love with. He is an eloquent speaker, a skill honed by years working as a television pundit for ZDF, and a gleeful non-conformist. In a league that can seem irritatingly snide at times, Klopp effervesces with honesty, good intentions, and the pure joy of football.

And for a club where joy has been all too rare in the last 18 months, it seems like a good enough place to start. THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

What we know about negotiations between Liverpool and Klopp:

* Liverpool plan to confirm Jurgen Klopp’s appointment as manager by the end of the week, with negotiations expected to be completed over the next few days. This is to give him a week to prepare for the league match with Spurs on Oct 17

* The former Borussia Dortmund manager has no qualms about working within the existing club structure and it is understood that he will sign a three‑year deal

* Klopp had made it clear that Liverpool were one of the few clubs that could tempt him to end a year’s sabbatical

* He will be allowed to hire his own backroom team comprising those who worked with him in Dortmund. They are likely to include Peter Krawietz, who was his assistant and Bosnian coach Zeljko Buvac.