Not just Lijnders: Another long-serving Liverpool stalwart will follow 41y/o to Salzburg

Jurgen Klopp is set to take a break from football after Liverpool’s final match of the season against Wolves next Sunday, but his long-time assistant Pep Lijnders already has another job lined up.

On Wednesday, Red Bull Salzburg confirmed the appointment of the 41-year-old as their new head coach, who’s bringing another long-serving LFC stalwart with him from Anfield.

Having served as Klopp’s right-hand man for several years, the Dutchman will now have Vitor Matos as his number two at the Austrian club, with the 36-year-old departing his role as the Reds’ elite development coach after four-and-a-half years in the job.

The pair have signed three-year contracts at Salzburg, with the official presentation scheduled to take place in mid-June, when the team’s pre-season preparations are due to commence.

This will be Lijnders’ second job as a manager, having had a brief spell in charge of NEC Nijmegen in his homeland six years ago, and when it was confirmed in January that he’d be leaving Liverpool alongside Klopp, he soon voiced his ambitions to take up another head coach role.

Matos has been in charge of youth teams in the past and has also been an assistant boss at underage level, but this is his first time being the second in command in senior football (Transfermarkt).

It comes as no great surprise that he’s following the Dutchman to Salzburg, with the duo having worked together at Porto as well as LFC, so there’s a long-standing trust between them from those shared employments.

Lijnders had a 50% win rate at NEC six years ago but was sacked after just four months when they failed to win promotion to the Eredivisie. Expectations will be far higher with the Austrian giants, who’ve won the last 10 top-flight titles in their country, but the 41-year-old goes there having learned from one of the best in the business in Klopp.

Here’s hoping that he and Matos will prove successful at the Red Bull Arena and go on to enjoy prosperous careers, maybe even coming back to Liverpool further down the line.