A star soccer coach steps down and shines a spotlight on burnout

Jürgen Klopp looked exhausted. The 56-year-old, who is widely regarded as one of the best managers in international soccer, let out a sigh and briefly fumbled for the right words.

“It is that I am — how can I say this? — running out of energy,” Klopp said, in a 24-minute video about his decision to step down as head coach of the Liverpool football club. “I am absolutely fine now. But I know that I cannot do the job again, and again, and again, and again.”

While Klopp’s announcement shocked many in the international sporting community, his video also offered a remarkably candid glimpse of what exhaustion and the first signs of burnout can look like.

“This is a guy who knows himself very well,” said Michael Leiter, a professor emeritus at Acadia University and the co-author of “The Burnout Challenge: Managing People’s Relationships With Their Jobs.” “He has the courage to say, ‘I’m going to step out of this.’ A lot of people would crash and burn instead. I sort of admire him.”

Klopp is the latest high-profile figure to press pause at the pinnacle of his career. Last year, former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern, who won global praise for her leadership style, stepped down at the height of her popularity, noting that she didn’t have “enough in the tank” to do her job justice. And tennis star Naomi Osaka was at the top of her game in 2021 when she announced she needed a break from the sport.

While Klopp didn’t use the phrase “burnout,” he certainly described some of the symptoms of it. We spoke with top experts about the signs of burnout, what it feels like and why some people simply need to take a break from success.

What is burnout?

Burnout is especially common among health-care workers, medical students and caregivers. The World Health Organization in 2019 acknowledged burnout as an “occupational phenomenon,” but job burnout can still take a significant toll on your mental and physical health, and is closely linked with depression and anxiety.

Mark Aoyagi, co-director of sport and performance psychology at the University of Denver, said burnout is a syndrome that has three parts: a feeling of exhaustion, cynicism about the job and a feeling that you’re no longer effective. Experts said Klopp showed some, but not all the signs, of burnout.

“From the little I know, it sounds like, for sure, he meets the first part of the syndrome of burnout, which is the overextended piece, the exhaustion piece,” Aoyagi said.

Leiter agreed. “Burnout is this combination of being exhausted, as well as cynical, as well as really discouraged,” Leiter said. “The part that he was missing was cynical. He was definitely exhausted.”

Burnout “can mean many different things to many different people,” said Jud Brewer, director of research and innovation at Brown University’s Mindfulness Center. “Burnout applies to anybody. So, really, it’s about when somebody is just functionally not up to the task anymore.”

How do I know if I am really burned out or just working hard?

During his video announcement. Klopp told the story of sitting down with his staff and planning for the upcoming season, including potential signings and summer camp. “I just realized I’m not - the thought came up - I’m not sure I’m then here anymore. And I was surprised myself about that. And then I started, obviously, thinking about it.”

Leiter said that “careers are so much about projecting yourself into the future.” When Klopp said he didn’t see himself with the football club next summer, “that is a sign that he’s really taken a step outside of this track.”

“That vision of the future where he’s not only not the central piece, but not even there,” Leiter said, “That’s telling him something.”

When someone is completely burned out, Aoyagi said they “can’t continue on.” “You have to stop,” he said. If you’re not sure whether you’re experiencing burnout on your job, Aoyagi said his advice is “to honor it.”

“Treat it as if it were true, but also interrogate it,” Aoyagi said. “Explore: When do I feel this way? Is it persistent? Is it happening across different domains? Is it worse in the morning? Worse at the end of the day?”

“Burnout is sort of the end point in a long, long road,” Aoyagi said. “What you want to be able to do is to be able to identify when you’re on that road and what the sources of that are, so that you can appropriately address them.”

What does exhaustion or burnout feel like?

Klopp used a sports car analogy to explain the feelings leading up to his decision to step down.

“I’m like a proper sports car, not the best one, but a pretty good one, can still drive 160, 170, 180 miles an hour,” Klopp said. “But I’m the only one seeing the tank needle is going down. The outside world doesn’t see that. You go as long as you have to go, but then you need a break. You need to go to the petrol station. That’s exactly what I know I have to do.”

Alan Chu, an associate professor of applied sport psychology at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, said he doesn’t think there’s “a better person” to deliver this type of message. Klopp is considered one of the best soccer managers in the world and, since he took over in 2015, he’s led Liverpool to a string of successes.

Klopp’s decision to step back “tells the world that even though you might be the best of the best right now, you’re still a person,” said Chu.

“He listened to his heart and he listened to his mind,” Chu said. “He just doesn’t have the excitement. Hearing from [the video], he knows this. He just doesn’t have the same kind of energy anymore.”

“I imagine the life of a coach in that kind of world is just unrelenting,” Leiter said. “But he wasn’t really cynical. He talked about loving his team and work. People who are truly burned out - they get past loving it. They start hating it.”

“A lot of people who identify themselves as burned out” are actually overextended, he said. “The upside of that” is that it’s a lot more straightforward to “bounce back” from there with some sleep and a break.

Klopp said he doesn’t know what the future holds. He will finish the season, and then take a break “at least for a year.”

“I need to find a different purpose as well,” he said. “If you ask me, ‘Will you ever work as a manager again?’ I would say now, ‘no.’ But I don’t know obviously how that will feel because I never had the situation. What I know definitely - I will never, ever manage a different club in England than Liverpool, 100 percent. That’s not possible. My love for this club, my respect for the people is too big.”

Kelyn Soong contributed to this report.