Loris Karius and Jürgen Klopp: A Possible Germany Reunion
Loris Karius has learned not to look too far ahead. Not after Kyiv. Not after the concussion, the errors, and the long, lonely years that followed.
So when he is asked now about a Germany recall under Jürgen Klopp, the new national coach who once made him Liverpool’s No 1, the 33-year-old keeps it simple.
“I don’t know what he is planning,” he told WAZ. “But I’m now playing in the Bundesliga with Schalke – the conditions are not bad. If I produce top performances, maybe I can become a candidate.”
Then he added the line that defines his present: he will “give everything for Schalke – then we’ll see what comes.”
From Anfield’s Bright Lights to the Darkest Corner
Klopp knows Karius as well as any coach. In 2016, he brought the young German from Mainz 05 to Liverpool and, for a spell, entrusted him with one of the most pressurised roles in world football. Karius became Klopp’s first-choice goalkeeper at Anfield, the man behind the high line and the heavy metal football.
That trust met its brutal test on 26 May 2018 in Kyiv.
Liverpool lost the Champions League final 3-1 to Real Madrid. Karius, concussed during the match, made two catastrophic errors. The images of those goals and his tearful apology to Liverpool supporters circled the globe. The diagnosis of concussion came later; the damage to his career and psyche landed instantly.
“Up to that point, my career had only been going steeply upwards, then I suddenly crashed spectacularly – right to the very bottom,” Karius has now revealed. The fall was not just professional. It was personal.
“In that phase I felt that nobody would understand me. I no longer wanted to train, I no longer wanted to play,” he said. At 25, with a Champions League final on his CV, he even considered walking away from the game altogether.
He never played for Liverpool again.
A loan to Besiktas between 2018 and 2020 brought noise and pressure of a different kind. Another loan to Union Berlin in 2020/21 was quieter but did not reset his trajectory. By 2022, when Liverpool declined to offer a new contract, the relationship was over for good.
The Long Road Back – and a New Home in Gelsenkirchen
Karius drifted to Newcastle United, where opportunities were scarce, then spent half a year without a club. For a goalkeeper once trusted in a Champions League final, it was a stark reminder of how quickly football can forget.
The reset finally arrived in a place that understands crisis and rebirth better than most: Schalke.
He joined the Royal Blues at the start of 2025. Schalke, still wrestling with their own scars from relegation and financial strain, needed a reliable presence in goal. Karius needed a club willing to see beyond Kyiv.
The fit has been striking.
Last season, the former Germany youth international played a major role in Schalke’s promotion back to the Bundesliga. He brought calm, experience, and a hunger sharpened by years on the margins. Schalke climbed; Karius stood tall again.
Now, with S04 back among the elite, his ambitions are clear but grounded. “I can well imagine ending my career here. At the moment I’m not thinking about anything else,” he said, underlining just how settled he feels in Gelsenkirchen.
The man once consumed by thoughts of quitting now talks about finishing his career in Royal Blue.
Klopp’s Fresh Start – and an Open Goal
While Karius rebuilds, Klopp is starting again.
At his inaugural press conference as Germany coach on Friday, Klopp made it clear that reputations alone will not decide his first squads.
“I have an incredible number of ideas. Everyone who is eligible to play for the national team should make an effort. It is a fresh start. Players will get a chance who are not even expecting it yet,” he said, noting that he already has 57 outfield players on his radar.
Between the posts, the situation is as open as it has been for over a decade.
Manuel Neuer, who had returned to the national team specifically for the 2026 World Cup, has retired again from international duty after Germany’s round-of-32 exit to Paraguay. His departure leaves a vacuum that no one has yet definitively claimed.
Before Neuer’s comeback, Oliver Baumann of TSG Hoffenheim had established himself as the regular starter. Alexander Nübel, now at Besiktas, and Jonas Urbig at Bayern Munich both sense a real opportunity to pull on the No 1 shirt.
Then there is Marc-André ter Stegen. The Barcelona goalkeeper, with a loan to Ajax reportedly close, was once earmarked as Neuer’s natural heir after Euro 2024. Injuries and ill-timed setbacks derailed that plan, but his ambition to finally own the Germany goal has not faded.
Klopp must choose from this crowded field. Age profiles, club status, playing style, personality – all will matter. History will not.
That is where Karius comes back into the picture.
If he keeps producing the kind of consistent, commanding performances that drove Schalke’s promotion and now underpin their Bundesliga return, his name will be impossible to ignore. Klopp has already shown, in Liverpool red, that he trusts Karius when the conditions are right. The question is whether the new Germany coach is prepared to reopen that chapter in black and white.
September and the Netherlands: A First Test, A Possible Call
The first real checkpoint comes at the end of September.
Germany travel to face the Netherlands away in the Nations League – Klopp’s first match in charge, his first squad, his first goalkeeping hierarchy. It will be the clearest signal yet of how he sees the future between the posts.
For Karius, that window offers something he has not had for a long time at international level: a genuine shot.
No promises. No guarantees. Just a path.
He has his club, his rhythm, and his belief back. Schalke have a goalkeeper who has walked through the fire and come out the other side still standing.
Now the question hangs over the new era: in a Germany side searching for a new identity, is there room for one of football’s most dramatic redemption stories to come full circle under the same coach who lived both the rise and the fall with him?
