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“‘Take a day off’, he said. ‘It’ll be fun’, he said. Well, look at me now!” Klopp gave up pacing around the office, collapsing onto the chair next to Ludger’s cage. “I’m a wreck without work. Pep didn’t even let me hang out with the boys.”
It was true. Lijnders had been very strict about the terms for Klopp’s day off, forbidding him from doing work or any football-related activities. To ensure that Klopp didn’t catch himself working again, Lijnders had called a day off for the boys and sent them away from Kirkby.
Klopp took Ludger out of his cage, stroking the owl’s feathers. Thankfully Ludger was calm today. “It’s only you, me, and the rest of the managerial staff. And Pep hid all our football-related tactics and laptops in his secret safe.”
“Are you talking to that owl again?” Kornmayer had duct-taped pillows around his head, trying to block out Klopp’s rambling. “You need therapy, man. Where’s Pep?”
“I’ve got it, guys!” Lijnders sauntered into the room as if he’d just won an Oscar award. “We’re going to a yoga class, all of us. I contacted a member of the WMC and he agreed to teach us. And no checking who it is, Jurgen,” he said just as Klopp was about to pick up his phone and click on the managerial group chat. “It’s a surprise.”
“Fine, fine—wait, yoga?!” Taffarel backed away, holding Ludger in front of him. “No way, I had enough problems with winning the World Cup but now this?! Let the owl do it for me!”
Ludger screeched in protest, his talons scratching against Taffarel’s thankfully clothed arms.
“Look Pep, I love this whole idea of us spending quality time together.” Klopp exhaled, and the volume of his voice nearly tripled. “But aren’t I a little old for yoga?! I’ll be the laughingstock of the entire class!”
Lijnders rolled his eyes, allowing Ludger to perch on his shoulder. The barn owl had slowly grown more tolerant of Lijnders, though that didn’t mean that Ludger wasn’t as prickly as usual. “Relax you two, anybody can do yoga. It’s a private class, there won’t be anyone else there but us. And there’s a familiar destination that some of us may know about.”
Klopp perked up at the thought of a familiar destination. “Ooh, the excitement is killing me! Where is it?”
“You’ll have to wait and see.” Lijnders picked up the gym bags at the door, rattling the keys in his hand. “To Andreas’ SUV!”
*
“If this turns out anything like the last time we did something together, I’m going to sue somebody,” said Kornmayer as the car rumbled across the dirt path. They’d long since gone off the road, clouds of dust trailing after the wheels. “The Turkmenistan incident, remember?”
Lijnders frowned, glancing at his friends through the rearview mirror. “I don’t remember that.”
“Thank god you don’t,” Taffarel grouched from the pull-out seat in the back. The Brazilian was still disgruntled by the idea of yoga lessons. “That was the Ashgabat grocery heist.”
“For heaven’s sake Claudio, that wasn’t a heist, we just went shopping! And it wasn’t so bad.” Klopp smirked at the memory of the group’s attempt to go grocery shopping in Turkmenistan. “Except for the bit where Ludger went on the sign.”
Krawietz glared at Ludger from across the car. The owl was still in his cage, vibing to the Aretha Franklin CD currently playing in the car. “I don’t know why you insist on carrying that goddamn owl everywhere. All he causes is trouble, like the shopping incident.”
“Alright you guys, stop fighting!” Lijnders pressed the brakes and stopped the car. “We’re here at Formby Beach!”
“Oh, hell yeah!” Klopp jumped out of his seat, only to find his feet buried in powdery, light brown sand. “Uh, Pep…did you just park in the middle of a sand dune?”
Lijnders shrugged, getting the yoga gear out of the trunk. “It’s a beach. Where else were we supposed to park?”
“And we say Jurgen’s a bad driver. Pep’s parking is freaking ridiculous,” Taffarel grumbled, shielding his eyes from the sun. “Can we go home now?”
“But we just got here! Plus, it’s not planned to rain anytime soon,” said Krawietz, quickly shutting down his weather app. “At least enjoy yourself, I thought you Brazilians love the beach.”
“Not all of us. And I’m on that list!” Taffarel pulled a fold-out beach chair and a small footstool out of the trunk, setting them up right next to the car. “I’ll guard the car from invaders. There is no way I am putting my foot in that sand. It’s probably all grouched up.”
“What the heck does that mean?” Klopp scanned the horizon…and found out. “Jose?!”
“Alright ye mustard seeds, shut up and listen to me!” Mourinho walked towards them. He wore red surf shorts and a lime green tank top, and honestly, he looked ridiculous. Klopp, Lijnders, and the others weren’t about to tell him that, though; they loved their lives too much. “We’re going to do some yoga today.”
“Okay, hold up everybody!” Kornmayer held Ludger up in front of him, shielding the view of Mourinho’s Special 1 tank top. “First of all, you're telling me Jose can do yoga. Secondly, he’s going to teach us how to do yoga; and third of all, he wore a flipping tank top in PUBLIC?! Do you have no shame? ”
“The world just isn’t ready for this ravishing beauty.” Mourinho pointed to a flat spot on the beach, motioning for the others to follow. “Don’t be late. It is very disrespectful, and I expect total respect.”
*
That was how Lijnders, Klopp, Kornmayer, Krawietz, and Achteberg ended up on yoga mats in front of the Special One himself, Jose Mourinho. Taffarel eventually came too, but Mourinho had to drag him by the ear.
“Right, idiots, so the first thing to do is breathe.” Mourinho took a deep breath, his face crinkling in disgust when he saw a bunch of seagulls picking at a rotten fish. “Can’t you do that anywhere else? I am the Special One, and you will respect me, seagulls! I have conquered the avian race, mortified all mammals, ruled the reptiles—”
“Uhh…Jose?” Taffarel, grumpy as he was, shared his friends’ concern over Mourinho’s random mood swing. “That’s a seagull.”
“Exactly, and it can pick on the garbage dump that is Barcelona. In fact, that brings us to our first pose!” Mourinho repositioned himself on his yoga mat. “The mountain pose, in which we put our hands in position and don’t move.”
Mourinho held his hands in the air, palms pressed together. “Like this. Can any of you do this— PEP, you’re doing it all wrong!”
“You sure?” In only a few seconds, Lijnders had got himself in a peculiar predicament. He was in the middle of an effortless shoulder stand with his hands folded underneath him. “This is pretty right to me.”
The other Liverpool staff just stared in shock.
“Alright, no showing off!” Mourinho pulled Lijnders to his feet, shooing him back into position. “Second pose, tree. Same as the mountain, but standing on one foot. Do it before I stuff you all into a back-ten defensive line.”
“This is the most threatening way that I’ve ever been taught something,” Klopp muttered, spreading his arms into the air. “Good, Jose?”
“Good. But not special enough.” Mourinho turned back to his other students, releasing a strangled squawk upon seeing their interpretation of his instructions. “What are you doing?!”
Lijnders, Taffarel and Kornmayer were standing on one foot, as well. But instead of their arms being positioned the right way, they’d shaped their arms into the shapes of the letters M, C, and A.
“You gimme a Y , I do an M!” Lijnders shouted. “C for Claudio and A for Andreas, let’s go!”
“Y-M-C-A, it’s fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A!” The four sang at the top of their lungs. They got completely out of position and started to dance—well, the bare minimum of dancing. “ They’ve got everything for young men to enjoy, you can hang out with all the boys!”
“ENOUGH!” Mourinho yelled. The veins in his forehead popped all over the place as he grabbed Klopp’s arm, forcing the younger man back in position. “You will ALL respect me! You must all respect me, and I don’t care if you have fun or even if you learn a bit of this damn yoga! You must respect me and this tank top, because I bought it for beach days and— AAAHHH!”
Everybody turned to the group, wondering what all the commotion was that could get Mourinho to scream like a little girl. It turned out that Ludger had torn out a large chunk of the back of Mourinho’s tank top and dropped it into the ocean, watching it float away in what could only be described as ultimate pride and satisfaction.
“Whose chaotic demon owl is this?!” Mourinho pulled Klopp closer until the two were literally two inches away from each other. “It’s yours, I can feel it!”
“I’m so sorry, Jose,” Klopp apologized, breaking free from Mourinho and picking up Ludger. “He was very well-behaved today, I don’t know what happened.”
Taffarel chuckled under his breath, amused for only the second time that day. “I guess Ludger was saving his chaos for the Special One.”
*
In the end, Mourinho just couldn’t take it anymore. He’d hopped on a random yacht and sped away from the six, leaving them without a yoga instructor. So the staff decided to just call it a day and chill on the beach.
“You were right to make us take Sunday off,” Klopp told Lijnders. The two lay under an umbrella, watching the others play an impromptu game of beach football. No fancy stuff or rules, just pure fun, like they’d done as kids. “We have been overworking.”
“And Jose’s been overthinking as usual. The guy really needs to chill out about his fashion choices.” Lijnders popped open the cooler they’d brought along, holding up a package of sausages. “Now who’s ready for lunch?”