MUNICH (AP) — Jurgen Klopp once said he'd arrange his own parade if his former Liverpool team was ever awarded any Premier League titles stripped from great rival Manchester City.
It appears his stance has softened.
Klopp, now Germany coach, was asked to comment on the explosive verdict published Tuesday that found City guilty of all the serious financial charges brought by the Premier League relating to 2009-18, when City was building a squad that would later go on to dominate English soccer — often at Liverpool's expense.
“I know I once said something that I’d come if there was ever a parade," Klopp told a news conference late Wednesday, "but it doesn’t feel like that now.
"I don’t feel like I need to have my bus parade. I can wait and stay totally relaxed.”
Klopp won the Premier League once with Liverpool — in the 2019-20 season — and finished second to Pep Guardiola's City teams by one point in the 2018-19 and 2021-22 seasons after memorable title races that raised the bar in terms of points earned and the standard of football played.
Klopp said his respect for Guardiola, who was at City from 2016 until leaving this summer, hadn't changed.
“My respect for Pep Guardiola and the football that City played in the time when we played against each other, what they played on the field, the opponents they were at the top level, is much too high for me to say anything now," Klopp said. "If there are some punishments handed down, then it’s obviously not anything to do with me so I’ll just wait. I’m completely OK about what happened and what we achieved.”
Klopp had adopted a more jokey tone in January 2025 when he was asked how he would respond to City being stripped of its titles in the event of being found to have broken Premier League rules.
Speaking at a time when he was head of global soccer at Red Bull, Klopp said: "If it would happen, I told all the people who wanted to, ‘Just book a flight to Mallorca. I will buy the beer!’ We’d have our own parade in my garden.”
Klopp's latest comments came ahead of Germany's match against Serbia in Munich on Thursday, when he’ll aim to avoid the unwanted record of being first coach to go winless in their first three games with Germany's men's national team.
See AP’s full soccer coverage here
FILE - Manchester City coach Pep Guardiola lifts the English Premier League trophy after the English Premier League soccer match between Brighton and Manchester City at the AMEX Stadium in Brighton, England, Sunday, May 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein, File)
Germany's coach Jurgen Klopp speaks during a press conference, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026, in Herzogenaurach, Germany, ahead of their Nations League soccer match against Serbia . (Sven Hoppe/dpa via AP)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Russian drone struck a school in Kyiv on Thursday, city officials said, as the Ukrainian capital endured another night and day of relentless aerial attacks.
Children and staff at the school were in shelters when the drone hit, Kyiv Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said, although the drone's warhead didn’t explode. There was no immediate report of casualties. The building’s brick frontage showed a large hole and black burn mark alongside smashed windows.
Kyiv has in recent weeks lived through repeated air raid alerts, punctuated by loud bangs and palls of black smoke as drones and missiles hit, making it feel like a city under siege. The Russian onslaught aims to terrorize civilians, officials and analysts say, and break their will to resist 4 ½ years after Moscow’s full-scale invasion.
The strain is showing among Kyiv residents. Maryna Lystopad, 35, said her hair has started falling out due to the strain of escalating attacks and never knowing where a drone or missile will hit.
"It’s really horrible. I can’t take it anymore. I think, I think that soon we’re all going to leave. I’m really not doing well,” she told The Associated Press.
“I’m constantly anxious. I can’t relax,” she said. “I keep thinking that if something happens, if something hits, one of my relatives could be killed.”
She recently had to go to another part of the city, she said, and was “genuinely stressed the whole way there.”
“I kept checking, like, whether anything was flying in, where it was going, where am I supposed to go? Where am I supposed to run?”
The war on the ground hasn’t seen major shifts since last year, but Ukraine is struggling to fend off Russia’s intensified aerial attacks on cities that include speedy ballistic missiles and high-flying jet-powered drones.
In response, Ukraine has fired its long-range drones at manufacturing plants deep inside Russia and has targeted Russia’s drone launch sites. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday that Kyiv’s forces struck a site in Russia’s southwestern Oryol region that is used to store and launch attack drones.
To turn the tide, Ukraine needs U.S.-made Patriot missiles that can effectively defend against ballistic missiles, but they are in short supply since the Iran war began. A plan to produce them inside Ukraine could take years to bear fruit.
Kyiv is currently racing to produce new interceptors that can bring down fast-moving jet-propelled drones as the swift cycle of military innovation during the war continues.
Ukraine also wants tougher sanctions imposed on Russia to prevent it from getting key high-tech components for its arsenal.
Moscow, meanwhile, is pressing its advantage before Ukraine comes up with an answer to the latest challenges.
Ukrainian officials didn’t report any energy infrastructure being hit Thursday, a day after what officials said was the biggest Russian attack on the power grid since last spring.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said Wednesday's barrage marked “the beginning of Russia’s strike campaign aimed at degrading Ukraine’s energy security ahead of winter … and forcing Ukraine to capitulate.”
Russia is expected to step up attacks on the electricity supply as the weather gets colder. It was 19 degrees Celsius (66 F) in Kyiv on Thursday, and mild temperatures were set to continue.
In a surprise development, Russia used a new jet-powered drone for the first time Wednesday, fitting it with a warhead designed to sever high-voltage pylons, said Serhii Beskrestnov, an adviser to Ukraine’s president on defense technology.
AP reporter Volodymr Yurchuk contributed to this story from Kyiv, Ukraine.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
A police officer carries fragments of a Shahed drone in front of a school damaged by a Russian strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Oct. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A police officer and a rescue worker carry an unexploded warhead from a Shahed drone out of a school damaged by a Russian strike on Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Oct. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Police officers carry an unexploded warhead from a Shahed drone out of a school damaged by a Russian strike on Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Oct. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Police officers look at a school damaged by a Russian drone strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Oct. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
