Meet Jürgen Klopp’s Parents: Elisabeth Klopp and Norbert Klopp

Jürgen Norbert Klopp is a German football executive and former manager, widely regarded as one of the finest tacticians and man-managers of his generation.

He was born on June 16, 1967, in Stuttgart, the state capital of Baden-Württemberg, West Germany, making him 59 years old as of 2026.

Klopp is of German ethnicity and identifies as a Lutheran Christian, a faith he has spoken about openly, though he has noted his late father was Catholic and that he leaned more seriously into religion following his father’s death.

He is the son of Norbert Klopp (1932–2000), a travelling salesman and former amateur goalkeeper, and Elisabeth Klopp (1939–2021), a homemaker. Jürgen is the youngest of three children and has two older sisters, Stefanie Klopp and Isolde Reich, all of whom were raised in the quiet Black Forest village of Glatten, near Freudenstadt.

Academically, Klopp studied at Goethe University in Frankfurt, earning a diploma in sports science in 1995 while still playing professionally.

On the personal front, Klopp has been married twice. He first married Sabine Klopp in the 1980s; the union produced his son, Marc Klopp, born in 1988, before the marriage ended.

He later married his current wife, Ulla Sandrock, in 2005, who has a son, Dennis Sandrock, from a previous marriage. Standing at 1.91m (6 ft 4 in) tall, Klopp has kept much of his early dating history private, with Sabine representing his first widely known relationship before his marriage to Ulla.

Elisabeth Klopp

Elisabeth Klopp, affectionately called “Mutti” by her son, was Jürgen Klopp’s mother. Born in 1939, she was a homemaker who devoted herself to raising her three children, Stefanie, Isolde, and Jürgen, in the family’s home in Glatten.

She married Norbert Klopp in 1960, and together the couple built a modest, close-knit household in the Black Forest countryside.

To Jürgen, Elisabeth was far more than a caregiver. He has described her as his “guiding star,” crediting her steady warmth and quiet faith for instilling in him kindness, compassion, and a strong work ethic, values he has carried into his coaching career and leadership style. While Norbert pushed him hard on the football pitch, Elisabeth was said to provide the emotional anchor at home, believing in her son even in moments when he doubted himself.

Elisabeth died in January 2021 at the age of 81, reportedly from COVID-19. Because of pandemic-era travel restrictions at the time, Jürgen was unable to travel to Germany to attend her funeral, a loss he later described as devastating. She remains, in his own words, a lasting influence on the man he became.

Norbert Klopp

Norbert Klopp was Jürgen Klopp’s father, born in 1932. He worked as a travelling salesman, reportedly dealing in dowels and wall fixtures, and in his younger years was an active amateur goalkeeper. It was Norbert who first introduced young Jürgen to sport, pushing him through skiing in winter, tennis in summer, and football all year round.

By most accounts, Norbert was a disciplinarian, a stark contrast to Elisabeth’s nurturing softness. Jürgen has spoken candidly about his father’s tough love, recalling that Norbert offered “really harsh criticism” during his early playing days rather than open praise.

Yet Jürgen has also acknowledged that his father was, in his own words, “a natural coach,” someone who understood The Game deeply and who, had he been asked, would have pushed his son toward management long before it happened.

Norbert Klopp passed away in 1998 from liver cancer at the age of 66, two years before Jürgen took his first steps into football management at Mainz 05. Klopp has expressed lasting regret that his father did not live to see him rise to the heights of European football, and has said his father’s death drew him closer to his own faith.

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