Jurgen Klopp is Germany’s version of Arsene Wenger - and he might end up replacing the Arsenal boss

As the build up to the Champions League final intensifies, so does gossip about the futures of Germany’s managers of the moment.

While the 68-year-old Jupp Heynckes is likely to settle for a season as Jose Mourinho’s successor at Real Madrid, Jurgen Klopp is only 45 and should be around for another decade or more. I’m not alone in hoping some of that time will be spent in England.

Klopp is Mourinho with fewer wiles: a big personality who would feed our craving, shared with the Germans, for soap opera.

If the German game has come to represent football with a smile, Klopp is its most infectious grin. And often broadest, for in each of the past two seasons he has guided Borussia Dortmund to the Bundesliga title. If they beat Heynckes’s Bayern Munich on Saturday, you will need a wide screen.

Perhaps because he is so tall, he reminds me of Arsene Wenger. Like the Arsenal manager, he had an unremarkable playing career before employing his gift for leadership. Klopp took Mainz into the top division and then down again before enjoying sustained success with the more financially muscular club from the Ruhr.

Young players flourish under his wing. The Bayern-bound Mario Gotze is the most exciting to have emerged from Borussia’s system, while Robert Lewandowski, brought from Poland for a mere £3.5million three years ago, looked worth ten times as much in destroying Real Madrid in the semi-finals.

Klopp (above) is determined to keep Lewandowski for another season and he might be wise not to rush away from a team expertly tailored to his technical cloth.

Bayern, as well as Manchester United, covet Lewandowski and it is disturbing that Germany’s champions should be so blatantly seeking to weaken their main rivals.

At least Spain has a duopoly; the Bundesliga would be ill-served by a monopoly. But Klopp clearly has no intention of shrinking from an uneven battle and, if he prevents Lewandowski from switching — from becoming Germany’s version of Robin van Persie — it will be a significant achievement.

Perhaps as early as the end of next season, when Wenger’s contract expires, and certainly at some stage, the greatest Arsenal boss since Herbert Chapman will have to be replaced. There are not many big enough for the job — and Klopp is the biggest of them.