Huddersfield Town head coach David Wagner has spoken to FourFourTwo magazine, ahead of the clash later this month between the Terriers and Liverpool, about his friendship with Jürgen Klopp. The pair first met back in 1991 when Wagner, then a teenager joined Klopp at Mainz as a team-mate. The pair hit it off straight away.

How they first met

The Terriers head coach was at the time on his way to playing international football for the USA - although a German by birth, Wagner qualified for the American team because of his American father. Immediately the Germans developed a friendship that blossomed and is still going strong today. Wagner said ​"It was love on the first view, as we say in Germany,” ​The pair also both worked at Borussia Dortmund and it was rumoured that Wagner was joining his friend at Liverpool when he left the German club, only for him to take on the Huddersfield job.

“We became friends more or less from that first meeting. We were able to communicate and we were on the same level," he revealed. "More or less right from the start we became roomies and spent every second around football"

The Terriers are currently 11th in the Premier League only three points behind Liverpool, but four places separate the friends in the top flight table. Huddersfield were supposed to be bottom of the table by now, if you believe the pundits, but the Wagner style of football, that was learnt from Klopp has so far seen the Terriers only lose two matches, draw three and win two. Liverpool have only won one of their last seven matches finding themselves in seventh place.

Friends for 25 years

The friendship between the Germans is so deep that Wagner was the best man at Klopp's wedding back in 2005, however the Town boss has admitted that he remembers little of the speech he gave in the role. "Yes, I was the best man, but I’ve no idea what the speech was like because I drank too much alcohol!” Wagner admitted, going on to add that Klopp is a better drinker than he is.

Wagner understands too that the attention around their close friendship will grow as the first match between their respective sides meet in the Premier League. "I get this story is great for the media, But he is only my friend, just like he was my friend 25 years ago." ​Insisting that they would be friends even if they were not both football managers.

"For me, it isn’t something really extraordinary that he is Jürgen Klopp the football manager," he went on to add. "That is the case, yes, but even if he was a chef he would still be my friend and I would still have the exact same relationship with him.”

The teams will meet for the first time in the Premier League at Anfield on 28 October 2017.

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