Klopp and Wagner share same zest for football and in life
The visitors’ dugout may be unfamiliar territory on Saturday for David Wagner. There tends to be a late arrival in the Anfield media box on a European night, heading for the back row. He is the Huddersfield manager.
It is scarcely normal, and not just because he breaches media-box etiquette by celebrating Liverpool goals. Wagner was there for Borussia Dortmund, his old employers, there for Villarreal and there for Sevilla.
But then Wagner’s friendship with Jurgen Klopp is an abnormal one, dating back since 1991 and a source of increasing fascination as upbeat, energetic characters have emerged as motivational managers with similar philosophies.
“It’s like family,” Klopp told Sky Sports.
“We understand each other like brothers.”
Neven Subotic, who played for Klopp at Dortmund, reached for the same analogy.
“They are very similar, from the way they walked, the way they talked,” the defender told Sky. “It is like they were brothers, separated at birth.”
There are signs of that closeness. If Liverpool’s players think there are two familiar faces in the technical areas, it will be because there is a picture of Wagner in Klopp’s office.
Or, to be precise, one of them together.
If Wagner is more publicly supportive of Klopp, there is a reason. The more famous manager did not go to Huddersfield’s play-off final win at Wembley: he did not want to distract attention from his friend.