Huddersfield’s recipe for success? A bowl of chocolate raisins
Championship club take on City in high spirits thanks to sweet-talking coach, writes
It started over a bowl of chocolate raisins and, tomorrow, the journey undertaken by Huddersfield Town and head coach David Wagner takes them to a home game against Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City at the John Smith’s Stadium in what the club hope will provide a glimpse into the future.
City’s team of multi-millionaires visit Huddersfield, a club with a wage bill under £12 million, in the fifth round of the FA Cup. Despite their tiny budget, Huddersfield are third in the Championship, just four points behind Brighton and five off the leaders Newcastle United, and are dreaming of a return to the top flight for the first time since 1972.
Whether or not they achieve promotion, automatically or through the play-offs, the club’s ascent has been spectacular and can be traced back to a three-hour meeting in 2015, in which Wagner set out his vision with the help of 11 chocolate raisins.
“I met David at his house and in three hours we talked about everything, how he wants his team to play and every position,” said Stuart Webber, 33, Huddersfield’s head of football operations. “He had a pot of chocolate raisins on his table and he put 11 of them out in a 4-2-3-1 formation, and went through every single player.
“He picked up the chocolate raisin right-back and told me exactly what he has to do, then the centre-back and so on. I ate the No 10, but I came away with a real feeling of this was a guy who knows exactly what he wants and exactly how to put it together.”
Webber, who spent three years as director of recruitment at Liverpool, had highlighted the fact that Huddersfield needed a clear identity when he joined the club from Wolverhampton Wanderers in June 2015, five months before appointing Wagner.
“Huddersfield were like a club that had won a raffle to be in the Championship,” said Webber. “The focus wasn’t on winning, it was all about survival and there was no identity.
“To be frank, it was boring to watch Huddersfield and I wouldn’t have paid £350 or whatever for a season ticket. The club needed a cultural shift, a plan, and we needed to do something drastic in terms appointing a head coach who could help create an identity.”
The chocolate raisins, together with three key ingredients, were a far bigger influence on Webber’s decision to appoint Wagner than the German’s overplayed association with Jürgen Klopp. Wagner spent four years in charge of Borussia Dortmund II while Klopp was first-team manager and was best man at his wedding.
“We needed a man with a clear identity, who would be open to the recruitment of young and foreign players, and who would be a head coach and make the players and team better,” said Webber. “David fitted the criteria perfectly.”
Wagner, 45, has certainly carried out his brief so far. Huddersfield have exploited the foreign market with signings such as Christopher Schindler from 1860 Munich and taken Kasey Palmer and Isaiah Brown on loan from Chelsea, and Aaron Mooy, who cannot face his parent club tomorrow, on loan from Manchester City.
Defender Tommy Smith and midfielder Philip Billing are just two of the players who have benefited and developed greatly from working under Wagner. Huddersfield are now seen as a perfect club for the likes of City, Chelsea and Liverpool to send their most promising youngsters to.
“People such as Michael [Emenalo, technical director] at Chelsea, Brian Marwood at City and Michael Edwards and Jürgen at Liverpool now trust us to look after their players, and I believe that model can still work for us if we get promoted to the Premier League,” said Webber.
He will be away scouting in Spain when City are in town, but his absence will not stop Raheem Sterling getting a shirt to the man who helped sign him as a 15-yearold for Liverpool.
“I had watched Raheem come on as a substitute and set up the equaliser for England away in Belgium, and that’s when I knew we just had to sign him,” said Webber. “I looked at him and thought, ‘It’s incredible how things could work out for you’, and Raheem deserves so much credit for the challenges he has overcome and what he has achieved already.”
Webber and Wagner also deserve a lot of credit for what they are achieving at Huddersfield, even though the chocolate raisins were eventually too good to resist.