Jurgen Klopp and David Wagner: A friendship forged through football

Jurgen Klopp and “best friend” David Wagner will occupy opposing dugouts at Anfield this afternoon, but only one would be on the bench when they first met at Mainz 26 years ago.

The current Liverpool and Huddersfield managers became acquainted on the banks of the Rhine in 1991 after Wagner, four years Klopp’s junior, arrived from Eintracht Frankfurt.

“When we first met up at Mainz he was a striker and I was a striker,” Wagner explained to the Daily Mail shortly after taking the Terriers post in 2015.