New Huddersfield boss David Wagner believes that Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has benefitted from a break from the game after leaving Borussia Dortmund this summer.
Wagner, 44, was reportedly set to move to Anfield with Klopp to become part of his backroom staff after working together at Dortmund, but chose to move into senior management with Championship side Huddersfield after five years running the Bundesliga club's second team.
The German, who won the UEFA Cup with Schalke in 1997 and played eight times for the United States (qualifying through his American father) during his career, had Klopp as his best man and says that his friend has improved as a manager by not jumping immediately into another job.
"I've known Jurgen longer than I've known my wife," he told The Guardian. "We met up at Mainz and I took his place in the team, so he changed his role from a striker to a defender because it was much easier for him! I know he is living this job 100 percent.
"He always thinks about football or his team, always. I think you do this if you are a good head coach. You can never stop your brain from thinking about what could happen tomorrow or next week or the next hour. It is not possible to close your brain to this in football.
"This is why I was very happy he was able to use the three or four months he had out of the game. I thought he would have rested longer because he worked every day of every month for 14 years and always in tight situations -- tight to get relegated, tight to get promoted or tight to get in the Champions League final. His team always worked until the last day of the season.
"He's a great guy, a funny guy and a total natural. He never plays the rules, he is always just himself and how he deals with good or bad situations in football, I like both. We have the same thinking about football."
Wagner is also looking to use his relationship with Klopp, and his connections in Europe, to help aid his Huddersfield side in their Championship fight this season.
"If Huddersfield Town can benefit from my connections, not only at Liverpool but in European football, then of course we will use them," he added.
"I think there were more than 25 players who played in my team at Dortmund who I recruited from youth teams or other second teams in Germany and went on to play in the first or second leagues in Germany or in Europe.
"Erik Durm and Jonas Hofman made the first team at Borussia Dortmund and Erik, who I knew from the second team at Mainz, where I have very good relationships, won the World Cup. Of course that was very satisfying but it is also satisfying to be in Signal Iduna Park seeing your players in the Bundesliga. These are the moments when, as the second-team coach, you can think you've done a good job."
Huddersfield picked up their first win of Wagner reign -- having lost to Sheffield Wednesday and Middlesbrough -- by beating sixth-placed Birmingham 2-0 on Saturday. And the coach is sure that he can improve upon their 19th place.
"Huddersfield isn't one of the biggest fishes in the Championship and to get bigger you have to find new ways," he said. "I've been surprised by how open-minded and innovative everybody is at this club, not only the players but the whole staff, the whole management.
"Everybody is protective of this project and I'm sure will give us enough time to develop. The games and the work on the pitch shows we are going the right way."