Southampton vs Liverpool: Jurgen Klopp and Ralph Hasenhuttl find themselves crossing paths once again

Having struck up a friendship in their early 30s, the two men meet again in Southampton for one of the biggest games of their lives

It is almost 20 years since Jurgen Klopp and Ralph Hasenhuttl, in their early 30s, winding down their playing careers, preparing for the next phase, struck up a friendship on the same coaching course in Cologne.

Klopp had just taken temporary charge at FSV Mainz, the club he had played for 11 years. He was a popular player there and so they turned to him in times of crisis. Hasenhuttl was different, not German but Austrian, although he was still playing in the German second tier for Greuther Furth.

Their career soon diverged but today, both aged 51 - the men were born seven weeks apart - they meet again in Southampton for one of the biggest games of their lives. Hasenhuttl is trying to keep Southampton in the Premier League, having inherited a sinking ship from Mark Hughes which he has had to bail out and repair at the same time.

Meanwhile Klopp, almost four years into his spell in England, is approaching the climax of his work here. Win on tonight, and Liverpool go back on top of the Premier League. Five more wins and Manchester City will have to be absolutely perfect in their harder, longer run-in to deny Liverpool the title.

Klopp has spent much of this season steamrolling past teams with different styles and approaches, but this evening he will face the Premier League’s closest stylistic equivalent to his own side. Southampton are nowhere near Liverpool’s level - how could they be with these players - but their energetic pressing style is like an own-brand version of how Klopp’s side play.

And that should be no surprise, given their shared background. Last year Liverpool signed Naby Keita from RB Leipzig, where he had flourished under Hasenhuttl’s management. It made perfect sense that Klopp would want a player who had succeeded under a similar system. And Hasenhuttl expected Keita to flourish at Anfield too.

“We did our coaching badges together and we know each other very well,” Hasenhüttl told bundesliga.com. “I think we appreciate a similar philosophy on football: we want to play a high tempo game, we want our guys to sprint around, press well. These are elements which make the game livelier and varied and get people excited.”

Speaking at his press conference at Melwood on Thursday, Klopp was asked the same thing, and he too pointed to those same shared attributes - tempo, running, pressing - that make the two so similar. “There are a few things you can see, we all love good organisation, pressing, counter-press, quick transition,” Klopp said. “That’s nothing new, and you can see that. But I never watched the game and thought ‘oh, that’s like a mirror!’”

While Klopp has had a smooth ride, from Mainz to Borussia Dortmund to Liverpool, stepping confidently up the ladder, it has been a longer journey for Hasenhuttl to get here. He finished his playing career at Bayern Munich reserves from 2002 to 2004, when Klopp had already taken over at Mainz. Hasenhuttl had a reputation by then as a thoughtful, charismatic type who would be perfect for coaching, and Bayern wanted to keep hold of him. But instead Hasenhuttl wanted to make his own way in the game.

So he went to be a youth coach at SpVgg Unterhaching, a small team in Bavaria. In 2007 he took over as boss and managed them for two-and-a-half years in the German third tier, while Klopp was still managing Mainz in the Bundesliga. From there Hasenhuttl moved to another third tier team, VfR Aalen, got them promoted, left them for Ingolstadt 04, and got them promoted too. When he took over at RB Leipzig, on their debut top flight season, he shocked Germany, taking them to second place with his ferocious pressing football in a 4-4-2 that almost became a 4-2-4.

Even then Hasenhuttl was never a pressing ideologue, and at the end of his time at Leipzig he clashed with Red Bull football supremo Ralf Rangnick on this issue. Rangnick is a zealot but Hasenhuttl - just like Klopp this year - favoured a more mixed approach rather than just playing one way. Both men also have the charisma and over-sized personalities that come with having to step into management at a lower level, off the back of a good but not great playing career. They had to bring all the players with them, and that is what they have continued to do. These similarities meant that Hasenhuttl was soon known as the “Klopp of the Alps”, not a nickname he was ever especially fond of.

It has been a longer journey for Ralph Hasenhuttl to make it to the Premier League (Getty)

By the team Hasenhuttl got into the top flight with Ingolstadt, Klopp had resigned from Dortmund, meaning that this is the first season they have been competing in the same league as coaches. But Klopp is full of praise for Hasenhuttl’s longer road to the top of the game.

“Ralph did it the hard way,” Klopp said admiringly. “He started in the third division and was successful, then he went to the Championship in Germany, was successful, went on to Leipzig and was really successful, he built something then went to England. It’s a proper career, and shows as a manager that your first job doesn’t have to be AC Milan or something. It’s possible that you start deeper and if you are busy and ambitious, things can happen for you.”

And things are starting to happen at St Mary’s already. There is an obvious difference in how Saints play now under their new manager. They cover more ground, they win the ball higher up the pitch, and when they get it they attack faster. It has been enough to turn over Arsenal and Tottenham already but there is an even bigger prize on offer tonight. At least Klopp will know exactly what to expect.