Former USMNT player David Wagner is 1 game from guiding Huddersfield to the Premier League

On Monday, May 29, Huddersfield Town competes in the Championship promotion playoff final. They deserve your attention because of their manager, German-American Jürgen Klopp disciple David Wagner.

First off, let’s not be disrespectful to Huddersfield, which is more than their manager. It’s a club with a rich 108-year history, including three league championships in the 1920s and over 30 total season in the top flight. It’s a club with a wonderful nickname: the Terriers. And it’s a club with a uniquely designed ground, Kirklees Stadium.

Photo by Gareth Copley/Getty Images

But it would be dishonest to pretend that these are the reasons why you, person with no attachment to Huddersfield, should root for them to make the Premier League. Their opponent, Reading, also has its own rich history, after all. What’s truly unique to Huddersfield is the personality and coaching style of Wagner, and if you’re an American, what he might do for your national team in the future.

Wagner was the manager of Borussia Dortmund II under Klopp for four seasons before he took the reins at Huddersfield. Like his former boss, he believes in building squad harmony through training camps in the wilderness with no modern amenities.

“I am convinced that the better you know your mate off the pitch, the more you are able to work for him on it in uncomfortable situations,” Wagner said of the trip. “They changed their borderlines over those three days. I can say now, three months later, that it was 100 percent success, and that is the feedback from the players, too.”

He’s also a believer in Klopp’s “heavy-metal football,” a high-octane playing style that requires players to be at peak fitness all the time. “We want speed in our game,” Wagner told Matt Pearson at The Set Pieces, “everything full throttle, we want aggression, we like to press high, we like to keep the ball, we like to show emotion.”

That’s made Huddersfield one of the most entertaining teams to watch in the Championship this season. It’s the reason Huddersfield is in the Championship playoffs for the first time in their history. But his coaching philosophy is not without its downsides.

Despite finishing fourth in the Championship, Huddersfield has a negative goal differential. They were in competition with Brighton and Newcastle for automatic promotion going into April and then collapsed, winning just three of their final 10 matches. Huddersfield has used the fewest number of players of any team in the Championship over the league’s grueling 46-game season, which contributed to their excellent chemistry, but it also hurt them down the stretch. Still, they were able to find enough energy to push Sheffield Wednesday to penalties and win in the semifinal.

No matter what happens in the final, just getting a low-budget club like Huddersfield that hasn’t had recent success in the Championship into the top six is a major accomplishment. But Wagner is a rising star in the coaching world, and upcoming results could have a big impact on his future.

Wagner has been linked to some big jobs, most notably the vacant position at Bayer Leverkusen. Promotion to the Premier League could see him stick around for a while, but failure to win the playoffs could make him more likely to accept interview requests.

American fans should hope that Wagner stays at Huddersfield for another year, because as long as he hasn’t moved on to a bigger club, he’ll be one of the coaches linked to the United States men’s national team job. Though Wagner was born in Germany and played for the German Under-21 national team, he made the switch to his father’s home country, receiving eight caps for the USMNT in the 1990s.

Of the potential coaches with existing links to the United States who could take over from Bruce Arena in 2018, Wagner’s story and coaching style are the most intriguing. He’s just as representative as Jürgen Klinsmann of the desire for a more ambitious USMNT that has a defined style of play, but with a more suitable resume and much better reviews from players he’s coached. While American players probably don’t have the skill and creativity to play like Barcelona, they have the fitness and athleticism — plus enough technical ability — to play like something halfway between Huddersfield and Liverpool.

Wagner only has two seasons of high-level experience under his belt. Huddersfield’s poor, tired-looking play at the end of the season suggests that he still has a lot to learn. But he’s clearly a manager with interesting ideas and a lot of potential, and if you’re a USMNT fan, you should root for him to get a chance to coach at the Premier League level.

You can watch the playoff final against Reading at 10 a.m. ET on Monday, May 29 on beIN Sports.