Liverpool legend Didi Hamann believes that Chelsea's Thomas Tuchel and Man United's Ralf Rangnick owe Jurgen Klopp a huge debt for paving the way in the Premier League for German coaches.
Fellow countrymen Klopp and Tuchel will come face-to-face on Sunday when Liverpool take on Chelsea in the League Cup final at Wembley stadium.
And former Reds midfielder Hamann, who won the trophy with Liverpool himself back in 2001 and 2003 said that Klopp's impact within English football has created a pathway for other coaches to follow him into English football.
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Chatting exclusively to Genting Casino, Hamann said: "There were other managers in lower leagues - Farke at Norwich, Wagner at Huddersfield - who got them promoted to the Premier League.
"If it wasn’t for Klopp, I don’t think some of the other guys would have got a chance. Tuchel certainly would have after his periods at PSG and in Dortmund, but I think some others have benefited."
However, Hamann thinks that the influx of German coaches is a pattern that won't last forever.
He said: "We’ve seen it in the past with French managers, with Spanish managers, Portuguese managers, if it all goes well and people come looking.
"Also, to a certain extent Rangnick, because if you look at his CV, he wouldn’t strike you as a Man United manager and obviously, it remains to be seen whether he keeps his job, but yes, I think a lot of German managers benefited from Klopp.
In six and a half years at Anfield, Klopp has delivered the Premier League title, Champions League, UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup trophies.
When asked if he ever thought he would see the day where German managers were leading some of the UK's top clubs, Hamann said: "No, I don’t think anybody would have foreseen that, and funnily enough Klopp and Tuchel made the first steps at Mainz, so Mainz produced two of the world’s best trainers.
"They both won the FIFA Manager of the Year in world football. It’s astonishing that a small club like Mainz, who do a great job in the Bundesliga, produced two of the best managers.
"I think we had a bit of a drought for a while, we had a lot of foreign managers here in Germany, but now the Germans go to England and go all over the world. It’s good to see, but then again, these things go in cycles, I don’t think in three, five, eight years’ time we will be in the same situation.
"Maybe we will talk about three Spanish, or three French, or even three English managers. An English manager hasn’t won the league since Harold Wilkinson with Leeds, which is very strange. It goes in cycles. It’s a great moment for German football, for German culture, for German managers, I don’t think it will last forever."
Shifting his attention to Sunday's cup final, Hamman is expecting a tight contest and as a player who both missed and scored penalties in cup final shoot-outs, the German has some advice for anyone taking a spot-kick in such a high pressure situation.
When Liverpool beat Birmingham City in the League Cup final in 2001, Hamann missed his kick. But asked if he ever thought about that miss before striking successful penalties, he said: "No, I never thought about what happened before. In the Champions League final four years after the League Cup final, I probably forgot about it by then and wouldn’t have thought about it for one second."
The German midfielder credited stats and data with his successful penalty kick record after the disappointment of missing a kick in the League Cup final in 2001.
He said: "I came across one stat that said if you hit a penalty above hip height; if you hit the top half of the goal, you’ve got a 91 percent better chance of scoring.
"Even if you hit it next to the post, if you don’t hit it hard enough the keepers, they tend to all dive down, nobody is diving up, they only go down, and the penalty is saved on the floor.
"That was one thing I had in mind when I hit these two penalties, and I probably couldn’t have hit them any sweeter. Penalties don’t need to be hit that hard, if you hit a certain height, placement beats pace."
Hamann took the first penalty in both of those victories. Asked how he kept a clear head, he said: "Yeah, but you don’t take much notice of anything when you’re in that zone. The manager asked me twice whether I want to take one, and I nodded, and he came back in both games and said you take the first one.
"In Istanbul it was made a bit easier because Serginho missed the first one, but then it’s all about keeping your focus and believing in your own ability.
"In the FA Cup final, Shaka Hislop was the keeper for West Ham and he didn’t stand right in the middle of the goal. Sometimes keepers leave one side open as a trick and then it becomes a mind game – is he taking the side that’s open, or is he taking the other one?
"I was going to go to my right because I went to my left in Istanbul. I thought I’d go to my right and that was the one he left open, it was only a few inches, but obviously, if you stand right in front of him you can see that he’s not in the middle of the goal.
"I thought to myself, if he doesn’t move… I’ll put the ball where there’s more space, and he didn’t move early, so I just put it into that right corner, and as I said, I struck them both pretty sweetly. If you hit them at a certain height they do go in."
Liverpool and Chelsea last met in a League Cup final back in 2005 when The Blues went onto win 3-2 in extra time and lift the trophy.
But although he envisages another close contest, Hamman believes it will swing in the Reds' favour this time.
He added: "It’s a one off game on Sunday, it can go either way. I think Liverpool is so stable at the moment, they seem to be so confident. I think it will be the same story on Sunday."
