Huddersfield Town struck gold with £1.8m "rolls-royce" - he was "phenomenal" | OneFootball

Christopher Schindler wrote his name into Huddersfield Town folklore at Wembley Stadium

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

Huddersfield Town currently find themselves in the thick of a second successive League One campaign, with the end goal a swift return to the Championship after suffering relegation in May 2024.

At present, Town are currently nowhere near where they were as a club in terms of divisional status and stature compared to just under 10 years ago, when the appointment of David Wagner proved an eventual masterstroke by former chairman, Dean Hoyle.

Before the German's appointment at the Accu Stadium, over three generations hadn't known the Terriers as being a top flight side, having been outside the elite level of English football since the summer of 1972, which included several seasons in League One and even a handful of campaigns in what is League Two, which included the 2003/04 season due to financial difficulties at the turn of the millennium.

As such, it seemed highly unlikely at the time of Wagner's arrival in November 2015, that just 18 months later, the West Yorkshire side would end their aforementioned exile away from the Premier League in the most dramatic of fashions after playing some of the most exciting football witnessed by Town supporters for many a year.

However, that is what ended up transpiring, with one of his recruits in the summer of 2016 making what felt like an 'impossible dream' become reality at Wembley Stadium.

During his first pre-season in charge of the Terriers, Wagner welcomed a whole host of players from his native Germany, which included a then-club-record capture of centre-back, Christopher Schindler, who joined the club from 1860 Munich for a reported £1.8m fee.

The four-time German youth international would then go on to forge a strong partnership with compatriot, Michael Hefele, at the heart of defence as Town asserted themselves as potential promotion material in the early stages of the 2016/17 Championship season.

Despite competing against the likes of Newcastle United, Brighton and Hove Albion and Sheffield Wednesday for a place in the Premier League, Huddersfield stayed among the pack of candidates for the majority of the season, albeit they would bizarrely begin their play-off campaign with a negative goal difference.

Wagner's men then defeated Wednesday over two semi-final legs through an eventual penalty shootout success, before Schindler wrote his name into club folklore with the winning spot-kick after a largely tepid play-off final against Reading.

After continuing to be a key figure in the Premier League for the Terriers, he won the club's Player of the Year award in successive seasons, and is still, unsurprisingly, held in such high regard by supporters such as FLW's Town fan pundit, Graeme Rayner.

"Christopher Schindler is probably the best-value signing Huddersfield Town ever made," he claimed.

"At the time, they broke the transfer record for him. When we signed him, no one really knew much about him, but we soon learned, for a club at our level, he was a Rolls-Royce-type defender.

"His ability to read the game was phenomenal," Rayner added. "He very rarely looked like he was scrambling, he always looked at ease. He read the game really well and led well.

"We had a back-four made up of players who were 'captain material', which is a big change from where we are now.

"I think he summed it up himself when he explained why he took the penalty that got us promoted in the play-off final," he stated.

"He'd never taken a penalty before. But, he wanted to repay the faith Dean Hoyle showed in him by making him a club-record signing, and he slotted that penalty away brilliantly.

"In the Premier League, he didn't look out of place. He was really comfortable in a lot of games compared to the rest of the team.

"The only player who comes as close to being as pivotal towards any success Town have had in the past 20 years is Aaron Mooy," Rayner explained.

"I think the two of them, really, were head and shoulders above the rest of the team in terms of quality, and he's rightly considered a bit of a legend."

Christopher Schindler's career post-Huddersfield Town

As Rayner alluded to, Schindler, on top of his crowning moment in North London, was one of the standout performers throughout Huddersfield's recent 'golden era'.

In total, the dominant and composed centre-back made 184 appearances for the Terriers, scoring five times and posting as many assists between 2016 and 2021, when he would go on to sign for FC Nuremberg.

The Munich-born figure then made 62 appearances upon his return to Bavaria before retiring from the professional game in the summer of 2024.

However, it's fair to say that the most successful and fondest times of his career came in the North of England, where his feelings of love towards the club have certainly been reciprocated by supporters.