Top Managers In World Football

I wanted to make a list of the top managers in world football. So here is the list that I have made. I have chosen 8 who I feel stand out. I have ordered them with the best coming first. I would like to know how far you agree with my selections and the relative ordering.

1. Marcello Lippi – Won WC 2006 with Italy. Has been to 4 UCL finals with Juventus out of which he won one and lost the other three, one of them on penalties. Has also won 5 Serie A titles with Juventus. He is the only manager in this list to have attained the highest pedigree in both club and international football.

2. Fabio Capello – Has won titles with every club he’s coached. Won UCL 1994 with Milan defeating Johann Cruyff’s dream team 4-0 in the final, a result which shocked all football pundits. Won Serie A multiple times with Milan, Juventus and above all unfancied Roma. Has coached Real Madrid in two spells, each of only one year and has incredibly won the La Liga title on both occasions. Has just recently moved to international football and under his tutelage England is improving leaps and bounds. The one major criticism against him is that he has favored boring result oriented football. Also he’s difficult to get along with and has made enemies in most of the places he’s coached. One more point is that other than the one UCL title, his teams have not done much in UCL.

3. Sir Alex Ferguson – In 23 years at Manchester United, he’s won 33 titles, more than 20 of them being major ones. He’s won 11 EPL titles. He’s won 2 UCL titles and is close to bagging the third one. There’s just no stopping the wily old Scot.

4. Guus Hiddink – Is regarded as a magician in football. No matter where he’s coached, given the time and resources he was given, the results he has produced have almost invariably been much higher than realistic expectations. His number of titles may be lower and less prestigious than some of the others but he’s often been in charge of underrated teams. He’s won the European Cup with PSV in 1988 and several Dutch league titles with them as well. He’s taken Holland to WC 1998 semi final, Korea to WC 2002 semi final, Australia to WC 2006 second round and Russia to Euro 2008 semi final. In a very short spell of just 3 months recently at Chelsea he has produced such a wonderful string of results that Chelsea fans are pleading with him not to leave the club.

5. Jose Mourinho – Won UCL with outsiders Porto. Won 2 Portuguese league titles with them. Won 2 EPL titles with Chelsea. Also just won 1 Serie A title with Inter. That’s a very impressive trophy haul. However he’s being rated slightly lower for some reasons that I will explain. After that one UCL victory, he’s not managed to take any team to the UCL final. Although he’s a good tactician he’s often lost out in tactical battles in knock out ties. More than a tactician he’s a great man manager, motivator and a born winner. Not all his titles look that great. The Portuguese league is not all that great. With Inter he’s only done the bare minimum winning Serie A but he could not win the Coppa Italia. Serie A currently is not all that competitive because Juventus is still not top class, Roma have exhausted everything they had and Milan are both disinterested in Serie A and have not improved their squad for several years. Other than this, like Capello, he too is known to promote boring result oriented football. He also makes a lot of enemies but mainly with his opponents and what’s more he really enjoys doing that.

6. Luis Felipe Scolari – Won WC 2002 with Brazil. After that took Portugal on the best run in their history – Euro 2004 final, WC 2006 semi final and Euro 2008 quarter final. However when he tried top flight club management for the first time with Chelsea, after a good beginning, things went so much downhill that his term can be called a failure. However he does deserve at least one more chance at a top club and then we will be able to rate him better.

7. Carlo Ancelotti – He’s the second manager on this list to have won 2 UCLs – 2003 and 2007 with Milan. He also took Milan to the UCL 2005 final. He’s also won one Serie A title with Milan in 2004. However in the last couple of years he seems to be losing the plot completely. Besides his not winning any more Serie A titles and generally giving it much less importance than UCL also counts against him. It’s time for him to move to Real Madrid or Chelsea and then we can evaluate him better.

8. Arsene Wenger – He’s the professor of beautiful football. He won EPL 1998, EPL 2002 and EPL 2004 with Arsenal. For 9 years , he kept Arsenal in the top two of EPL. However he did not win any European titles but did take Arsenal to the final of UCL 2006. Unfortunately in the last 4 years his club has been going down the drain. It’s time for him to move to Real Madrid and prove his real worth once again.