Who are the best managers in the world?

SmashedHombre

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With Pep and Mourinho seeing their star fade a bit, who do you see as the best in the business? It's hard to argue with Klopp of course, but who else ranks in the very top bracket? It seems as though Zidane has turned it on at Madrid, Conte is doing fantastic in Italy (and has done wherever he's gone tbf), and Naglesmann continues to do well at Leipzig.

In addition, who are the most talented & innovative up and comers in the managerial world?
 

Skills

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1/2. Klopp and Guardiola
3. Conte
4/5/6/7. Pochettino, Simeone, Allegri, Zidane

I think the top 2 are quite far ahead because of their success, style of football. Conte's a clear third because of his own success but can't match other two for style. After that it's a toss up between the 4, and there's a few others who are potentially just as good as them but haven't had the right platform to show it yet.

There's an abundance of very talented coaches around at the moment.
 

Mark Pawelek

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With Pep and Mourinho seeing their star fade a bit, who do you see as the best in the business? It's hard to argue with Klopp of course, but who else ranks in the very top bracket? It seems as though Zidane has turned it on at Madrid, Conte is doing fantastic in Italy (and has done wherever he's gone tbf), and Naglesmann continues to do well at Leipzig.

In addition, who are the most talented & innovative up and comers in the managerial world?
Julian Nagelsmann, manages RB Leipzig who are currently 2nd in Budesliga, a point behind Bayern. Liepzig is a medium sized city of 600k people in former East Germany.

He played at youth level (so like Mourinho, he was never a proper professional star). Studied Business admin but transferred to sports science. Moved to coaching upon graduation.

It's not about being innovative with talent. Innovations often fail - more often than they succeed. Success is about hard work, professionalism, getting the details right; and stealing all the right ideas from other people. Learning and changing your approach based on experience are far more important than talent <- a nebulous concept.

PS: Tactical analysis of RB Leipzig's play style. Not a million miles from what Ole seems to be trying here. Difference being one has it working. So I think Nagelsmann could have an easy time taking over at United because many of the players he needs are here already.
 
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Ish

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How is Pep's star fading? If 1 season without guaranteed success (a season where he could still win a couple of trophies) - after winning a major trophy for just about every year of the last decade is "your star is fading"....then maybe.

Of course if you want to argue about how highly you rated him in the first place (money spent, teams/leagues managed in etc.) - that's for another debate.

I'd still have Pep/Klopp as the top 2.

Then the best of the rest atm seems to be Zidane and Conte, Simeone, Ten Haag (probably needs to step up to a bigger league to be top 5?) and Allegri.

Not sure where to rank Poch, because I rate what he did at Spurs, but he's yet to win silverware.

Hipster choices doing some good work is Nagelsmann and Rose - I know little about the 2 of them.

With Tuchel at PSG - difficult to rate but I like his approach to the game.

A manager I know nothing about, and I heard being raved about on here - is in South America (Argentina I think). Cannot recall the name, but a few wanted him to take over at Barca. Maybe someone can shed some light on him?

Mourinho's star seems to have faded though.
 
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VeevaVee

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I'm inclined to think Klopp is a tiny notch above Pep, but it's tough to say because they're both very good at getting a team playing great football, but see a drop off in intensity after a while. It'll be interesting to see how Klopp deals with that at Liverpool because despite the results they're not as lively as they were.

Pep spends more, but Klopp isn't exactly buying to nurture over 5 years either, despite what people say. He's utilising a very good scouting/transfer committee to do something similar to what Pep does but with less money.
 

Mr Smith

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I'm going to put my list in teirs, and not so much in order of ability but rather what kind of manager they for potential clubs wanting to snap them up.


The gold standard, tried and tested that any club would want: Klopp, Guardiola, Conte. Maybe Allegri too if we're being generous.

The next bracket probably includes the young and hungry with something still to prove: Nagelsmann, Rose, Pochettino, Ten Hag, Tunchel, maybe Rogers and Insaghi if we're being really generous.

Then there's the old guard; been around long enough that we know what we're getting, and they can still be good at it, but no longer the flavour of the month: Ancellotti, Mourinho, Simione, Favre, etc.

The outlier is Zidane; achieved more than almost every other manager listed, and 3 CL's in a row would suggest he has nothing to prove. And yet you still get the sense we don't quite know what kind of manager he is yet, and I'm not sure how many top clubs would be falling over themselves to hire him.

The most exciting group is obviously the young and hungry, but not all of them will come good. The trick is picking which one...

Edit: people seem to rate Simione way higher than he deserves IMO. Over the past 3-4 years he's shown himself to be a complete one-trick pony.
 
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I'm going to put my list in teirs, and not so much in order of ability but rather what kind of manager they for potential clubs wanting to snap them up.


The gold standard, tried and tested that any club would want: Klopp, Guardiola, Conte. Maybe Allegri too if we're being generous.

The next bracket probably includes the young and hungry with something still to prove: Nagelsmann, Rose, Pochettino, Ten Hag, Tunchel, maybe Rogers and Insaghi if we're being really generous.

Then there's the old guard; been around long enough that we know what we're getting, and they can still be good at it, but no longer the flavour of the month: Ancellotti, Mourinho, Favre, etc.

The outlier is Zidane; achieved more than almost every other manager listed, and 3 CL's in a row would suggest he has nothing to prove. And yet you still get the sense we don't quite know what kind of manager he is yet, and I'm not sure how many top clubs would be falling over themselves to hire him.

The most exciting group is obviously the young and hungry, but not all of them will come good. The trick is picking which one...
And where does Chris Wilder fit into all this?!
 

Mr Smith

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And where does Chris Wilder fit into all this?!
Great question, forgot him completely!

Maybe you could have an overachievers tier, of managers who are achieving near miracles at their clubs but we don't quite know if they'd make it at the most elite level. Maybe some of the young and hungry like Rogers and Inzaghi would for better in this tier.
 

SmashedHombre

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Julian Nagelsmann, manages RB Leipzig who are currently 2nd in Budesliga, a point behind Bayern. Liepzig is a medium sized city of 600k people in former East Germany.

He played at youth level (so like Mourinho, he was never a proper professional star). Studied Business admin but transferred to sports science. Moved to coaching upon graduation.

It's not about being innovative with talent. Innovations often fail - more often than they succeed. Success is about hard work, professionalism, getting the details right; and stealing all the right ideas from other people. Learning and changing your approach based on experience are far more important than talent <- a nebulous concept.

PS: Tactical analysis of RB Leipzig's play style. Not a million miles from what Ole seems to be trying here. Difference being one has it working. So I think Nagelsmann could have an easy time taking over at United because many of the players he needs are here already.
I've ben watching a few videos on Naglesmann recently, which prompted me to start this thread. Perhaps the best young manager in the world? I do hope we have our eyes on him, he seems destined to have a trophy-filled career.
 

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And where does Chris Wilder fit into all this?!
It's difficult to add people on just one successful season in the top flight compared to those doing it for a while. I'd have Pep above Klopp as he's done it over a longer period in different leagues, Klopp has too but Pep has the better record. Right now Klopp is the better manager, but over the last 5 years say, Pep tops him.

As for Wilder, let's see how Sheff Utd do next season. I don't think anyone would have Ranieri up there even though he won with Leicester
 

RoyH1

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I'm going to put my list in teirs, and not so much in order of ability but rather what kind of manager they for potential clubs wanting to snap them up.


The gold standard, tried and tested that any club would want: Klopp, Guardiola, Conte. Maybe Allegri too if we're being generous.

The next bracket probably includes the young and hungry with something still to prove: Nagelsmann, Rose, Pochettino, Ten Hag, Tunchel, maybe Rogers and Insaghi if we're being really generous.

Then there's the old guard; been around long enough that we know what we're getting, and they can still be good at it, but no longer the flavour of the month: Ancellotti, Mourinho, Simione, Favre, etc.

The outlier is Zidane; achieved more than almost every other manager listed, and 3 CL's in a row would suggest he has nothing to prove. And yet you still get the sense we don't quite know what kind of manager he is yet, and I'm not sure how many top clubs would be falling over themselves to hire him.

The most exciting group is obviously the young and hungry, but not all of them will come good. The trick is picking which one...

Edit: people seem to rate Simione way higher than he deserves IMO. Over the past 3-4 years he's shown himself to be a complete one-trick pony.
Very true this. How would someone like him fare at let's say Chelsea or PSG? It's hard to say and very interesting to follow in the future when he's no longer in Madrid.

That said, I really rate what he's doing right now with a 'weaker" squad than he's had in the past. He might not be a great football thinker like Guardiola, but he can get results.
 

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Why should be Zidane ranked lower than Pep in past 5 years or so? Or why should Pep be ranked same/higher than Klopp in the same period too?
 

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Conte is criminally underrated for me. I don't understand how Pochettino or Julian Nagelsmann can be ahead of him. The style of play shouldn't trump results.
 

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I’d also give a shout out to Gasperini as one of the most innovative managers out there right now. Has had a bumpy career but has finally had a continuous run at a club that believes in his vision. In Atalanta he has been given time to shape the squad himself, and has been given the amount of time it takes for a squad to fully adapt to his tactics.

For him to really be considered a top-top manager, he needs to win a trophy. I think this is needed for him to really prove to bigger clubs that he is worth considering. Had a short spell at Inter, but never had the required time and influence to perform. But the way he has made his team peform has not only impressed fans of uncompromising and exciting football, but has also won him admiration and respect from fellow managers and former players. Especially Pep has on several occasions stated his admiration and inspiration from Gasperini's Atalanta.

What he has achieved at Atalanta :

16/17 season (first season):
- Fourth place in the league, which secured EL qualification.
- In the two seasons before, Atalanta finished three points from relegation in the 14/15 season and midtable in the 15/16 season.

17/18 season:
- Finished at seventh place, which secured EL qualification.
- Qualified for the EL Group Stage, and topped the group without losing in a group containing Everton, Lyon and Apollon Limassol.
- Reached the semi-final in the Coppa Italia

18/19 season:
- Finished third in the league, which secured CL qualification.
- Scored most goals in the league.
- Reached the final in the Coppa Italia, but lost against Lazio.
- Failed to qualify for EL.

19/20 season:
- Currently at fourth place in the league and thereby in contention for a CL spot.
- Most goals scored in the league, and one of the most scoring teams in the top leagues of Europe. This season alone has won 7-0, 7-1, 5-0 and 5-0 in Serie A.
- Has progressed from the group stage in CL.

With a slight dip in the league in 17/18 season (still a very good season by the standard of a club like Atalanta), Gasperini has steadily made Atalanta a contender for CL and done it by playing very offensively and exciting. He has done it with a team full of players most of us had not heard of before he made them what they are now. The stand out players in his team are maybe known to most: Alejandro Gomes, Luis Muriel and Ilicic. But he has also made players such as Hateboer, De Roon, Freuler, Zapata, Pasalic and Gosens to perform at a high level consistently.
 
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11101

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Between 3 for me:
Klopp - if he can actually deliver the league he is out on his own, especially if he can do it more than once.
Zidane - i thought he was just lucky at first but he's come back after that great first stint and turned Madrid around.
Conte - not pretty but seems to win wherever he goes.

Pep is a great coach but has pretty much proven he can't face up to real competition at this point.


What's apparent is there are quite a few really good coaches right now but i don't see any genuine greats in this generation. Not in the vein of Ferguson, Sacchi, Lippi, Ancelloti etc of the last couple of generations
 

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Guardiola, Zidane, Klopp, Allegri, Bielsa.
 
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B20

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Pep is a great coach but has pretty much proven he can't face up to real competition at this point
Uh, that's exactly what he did last season. Overcame a 7 point deficit by winning 14 on the bounce to get 98 points and win the title by one point.
 

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Wasn’t Tuchel meant to be one of the best
 

Castia

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Why should be Zidane ranked lower than Pep in past 5 years or so? Or why should Pep be ranked same/higher than Klopp in the same period too?
Pep’s still won everything in England and Germany in the past 5 years doing so playing some of the best football we’ve seen in England.

Up until this season they’ve looked unbeatable in the Premier League at times, He’s missing the champions league for sure but Madrid whilst being great in Europe have 1 league title in 9 years.
 

JPRouve

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Pep’s still won everything in England and Germany in the past 5 years doing so playing some of the best football we’ve seen in England.

Up until this season they’ve looked unbeatable in the Premier League at times, He’s missing the champions league for sure but Madrid whilst being great in Europe have 1 league title in 9 years.
Zidane hasn't managed Madrid for 9 years and he is the one who won that one league title. He has also faced a stronger competition in Barcelona and Atletico than Guardiola faced with Bayern and in the PL he only really has an other strong opponent since last season.
 

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Trophies?
Pretty sure both Klopp and Mou had few CL trophies between them unlike Pep, or that counts the same as Pep's domestic title that previous managers of those team won too just year or two before?
 

11101

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Uh, that's exactly what he did last season. Overcame a 7 point deficit by winning 14 on the bounce to get 98 points and win the title by one point.
After having won by a country mile the season before, spending 400m in the previous 2 summers, and with Liverpool mounting their first serious title challenge in 10 years. Not exactly giant killing is it.
 

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Pep’s still won everything in England and Germany in the past 5 years doing so playing some of the best football we’ve seen in England.

Up until this season they’ve looked unbeatable in the Premier League at times, He’s missing the champions league for sure but Madrid whilst being great in Europe have 1 league title in 9 years.
Pretty sure previous managers at City and Bayern won that too. Actually previous manager at Bayern won CL too. And that didn't happen at Liverpool before Klopp and in Madrid pre Zidane who completely transformed those teams, and I don't mean just posession stats wise.

Looking unbeatable and playing best football doesn't neccesarily make you the best manager in the world, ask Arsene Wenger, or even Pep from this year.
 

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Zidane hasn't managed Madrid for 9 years and he is the one who won that one league title. He has also faced a stronger competition in Barcelona and Atletico than Guardiola faced with Bayern and in the PL he only really has an other strong opponent since last season.
Incredible how much underrated Zidane's success is, and how much people overrate Pep's success just mostly because he plays better football than his successors, without underrating his achievements.
 

JPRouve

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Incredible how much underrated Zidane's success is, and how much people overrate Pep's success just mostly because he plays better football than his successors, without underrating his achievements.
I could understand it if it was a comparison with Klopp or Simeone who took Europa League teams and turned them into genuine CL contenders. But in a comparion between Guardiola and Zidane, they basically started at the same point and since 2016 one has two CLs and a league title while the other has two league titles, they are cleraly both at the top of football management and in the same bracket, if you rate the CL then Zidane is above Guardiola.
 

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Jurgen Klopp for me. It doesn't really matter who plays in his team. Whether its Salah or Shaqiri, Mane or Lallana, Firmino or Origi, Matip or Lovren, Alisson or whats-their 2nd keepers-name-again..... it still functions the way it should. The only thing now is to see how he deals with Van Dijk being out.

Pep still needs a few star players to get his team ticking.
 

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It's got to be Nagelsmann for us next. Makes too much sense
 

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How is Pep's star fading? If 1 season without guaranteed success (a season where he could still win a couple of trophies) - after winning a major trophy for just about every year of the last decade is "your star is fading"....then maybe.

Of course if you want to argue about how highly you rated him in the first place (money spent, teams/leagues managed in etc.) - that's for another debate.

I'd still have Pep/Klopp as the top 2.
I'd say it's very important to this debate. If you asked the question how has Pep done versus expectations for quality of team and money spent I'd say he has at times come up short and at most met expectations.

There is a little harshness to that in the sense why wouldn't he take the jobs of the best teams, but the nature of that means he has never proven himself as an outright brilliant manager.

If you ask another question of could many other managers have realised similar results with the tools at his disposal I'd be reasonably confident to say yes.

At Barca he had some of the greatest players ever to grace the game. Bayern is the equivalent of Celtic in terms of guaranteed success so achievement there is fairly irrelevant and even with the ability to scoop up all the best German talent at reasonable prices he was still unable to win the Champions League.

At City he took an already phenomenal squad and spent enough money that he could have made pretty much any team in the world compete for top honours even without the initial base! The fact he hasn't won the Champions League with them is inexcusable.

Even the domestic treble seems less impressive when you consider most other top teams in England have been going through some of their worst periods in recent times.

I'm sure others could point to reasons to give him more credit, but I'm not convinced.
 

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Interesting how international managers aren't even considered these days.

Deschamps and Loew are two world cup winning managers but I - and I assume many others - wouldn't put them anywhere near top level managers.

Out of all the ones out there, maybe Fernando Santos has the best reputation? oh and the legend of Gareth Southgate of course.
 

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Incredible how much underrated Zidane's success is, and how much people overrate Pep's success just mostly because he plays better football than his successors, without underrating his achievements.
The fact is Pep wins, not only does he win but he does it playing an amazing brand of football andbreaks records. The desperation to put an asterisk next to his achievments is foolish at best.
 

RooneyLegend

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I'd say it's very important to this debate. If you asked the question how has Pep done versus expectations for quality of team and money spent I'd say he has at times come up short and at most met expectations.

There is a little harshness to that in the sense why wouldn't he take the jobs of the best teams, but the nature of that means he has never proven himself as an outright brilliant manager.

If you ask another question of could many other managers have realised similar results with the tools at his disposal I'd be reasonably confident to say yes.

At Barca he had some of the greatest players ever to grace the game. Bayern is the equivalent of Celtic in terms of guaranteed success so achievement there is fairly irrelevant and even with the ability to scoop up all the best German talent at reasonable prices he was still unable to win the Champions League.

At City he took an already phenomenal squad and spent enough money that he could have made pretty much any team in the world compete for top honours even without the initial base! The fact he hasn't won the Champions League with them is inexcusable.

Even the domestic treble seems less impressive when you consider most other top teams in England have been going through some of their worst periods in recent times.

I'm sure others could point to reasons to give him more credit, but I'm not convinced.
Rijkaard who is a CL winning manager had the same players plus a few more and got nowhere close to achieving what Pep did at Barca. City coaches have had blank checques for a decade and didn't achieve what he has. The only club this statement is true is at Bayern.