Top managers win competitive big trophies in their early managerial career

Interesting. Would you expect the other managers to win major silverware with Leipzig? Also, who are the available managers who have won a major trophy under 45? Because if there aren't any, then isn't the next alternative someone who can win it before 50?

Just seems like a really random and close-minded criteria which doesn't take into account context of any sort, nor the reality we find ourselves in. It's probably why we can't progress. Our whole thought process is random and ad-hoc. Ticking boxes and random shit like that. We should be going for a manager who we believe has the tactical qualities to implement a modern style of football that can change this football club for the better for the coming decade.

amolbhatia50k said:

Interesting. Would you expect the other managers to win major silverware with Leipzig? Also, who are the available managers who have won a major trophy under 45? Because if there aren't any, then isn't the next alternative someone who can win it before 50?

Just seems like a really random and close-minded criteria which doesn't take into account context of any sort, nor the reality we find ourselves in. It's probably why we can't progress. Our whole thought process is random and ad-hoc. Ticking boxes and random shit like that. We should be going for a manager who we believe has the tactical qualities to implement a modern style of football that can change this football club for the better for the coming decade.

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Nagelsmann and Rose would've likely won the league at the big two in Spain IMO. It's all about being at the right club that provides you with the conditions to win and IMO neither Nagelsmann or Rose are at those clubs currently. Rose in particular isn't gonna win the league with Gladbach.

So I agree it's a flawed criteria but I look forward to the replies..

Del Bosque only started winning at 49, but according to your criteria, he's not a great manager despite winning a world cup, european championship and champions league.

Shankly only took over liverpool at 49.

Lippi only got his first top job at Juventus when he's 46.

I think all your examples, bar Ferguson at Aberdeen, would have been expected to challenge for silverware at their clubs. Indeed, a lot of them would have been out of a job if they hadn’t.

Pochettino has never been manager of a club that are expected to be challenging for silverware, so it’s totally unfair criteria from that point of view. He created a competitive Tottenham. Top 4 was a bonus when he arrived and he made it the norm.

It’s also a strange time to be posting it when the current European champions are managed by a man winning his first major silverware at the age of 55.

SinNombre said:

SAF - won the Scottish league with Aberdeen at age 38 (and two more league wins and the european cup winners cup with them beating RM at age 41).

Mourinho - won the Portuguese league and UEFA cup with Porto at age 40 (first league win for them in 4 years) and then won the CL at age 41.

Pep - won la liga and the CL as a manager at 38

Zidane - won the CL at age 43 and then la liga the next year at age 44.

Klopp - won the Bundesliga with Bvb at age 43

LVG - won the Eredivisie with Ajax at age 42 and 43, and the CL with them at 43

Cruijff - league and cup winners cup double with Ajax at 40, league win with Barca at 43

Ancelotti - won Serie A at age 44 with Milan (their first win in 5 years and one of only 2 league titles in the past 25!)

Wenger - won the league with Monaco at age 39. Slightly underwhelming achievement compared to the rest but he is also (relatively) an underwhelming manager.

Hitzfeld is a slight exception given he stayed and kept winning in Switzerland for a long time before moving to Bvb and winning the league with them at 46 and the CL at 47.


Anyways, the point is for those looking to replace Ole and wanting him replaced with a great manager, the answer cannot be the likes of Poch (48 and never won anything) or Marco Rose (44 and same).

If RB Leipzig can actually win the league or CL, then you are talking about Nagelsmann as someone who is following in the footsteps of the greats and I can fully buy into the hype train. Domenico Tedesco could also be an interesting one if he can win the Russian league and take Spartak deep in Europe.

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If this is the case then barcelona/juve/madrid/chelsea etc are doomed unless they have one of those names?

What a weird logic.

I'd argue top managers win the league in their home country

I see the OP's point as managers develop their style and methods to fit the task at hand. That would mean that managing a club that does not go for titles (or does not succeed in that challenge) for years might turn them into a manager who is suited for a mid-table season campaigns or relegation survival battles. For example, Marco Rose, would his style and tactics suit a team that has vastly better resources and ability to attract players but also different level of expectations? At the moment he and the Monchengladbach hierarchy are looking for bargains and players they can flip. They are not aiming to win titles.

Nagelsmann is a different case as he is tasked to both improve asset value (flip players) but also (I'm assuming) challenge for trophies. So far he hasn't delivered on the trophies part but he has time on his side. However, if he remains trophy-less in the next 3-4 years, I would bring up the same question.

Tuchel, for example, went to win the 'easy' French league after winning the German Cup and being sacked (Dortmund spent big to and he didn't deliver as much as they expected + rumours said he ostracized the directors). Unfortunately for him, the first big opportunity to put his name among the big, successful managers, was a failure (the recently lost final against Bayern). I wouldn't say he is a proven and progressive manager only because he has won titles with PSG.

However, on the other hand, that arbitrary age limit of 45 seems exactly that, 'arbitrary'. Enough examples have been given why that doesn't make sense as career trajectories are different and there are plenty of managers who begin winning after crossing that line in the sand.

For me the important thing is the progression of jobs while the tactical ideas and methods remain 'progressive'. Klopp went from Mainz where he couldn't possibly win anything, to Dortmund where he might (and he did) and then to Liverpool where he continued to develop and adapt, and ultimately won big.

Pep and Zidane are very different cases as they both started from the top. Not winning trophies at Barcelona and Real Madrid would immediately mark them as failures. Calling them progressive geniuses just because they won, is not accurate, in my opinion. Pep's methods have proven to be progressive because of the manner of domination his teams exert on others (shown at Barcelona, Bayern and City) while Zidane proved to have a knack without necessarily revolutionising the game. For me, Zidane is more from the Ancelotti ilk, than from the Klopp (or Pep) one.

Ole can be compared to Hitzfeld who won in a small league before taking a giant (Bayern). Unfortunately for Ole, United are not the dominant beast they were 15-20 years ago and his job is to make them challenge again, while Bayern had won the title in 2 of the last 5 years before Hitzfeld took the job and weren't in the top 3 on only one occasion (season 94-95).

elmo said:

Del Bosque only started winning at 49, but according to your criteria, he's not a great manager despite winning a world cup, european championship and champions league.

Shankly only took over liverpool at 49.

Lippi only got his first top job at Juventus when he's 46.

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Stop it you’re not sticking to the OP’s ageist agenda!

Who really gives a crap if a manager wins their best first major trophy on their 90th birthday? Irrelevant thread trying to group successful people into an age group. So many variables in managing a football club, managers being successful does not rely on their date of birth.

Poch could well disprove this theory in his next job, as I believe he’ll get a big club to try his coaching methods at.

I had a similar argument when we hired Moyes, but it was more like top managers win big trophies in their first 10 years of managing. Which ruled Moyes out, rules Ole out, and rules Pocchettino out.

I liked it better than simply classifying them by age because people start managing at different ages. So someone starting at 25 would have 10 years to win something per OP's criteria, while someone starting at 42 needs to hurry up.

I don't buy the 'but he was always managing a small team that cannot win trophies'. That is precisely the point, if you are that great, within 10 years of your career you either need to have jumped in a top team or make your team a top one.

Of course, there are some exceptions (like Hitzfeld), but he actually won trophies in Switzerland. And well, he is one of the very few (recent as in last 30 years) exceptions.

Sometimes I wonder whether the caf has some hidden competition going on to find the most simplistic view possible.

SinNombre said:

If RB Leipzig can actually win the league or CL, then you are talking about Nagelsmann as someone who is following in the footsteps of the greats and I can fully buy into the hype train. Domenico Tedesco could also be an interesting one if he can win the Russian league and take Spartak deep in Europe.

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This in particular is a piece of art. Nagelsmann is all hype, because he couldn't win the league against teams that outspend/t his by the factor 2.5 to 6. All hype.
Now Tedesco... who played football that would make Moyes proud with Schalke, finished as "the worst second place ever", because everyone else was in crisis. In his second season he wanted to give his team some ideas with the ball, that resulted in 0 points from his opening 5 games and an immediate return to hoofball. You may also remember iconic moments such as getting 7-0'd by City or getting fired, because the club was approaching relegation.
But what do I know.. if he can win that Russian title within that official 45th birthday rule, then we might have a real winner on our hands, folks.

elmo said:

Del Bosque only started winning at 49, but according to your criteria, he's not a great manager despite winning a world cup, european championship and champions league.

Shankly only took over liverpool at 49.

Lippi only got his first top job at Juventus when he's 46.

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Clearly not top mangers. Vilas Boas on the other hand..

Maluco said:

I think all your examples, bar Ferguson at Aberdeen, would have been expected to challenge for silverware at their clubs. Indeed, a lot of them would have been out of a job if they hadn’t.

Pochettino has never been manager of a club that are expected to be challenging for silverware, so it’s totally unfair criteria from that point of view. He created a competitive Tottenham. Top 4 was a bonus when he arrived and he made it the norm.

It’s also a strange time to be posting it when the current European champions are managed by a man winning his first major silverware at the age of 55.

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Exactly. Flick only began in November and is already the best manager in the world atm, and his first major trophy was won at the age of 55. Also, Wenger relatively underwhelming career? He won the double, loads of FA Cup’s and did the impossible by going unbeaten in the league for a full season (no one else has done it). This doesn’t even take into account his achievements outside England. He is a managerial legend, just not on the same echelons as Fergie, Pep, Ancelotti, Cruyff, Clough, Mourinho etc. He needed a real European trophy to be up there with them.

RashyForPM said:

Exactly. Flick only began in November and is already the best manager in the world atm, and his first major trophy was won at the age of 55. Also, Wenger relatively underwhelming career? He won the double, loads of FA Cup’s and did the impossible by going unbeaten in the league for a full season (no one else has done it). This doesn’t even take into account his achievements outside England. He is a managerial legend, just not on the same echelons as Fergie, Pep, Ancelotti, Cruyff, Clough, Mourinho etc. He needed a real European trophy to be up there with them.

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Another good example.

That seems arbitrary.

Why 45 ? why not 46 or 47 ?

Why is Marco Rose out when he isn't 45 already ? why an exception for Hitzfeld and not for him. i'm sure there are a lot of other exceptions.

How about Laurent Blanc for example, who won ligue 1 with Bordeaux at 44 years old ? is he a good manager ? or not ?

Bielsa ? won a titles at 36 years old. but did not win anything major in the last 10/15 years ? is he a good manager or a bad one ?

The logic is flawed. The best part of this thread is using this logic to say that x or y manager can't be our manager because of this logic. It's ridiculous at best.

Ps: i'm for Ole staying.

I don't think it's a huge surprise that greats generally show their worth early on, in any discipline. Players, managers, muscians, michelin chasing chefs... It's a fairly standard and obvious trend, and goes without saying that having 'the next big thing' on board is nice when possible. I can't say that choosing managers based on whether they've been around the sun less than 50 times is a good idea though.

Nothing better than an arbitrary number to determine future managerial success. I say go for 44 as on average it's a year further from death, although it's closer to 29 i.e. footballing-death.

Zlatan will never be a good manager. I guess..

Bobby Di Matteo: managerial legend.

I wouldn’t take Flick becoming head coach late as any kind of indication. At 41 he became assistant coach of a national team which went on to reach at least a semi final in every tournament while he was there and won a WC. I would be very surprised if the Bayern hierarchy didn’t ask some of their key (ex) players about Flick’s role and input in all those years before hiring him.

Hasnt Ole won the league with Molde?

RashyForPM said:

Exactly. Flick only began in November and is already the best manager in the world atm, and his first major trophy was won at the age of 55. Also, Wenger relatively underwhelming career? He won the double, loads of FA Cup’s and did the impossible by going unbeaten in the league for a full season (no one else has done it). This doesn’t even take into account his achievements outside England. He is a managerial legend, just not on the same echelons as Fergie, Pep, Ancelotti, Cruyff, Clough, Mourinho etc. He needed a real European trophy to be up there with them.

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Well..not that I argue against your point but to be precise, Flick did NOT start in November...He began his managerial career in 1996. He even won a promotion with Hoffenheim in 2001.

AVB won the Europa League with Porto (actually a treble) when he was 33.

This thread is the definition of confirmation bias.

Revan said:

I had a similar argument when we hired Moyes, but it was more like top managers win big trophies in their first 10 years of managing. Which ruled Moyes out, rules Ole out, and rules Pocchettino out.

I liked it better than simply classifying them by age because people start managing at different ages. So someone starting at 25 would have 10 years to win something per OP's criteria, while someone starting at 42 needs to hurry up.

I don't buy the 'but he was always managing a small team that cannot win trophies'. That is precisely the point, if you are that great, within 10 years of your career you either need to have jumped in a top team or make your team a top one.

Of course, there are some exceptions (like Hitzfeld), but he actually won trophies in Switzerland. And well, he is one of the very few (recent as in last 30 years) exceptions.

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It’s flawed reasoning, you’re conflating likelihoodbased on correlation with causal arguments. if you make a category of ‘managers that win big trophies before 45’ or ‘within their first ten years of management’, you’ll find an extrordinary amount of good managers in that pool. Obviously. Their selected because of qualities that have caused success and often the same qualities will cause new success. It’s not the selection that causes the next success though. If progressive ideas, great ambition, leadership skills, and intensive work ethics are qualities that likely leads to success, You will likely acheive more success by going for a driven, ambitious 55 year old who has refined his leadership skills with age and developed a progressive game over time at lower levels, than with a 45 year old who won Serie A thrice before he was 40 and after that became satisfied while his ideas were caught up by the development of the game. It’s the qualities that it makes most sense to look at, not the arbitrary categories.

Pure fallacy is when someone, as above, concludes that a ‘Pochettino’ cannot win a big trophy because most big trophies are won by ‘Mourinhos’. That just does not follow, and Lippi, Hitzfeld, Shankly, Paisley, Rehagel and Del Bosque prove that.

georgipep said:

Well..not that I argue against your point but to be precise, Flick did NOT start in November...He began his managerial career in 1996. He even won a promotion with Hoffenheim in 2001.

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Never knew that. I thought his claim to fame beforehand was being Löw’s assistant at the World Cup.

RashyForPM said:

Never knew that. I thought his claim to fame beforehand was being Löw’s assistant at the World Cup.

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He was assistant at Leipzig when Low took him as part of his Germany staff. His career has had some small ups and downs before the Germany gig. And now he has a huge up, waiting to see if/when the downs come

georgipep said:

He was assistant at Leipzig when Low took him as part of his Germany staff. His career has had some small ups and downs before the Germany gig. And now he has a huge up, waiting to see if/when the downs come

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He seems a great fit for Bayern. That winning run last year was akin to or even eclipsed most of the great teams of the past.

RashyForPM said:

He seems a great fit for Bayern. That winning run last year was akin to or even eclipsed most of the great teams of the past.

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Indeed, quite fascinating run of results. To me, it seems like a case of the contrast effect. Kovac was a very different coach and his tactics and methods were probably quite constrasting to what Flick now imposes on the Bayern squad. Regardless if the players liked Kovac and his methods, the results surely have created a bid of a negative cloud and Flick seems to have cleared that instantly.

Some trainers manage to land a gig at a huge financial powerhouse club before they're 45 due to them having player for them. If Pep or Zidane started at smaller clubs they wouldnt have made the list. Wouldnt make em worse coaches.

You also forgot Roberto Di Matteo who won the CL when he was something like 42

Grande said:

It’s flawed reasoning, you’re conflating likelihoodbased on correlation with causal arguments. if you make a category of ‘managers that win big trophies before 45’ or ‘within their first ten years of management’, you’ll find an extrordinary amount of good managers in that pool. Obviously. Their selected because of qualities that have caused success and often the same qualities will cause new success. It’s not the selection that causes the next success though. If progressive ideas, great ambition, leadership skills, and intensive work ethics are qualities that likely leads to success, You will likely acheive more success by going for a driven, ambitious 55 year old who has refined his leadership skills with age and developed a progressive game over time at lower levels, than with a 45 year old who won Serie A thrice before he was 40 and after that became satisfied while his ideas were caught up by the development of the game. It’s the qualities that it makes most sense to look at, not the arbitrary categories.

Pure fallacy is when someone, as above, concludes that a ‘Pochettino’ cannot win a big trophy because most big trophies are won by ‘Mourinhos’. That just does not follow, and Lippi, Hitzfeld, Shankly, Paisley, Rehagel and Del Bosque prove that.

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I thought that Pocchettino is not all that for years now, and yes, I do not think that he will win big trophies.

From the names you mentioned, Shankly is the only one who did not win in his first 10 years. Rehagel won a cup, Lippi won Serie A, Paisley won everything (multiple times) on his first 10 years and Del Bosque won leagues when he started managing for more than in a caretaker role.

Most of the good work comes when people are relatively youngish, and in every field, if you haven't done your mark, quite early on the career, it is quite unlikely that you will become that great later. Pochettino had 12 years or so managing and couldn't win a domestic cup. He might eventually fluke something (after all Ranieri did it too), but chances are high that he won't win much.

Revan said:

I thought that Pocchettino is not all that for years now, and yes, I do not think that he will win big trophies.

From the names you mentioned, Shankly is the only one who did not win in his first 10 years. Rehagel won a cup, Lippi won Serie A, Paisley won everything (multiple times) on his first 10 years and Del Bosque won leagues when he started managing for more than in a caretaker role.

Most of the good work comes when people are relatively youngish, and in every field, if you haven't done your mark, quite early on the career, it is quite unlikely that you will become that great later. Pochettino had 12 years or so managing and couldn't win a domestic cup. He might eventually fluke something (after all Ranieri did it too), but chances are high that he won't win much.

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You may be right about everything in that post, and it doesn’t bear on what I wrote or the logic of the OP.

It's an interesting metric but it's not the key to the kingdom, so to speak, just another factor to consider.

Revan said:

I thought that Pocchettino is not all that for years now, and yes, I do not think that he will win big trophies.

From the names you mentioned, Shankly is the only one who did not win in his first 10 years. Rehagel won a cup, Lippi won Serie A, Paisley won everything (multiple times) on his first 10 years and Del Bosque won leagues when he started managing for more than in a caretaker role.

Most of the good work comes when people are relatively youngish, and in every field, if you haven't done your mark, quite early on the career, it is quite unlikely that you will become that great later. Pochettino had 12 years or so managing and couldn't win a domestic cup. He might eventually fluke something (after all Ranieri did it too), but chances are high that he won't win much.

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I agree with your general point but Ranieri did win the Italian Cup with Fiorentina, the Spanish Cup with Valencia in the early years of his managerial career. Not sure if you count those (looks like you do, from the Rehagel reference).

SinNombre said:

Pep or Zidane winning the league and CL in their first 2 years is a big deal. Look at the number of managers both those clubs churn through without success.

AVB also won when he was big. No one is saying it guarantees greatness. All that is being said is people without big trophies in their early managerial career never go on to be all time greats.

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I've disproved your point with some great managers who've won after 45 unless you're saying they can't be considered great.

What a stupid and arbitrary metric...