15 Best Football Managers of All Time [Ranked]

Key Takeaways

• The top 15 football managers of all time have been ranked, with three active bosses getting the nod.
• Carlo Ancelotti, Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola have all enjoyed brilliant managerial careers during the 21st century.
• There are places in the top five for football visionaries like Rinus Michels and Johan Cruyff.

Football fans love a good debate and there are few discussions more nuanced than those around whom the greatest manager of all time is. Deciding the best player in football history is tricky enough, but the impact a head coach can have on their team is even harder to unpick from the outside looking in.

The role of a manager has evolved from a defacto secretary to the face of the team. At times, the stature of the figure patrolling the perimeter of their technical area can be even bigger than that of the players charging around on the pitch.

There have been innovators and individualists, caring souls and cunning schemers. The rich tapestry of the beautiful game has been woven by every type of coach out there. Here’s a look back at the best to ever do it, from the modern-day feats of Pep Guardiola and Carlo Ancelotti, to the trend-setters that have inspired a long line of influential managers.

Ranking Factors

• Trophies
• Longevity
• Style of play
• Legacy
• Influence

15 Vicente del Bosque

Double Champions League winner and manager of all-conquering Spain side

Aside from a couple of loan spells, Vicente del Bosque spent the entirety of his playing career at Real Madrid, winning five La Liga titles and four Copa del Rey crowns, and went on to enjoy an excellent managerial stint with Los Blancos. Del Bosque took charge of Madrid between 1999 and 2003, winning the Champions League twice as well as two La Liga titles.

Bizarrely, Madrid opted against renewing Del Bosque’s contract when it expired in 2003 and then went four years without winning another trophy. As for the regal coach, after a brief stint with Besiktas, he enjoyed a break from the game before returning as the manager of Spain’s national team and guiding them to glory at the 2010 World Cup as well as Euro 2012.

14 Valeriy Lobanovskyi

Dynamo Kyiv legend and innovator

Valeriy Lobanovskyi is a name that a lot of football fans won’t be familiar with, but he is among the most decorated managers of all time. The steely drill sergeant spent the vast majority of his coaching career in his native Ukraine or Russia, winning over 30 trophies. Lobanovskyi brought remarkable success to Dynamo Kyiv, claiming eight Soviet league titles and six Soviet cups across his first two spells in charge, before returning for a third stint and claiming five Ukrainian titles and three Ukrainian cups.

Lobanovskyi, who is credited as being one of the first managers to employ a scientific and analytical approach to football, also routinely took Dynamo to the latter stages of the European Cup, a competition that has traditionally been dominated by teams from Western Europe. Lobanovskyi managed the Soviet Union at several international tournaments, guiding them to a runners-up finish at Euro 1988.

13 Brian Clough

Double European Cup winner with Nottingham Forest

Brian Clough is revered as much for his charisma as he is for his managerial achievements – which says a lot about his personality given he guided Nottingham Forest to two European Cups – more than Arsenal, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur combined. Clough’s achievements with Derby County and Forest are widely deemed to be among the greatest in the history of English football.

Clough guided Derby, a team with little prior history of success, to the First Division title in 1972, having achieved promotion from the Second Division just three years earlier. At Forest, where he stayed between 1975 and 1993, Clough claimed another top-flight crown in 1978 only 12 months after earning promotion, as well as four League Cups and back-to-back European Cups in 1979 and 1980.

12 Jose Mourinho

Pragmatist who won the lot

Jose Mourinho’s playing career never really kicked off, and he retired at 24, opting instead to focus on coaching. After working as an assistant under Sir Bobby Robson and Louis van Gaal at Barcelona, it was time for Mourinho to forge his own path and, following brief spells with Benfica and Uniao de Leiria, the Portuguese announced himself to the world with his remarkable success as the manager of Porto.

Mourinho’s pragmatic style did not always win plaudits but it did win pots of silver, and he followed up his Champions League victory with Porto in 2004 with brilliant spells at Chelsea and Inter Milan, claiming another European Cup with the latter. Mourinho’s tactics no longer reap the rewards that they used to, with many managers favouring more expansive approaches, but few of those coaches will ever be able to boast a CV like Mourinho’s.

11 Arrigo Sacchi

Manager of the great Milan side of the late 80s

Arrgo Sacchi was never a professional footballer and worked as a shoe salesman before becoming a manager. When his credentials were questioned by a journalist after he was hired by AC Milan in 1987, he brilliantly quipped: “I never realised that in order to become a jockey you have to have been a horse first.”

Sacchi is regarded as one of the most innovative tacticians of all time, and his Milan team played with a fluidity that had seldom been seen before, particularly in Italy. Italian teams of the time put a greater emphasis on defence than attack, but Sacchi was a firm believer in the high-pressing principles that Dutchman Rinus Michels is widely credited with introducing in the 1970s.

Milan won the Scudetto in Sacchi’s first season in charge and went on to claim back-to-back European Cups in 1989 and 1990. Sacchi’s Milan team is viewed by many as one of the greatest club sides of all time, and he also guided Italy to a runners-up finish at the 1994 World Cup.

10 Giovanni Trapattoni

Serial Serie A winner

Football fans below a certain age from the British Isles might mainly remember Giovanni Trapattoni for his five-year spell in charge of the Republic of Ireland national team. Trapattoni did a good job with limited tools in that role, but his feats with Ireland were never going to match the achievements from earlier on in his managerial career.

The majority of Trapattoni’s success as a manager came in his two spells with Juventus, during which he won six top-flight titles, two Italian Cups and the 1985 European Cup. Trapattoni also won league titles with Inter Milan, Bayern Munich, Benfica and Red Bull Salzburg.

9 Sir Matt Busby

Manchester United legend who revived club after Munich tragedy

Sir Matt Busby spent the vast majority of his playing career with Manchester City and Liverpool, but his managerial exploits with Manchester United are what he is mainly known for. Busby put a huge emphasis on developing academy players and the youthfulness of the successful United side he built in the 1950s earned his team the nickname ‘The Busby Babes’.

The Busby Babes had won back-to-back First Division titles in 1956 and 1957 and were gunning for a third when tragedy struck and eight United players were among the 23 people killed in the Munich Air Disaster in 1958. Busby himself suffered serious injuries and was read the last rites twice during his stay in hospital.

Busby felt like quitting after the disaster, with feelings of guilt after having gone against the English Football League’s wishes by insisting on United’s participation in the European competition. However, he was convinced to stay on by his wife and rebuilt the club. United won the FA Cup in 1963, before further First Division titles following in 1965 and 1967. Busby then guided United to their first-ever European Cup in 1968.

8 Ernst Happel

European Cup winner with Hamburg and Feyenoord

Ernst Happel was the first manager to win the European Cup with two different clubs, having guided both Feyenoord and Hamburg to glory in 1970 and 1983 respectively. Happel is also one of six managers to have won league titles in at least four countries, doing so with Dutch side Feyenoord, German outfit Hamburg, Belgium’s Club Brugge and Austrian side Swarovski Tirol.

Happel ventured into international management with the Netherlands, guiding them to a runners-up finish at the 1978 World Cup. Happel only spent a few months in charge of his native Austria, dying from lung cancer the same year he was appointed (1992), but his contribution to the game saw Austria’s national stadium renamed the Ernst Happel Stadium.

7 Carlo Ancelotti

Five-time Champions League winner

One of several Italian managers on this list, Carlo Ancelotti has won more European Cups than any other coach in the competition’s history. The understated statesman has five of them, having claimed two while he was in charge of AC Milan and three as manager of Real Madrid.

The Madrid boss is also the only manager in history to have won top-flight titles in each of Europe’s top five leagues, having done so with AC Milan, Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain, Madrid and Bayern Munich. Ancelotti is renowned for his tactical flexibility, having been able to achieve excellent results wherever he has gone irrespective of the players available to him, while he is also known to be an excellent man-manager.

6 Bill Shankly

The man who laid the foundations for Liverpool’s success

Billy Shankly may not have won as many trophies for Liverpool as his successor, Bob Paisley, but he was the man most responsible for turning the Merseyside outfit into the global force they are today. Shankly managed Liverpool between 1959 and 1974, gaining promotion from the Second Division during that period and going on to win three First Division titles, two FA Cups and a UEFA Cup.

While his honours as a manager are impressive, the trophies he won are not what he is revered for. Shankly recognised the importance of Liverpool’s supporters and built a bond between the club and the fans that is still a key part of the club’s make-up today.

5 Helenio Herrera

Helenio Herrera was one of football’s earliest tacticians, beginning his managerial career in 1945. His most notable spells came with Atletico Madrid, Barcelona and Inter Milan, winning multiple league titles with all three clubs.

Employing a defensive style, Herrera won two European Cups with Inter, and it was at the Nerazzurri where he arguably became the first manager in football history to gain credit for the way his team played. Previously, players were the ones who received credit for the bulk of plaudits for the team’s successes, but under Herrera, Inter became known as ‘Herrera’s Inter’, underlining the manager’s influence on their style of play.

4 Johan Cruyff

More often than not, great players do not become great managers. Johan Cruyff, though, is remembered as one of the best players of all time as well as one of the best managers of all time. Cruyff’s top-level managerial career was not a particularly long one – his spells in charge of Ajax and Barcelona combined spanned just 11 years – but he won 14 trophies during it, including the 1992 European Cup.

Plenty of managers have won more trophies than Cruyff but few, if any, have had a bigger impact on modern football tactics than the Dutchman. Cruyff expanded on the Total Football system that he played in under its creator, Rinus Michels, at Ajax and Barcelona. He was one of the first managers to begin favouring smaller, more technical players over stronger, more physical individuals, and put a huge emphasis on winning with style.

Cruyff influenced a generation of young managers, including a couple who played under him at Barcelona in Pep Guardiola and Luis Enrique, and he is one of the reasons that football has become such an attractive form of entertainment. His legacy could hardly be any greater.

3 Pep Guardiola

Tactical master and relentless winner

Without Cruyff, there wouldn’t have been a Pep Guardiola. In the future, a similar statement will probably be applied to Guardiola and one of the many managers he has influenced over the past 15 years or so.

Guardiola is the greatest manager of this generation, having won 12 league titles during his 15 years in senior management across spells with Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester City. He has also won three European Cups – only Ancelotti can boast more.

For many football fans, his Barcelona team between 2008 and 2012 is the greatest of all time, and the way they operated began a shift in the way that football is played at the top level across the world. Plenty of young coaches idolise Guardiola, and many of the people he has worked with – players and staff – have gone on to manage some of the biggest clubs in the world.

2 Rinus Michels

Rinus Michels was the creator of the Total Football system which laid the foundations for how football is played at the top level today. The idea behind the tactical principle was that players could leave their set position on the pitch, and be covered by another player, allowing for teams to play in a fluid style rather than having to stay in a rigid, restrictive formation.

The approach brought about great success for Michels, as he won league titles with Ajax and Barcelona, as well as the European Cup with the former. The Dutchman also managed his home country on several occasions, guiding the Netherlands to glory at Euro 1988 as well as a runners-up finish at the World Cup 14 years earlier. Michels was named the FIFA Coach of the Century in 1999 and was also named the greatest manager of all time by France Football in 2019.

1 Sir Alex Ferguson

Best manager of all time

Manchester United were a sleeping giant when Sir Alex Ferguson took over at Old Trafford in 1986, but in the 27 years that followed, he reestablished the club as one of the greatest in the world. Ferguson’s body of managerial work does not begin and end with United, though.

He was incredibly successful as the manager of Aberdeen in the 1980s, winning 11 trophies, and famously defeated Real Madrid in the 1983 UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup final. At United, Ferguson won 13 Premier League titles and two Champions Leagues among a glut of other honours. With a total of 49 trophies won across his managerial career, he is statistically the most successful manager of all time.

Stats via Transfermarkt. Correct as of 02/10/24.