The Ultimate Football Coaches of All Time, what's your top 25?

Discussion in 'The Beautiful Game' started by AllWhitebeliever, Dec 6, 2007.

  1. celito

    celito Moderator
    Staff Member

    Palmeiras
    Brazil
    Feb 28, 2005
    USA
    Club:
    Palmeiras Sao Paulo
    Nat'l Team:
    Brazil
    I think they complimented each other. In style and dedication / ambition. I think many coaches would not have done what Pep did with that team. Just my opinion. Obviously the few coaches after Pep reaped his rewards as the team was a bit on cruise control. Just like Chelsea was after Mourinho left. The seeds had been planted. Luis Enrique's Barca was a bit different in how they played.

    Let's not forget it was Pep's idea to employ Messi as a false 9 (at a Clasico for the first time nonetheless) where he thrived with scoring for a few seasons.

    Much of it was on Messi ... but everybody was wowed by how they played overall. The quick interchanges of passes and the movement and press without the ball. Don't be mistaken, that's coaching. Not just brilliant individuals.
     
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  2. benficafan3

    benficafan3 Member+

    Nov 16, 2005
    And I agree with this. I believe that is largely associated with every essential piece of that puzzle being born and bred in the Barcelona system, Pep specifically. I'd say that team would have been extremely successful regardless. I would actually say having someone like Pep, of which nobody else could really fit due to not having the knowledge and awareness of Barca's structure, culture, style, etc. that he had, was what pushed them ever so slightly higher.

    I think my main "issue" against him is in terms of an absolute level of managerial ability, specifically with respect to versatility. In the sense that, in the perfect environment he will achieve what others cannot. But throw him outside of that environment, and he will not have the success other, more versatile managers have. IMO at least. And that isn't to say that he isn't an elite coach.
     
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  3. celito

    celito Moderator
    Staff Member

    Palmeiras
    Brazil
    Feb 28, 2005
    USA
    Club:
    Palmeiras Sao Paulo
    Nat'l Team:
    Brazil
    That's fair. He is definitely uncompromising in the way he wants to play. I am pretty sure he could mix it up if he really wanted to, but he is not willing to do so based on ideology. You can call that a weakness.
     
  4. celito

    celito Moderator
    Staff Member

    Palmeiras
    Brazil
    Feb 28, 2005
    USA
    Club:
    Palmeiras Sao Paulo
    Nat'l Team:
    Brazil
    We'll just ignore finishing 17 pts behind 1st place in his last La Liga.
     
  5. PuckVanHeel

    PuckVanHeel Member+

    Oct 4, 2011
    Club:
    Feyenoord
    Well, as mentioned, he has the all-time highest win percentage in Primera Division, Bundesliga and Premier League. That's not a trivial fact.

    I agree with you others created the conditions and foundations for him. At Bayern the conditions were created by the fraud Hoeness, Van Gaal and to a lesser extent Heynckes. He didn't do the pioneering work (also said by players as Lahm). The same obviously applies to Barcelona (Cruijff coming back in 1988, and again coming back in 2002-03). The only recent manager to not come from their own circle was Tata Martino (the pick of Messi his clan) and that didn't work out. How his stay at ManCity (4 titles in the last 7 seasons) will be judged in this respect is still wide open.

    So is there a better manager the last decade would you say? In terms of the comparison with Mourinho, I agree Mourinho his continental record is better. But Guardiola his league record is better as Mourinho's record, even if we take only his first ten years. At Inter he achieved less points as Mancini in the two seasons before him (82, 84 vs 97 and 85), for example. Guardiola has one season where he had the richest team and didn't win the league, Mourinho had like three of them up until Real Madrid. Guardiola has also a more established record of improving players and making them better.
     
  6. benficafan3

    benficafan3 Member+

    Nov 16, 2005
    I don't give this much weight at all to be honest, specifically when you consider that in the season Mourinho got 82 points, he won the treble. All anyone will remember is whether the trophy was won. Not by how many points or how those points compared to previous seasons. That's really the only important factor, winning. Playing all these competitions is extremely exhaustive for players and Pep Guardiola putting insane amounts of energy towards a league performance, like he did last year, where he already had the league in the bag by winter break... he deserved to be humiliated by Liverpool in the CL. Stupid, amateur managing of a team. He wanted "the record" of EPL points in a season... at the obvious detriment of his player's ability to play in other competitions. He could have won that league by a single point, by a single goal on goal difference, and had he won the Champions League, or even reached the final, it would have been viewed as not only as much of a successful season, but more so.

    With respect to Mourinho, he's won the Big 3 leagues (EPL, Serie A, La Liga). In none of those cases was it a one-horse race as is the case with Bayern, nor did he have a sheikh bankrolling his every whim and pleasure. He's had his cash to spend, but Guardiola has had that benefit to another level entirely. His league performances are not more impressive for me than Mourinho. Let's not forget Mourinho's teams went years and years without losing a league game at home. That's absolutely incredible. Exhausting your players to reach some point-record in the league, putting their ability to win other competitions like the Champions League at obvious risk, doesn't make you a better manager in my opinion. If anything, it demonstrates a lack of tact, sophistication and ability to plan effectively. Those point-records don't make legendary coaches, trophies do.
     
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  7. PDG1978

    PDG1978 Member+

    Mar 8, 2009
    Club:
    Nottingham Forest FC
    Chelsea also won the league by 12 points in 2004/05 and went out in the CL semi-final to Liverpool. I don't know how much different that was to Man City last season really? It certainly felt like Mourinho did aim to win as many games as possible in a similar way (well not in a similar playing style, but with similar focus and ambition I suppose).
     
  8. benficafan3

    benficafan3 Member+

    Nov 16, 2005
    #158 benficafan3, Apr 26, 2019
    Last edited: Apr 26, 2019
    Considerably different, IMO, at least. Not only did he lose to the eventual champions, he lost 1-0 on aggregate in the semi-finals. Guardiola lost in the quarterfinals and got absolutely pummeled by a team that didn't even win the competition. Also he won the league by 19 points. 12 is a significant lead but 19 that much more so. So pretty different circumstances.
     
  9. benficafan3

    benficafan3 Member+

    Nov 16, 2005
    Not to mention that was Mourinho's first season in England and Chelsea's first EPL victory in 50 years. So there was very understandable focus on that league win ESPECIALLY because they were challenging Wenger's Invincibles team, which came in second. Guardiola's Man City team last year had Man United as their closest challenger, and as has been quite clearly the case for some time now, they are no challengers in the slightest.
     
  10. PuckVanHeel

    PuckVanHeel Member+

    Oct 4, 2011
    Club:
    Feyenoord
    Some good points here but I meant with this remark it's often said Guardiola has been able to improve good teams even further (domestically). That's one of the main arguments his supporters say in his defense (e.g. Bayern setting the unbeaten record when he was there).

    For Mourinho that's harder to say; when Mancini (not a legendary manager perse) achieved 97 points in the league, he also went to the Coppa Italia final and went out in the round of 16 in the CL (like Mourinho in his first season).

    If we look at Porto, Chelsea and Real Madrid though then Mourinho was more at the start of a project/cycle (with the core of Chelsea intact for some years after he left) so that's a difference with Guardiola.
     
  11. celito

    celito Moderator
    Staff Member

    Palmeiras
    Brazil
    Feb 28, 2005
    USA
    Club:
    Palmeiras Sao Paulo
    Nat'l Team:
    Brazil
    It’s interesting because at Barca he did ease off at the end of the season. But I am not sure the obsession with the points record was there before getting knocked out of the CL . I know he was obsessed with it afterwards . In March / beg April I don’t think the league was technically wrapped up.
     
  12. PDG1978

    PDG1978 Member+

    Mar 8, 2009
    Club:
    Nottingham Forest FC
    Yeah, it was a bit different and 19 points is a bigger margin, and I certainly don't want to get into prolonged argument about it so I'll make this my last post on the subject (of course you will be free to reply to it though).

    But if taking the theory of stacking the priorities to give the best possible chance to win every competition, maybe he could have picked more of a reserve side to play away at Fulham for example (although a local derby, so not far to travel and maybe just an alternative to training sessions that week, and of course the fans would see it as a game to win even though would surely understand in this scenario if the first choice line-up hadn't played) after they had secured a 0-0 with Arsenal and before the first leg of the semi-final with Liverpool (who did win the CL with the shock comeback vs Milan, but didn't finish in the top 4 of the league of course):
    http://www.bounder.friardale.co.uk/Results/2004.htm#4276
     
  13. benficafan3

    benficafan3 Member+

    Nov 16, 2005
    Also, I don't want to dig deep into this now but I'd say this is contentious as well if we are referring to Mourinho's peak period. Wesley Sneijder attributed his greatest season to Mourinho specifically. Deco, Ricardo Carvalho, Carlos Alberto, Maniche, Costina, etc. from that Porto team alone owe Mourinho A LOT and have all said as much since. Lampard, Terry, not to mention Drogba, would say the same. Michael Essien said Mourinho was basically his father. Players like Drogba and Materazzi CRIED like children when Mourinho left the team. I don't recall such a connection from Guardiola's players. They all knew how important Mourinho was to their development, both professionally, and perhaps more importantly, personally. Not saying I have current stance on the argument but Mourinho is absolutely a challenger in that regard.
     
  14. PDG1978

    PDG1978 Member+

    Mar 8, 2009
    Club:
    Nottingham Forest FC
    Sorry, it was at home to Fulham not away actually! Not that it makes a whole lot of difference really.
     
  15. PuckVanHeel

    PuckVanHeel Member+

    Oct 4, 2011
    Club:
    Feyenoord
    Yeah, you have a point here. How quickly one can forget!

    To be honest, if one watches the Man City documentary series, one wonders what makes Guardiola so special. The documentary gives an impression of the technological advances and the sheer scale of the organization, but not sure whether it shows Guardiola in a favorable light.



    On the subject of how to rate Guardiola there are also some worthy posts on a dutch forum:

    "The one ball in or not in and this topic would not exist. In the world of superficial thinking it is. Someone who gets 185 points from the possible 213 since early 2017/18 is apparently an overrated coach."

    "You cannot deny that he often makes weird choices when things get exciting and fails to make adjustments when games require, if they do not fit in his own way."

    "Very understandable topic this. I do agree, indeed a fairly overrated trainer. I never understood all that idolizing of that man.

    What he did at Barça was, of course, really admirable, but at Bayern and City I find it disappointing to date. At Bayern he then supposedly reformed German football, man what played it boring at some point compared to the fresh and direct game that Bayern showed under Heynckes. That is anyway a disadvantage of the game of Pep, possession of the ball. It started to lead a life of its own.

    At City it was of course pretty mediocre the first season, due to all sorts of investments he has now had a great time, but then again the by far best and deepest selection of the competition is needed. And that is always the story with Pep, he needs the best team and only then can he achieve something."

    "Pep is a manager and not a leader like Ferguson or Cruijff was one. Leaders form and guide a team of people in order to build and re-build organizations. When it's set managers master the process in perfection and Guardiola goes in the latter category. His perfectionism in what he does is admirable."

    "Oh wow, Bayern was already champion in March, you guys all hear that ?! How fantastic, really a top performance, super important.

    But that doesn't bother.

    Juve, Psg could both have been the champions at record speed this year, but the last two rounds were completely shot because they had in Europe more important business and when they were out, they would rather win the title in-house. As an absolute top club, how quickly you become a champion is subordinate to international performances / main prizes.

    Bayern is an assumption in Germany, they have been the wealthiest club since the beginning of the Bundesliga. There is not much honor there. That he brought them Champions League success, that counts, and he has failed in that mission. Just like with City (so far).
    [...]
    The season before Guardiola signed with Bayern, Bayern literally managed to win every possible prize under Heynckes. Bayern also scored more that season in the Bundeliga, lost less and got fewer goals than the first season of Guardiola in Germany.

    Would those three titles really mean that Pep is the best trainer in the history of the Bundesliga? I very much doubt it. In terms of that specific statistic perhaps, but that is also allowed. Bayern took away those three years from Pep at Bayern the main players of the nearest competitor. That must have played a role in dominating the national competition.
    "

    "Alright then. I think it's pretty overrated. The measure of a trainer is what he knows to perform with the available material and what he knows to build up with the feasible material at hand. That puts his performance at Barcelona in perspective. On par if I am friendly, slightly below if I am critical (the general away form, losing against Inter and Chelsea). Certainly not 'punching above your weight'.

    The measure of performance is in the showdown with opponents of your own size or a size bigger. That puts his performance with Bayern in perspective, where he went off in the CL as soon as he met opponents of his own size.

    In terms of innovation, I find him not impressive. It is a fine grinder of a football style and framework that is already quite old by now. The playfulness with a sweeper keeper and the integrated cohesion with inverted full-backs have we all seen before. The level of perfection he has achieved in this testifies to great craftsmanship, but he has gone too far. It is a possession fetishist, while players can raise their level of sharpness, action speed and actions if they are allowed to take the risk of losing the ball."

    ..... So of course you don't stand alone. In his business it is also important to have the right agent (his brother, who owns a La Liga team) and know the right people (Qatar ambassador, Abu Dhabi ambassador).
     
  16. PuckVanHeel

    PuckVanHeel Member+

    Oct 4, 2011
    Club:
    Feyenoord
    "If you want to understand the evolution of the sport, look at some historical comparisons. Over the last 10 years, the number of passes in the Premier League has increased by more than 25 per cent. In 2007-8, teams passed the ball 358 times per game on average. In 2017-18, the average was 453 – nearly 100 passes more per game, per team.

    The trend towards more passes is magnified at the top end. Arsenal were the top passers in 2007-8, averaging 495 passes per game. Last season, Manchester City’s average was 743: a full 50 per cent more than the best passing team of 10 years ago!

    How do you get close to the ball when it’s moving that fast? You can do what Keane urged the United players to do, “ignore the runners” and “not worry about what’s going on over there and over there”, focus on the ball and try to “get to it, like your life depends on it” – but if you press and your team-mates don’t, then City will pass it around you and make you look foolish, and after chasing them for an hour you will find you can hardly move your legs. And that’s when they’ll start running up the score. Against City you either press as a team, or not at all; against a system like this the individual is powerless.

    The rise of system football means that the English league today has less broken play, and more periods of controlled possession. In 2008, Premier League teams averaged almost 24 tackles per game. By 2017-18 the average number of tackles had dropped by almost a third, to just over 16 per game. Huddersfield Town topped the tackle table in 2017-18, with 744.

    The team with the lowest number of tackles in 2008 was Reading, with 800 – so the team that made the fewest tackles 10 years ago tackled more than the team that makes the most tackles today. Interceptions have also declined, by about one-sixth. Less broken play means fewer chances for individuals to seize the moment and be the hero.

    Another evolution involves crossing and the players who do it. If you compare crossing statistics from 2007-8 and this season, you notice two big changes. First, the overall numbers are down. The top 20 crossers in 2008 averaged 6.5 crosses per game, whereas in 2018-19 this group is down to 4.5 crosses per game – a drop of nearly one-third. Today’s teams don’t like giving the ball away with hit-and-hope crosses.
    "
    https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/so...s-philosophies-of-the-past-1.3874358?mode=amp

    To some extent this is also Guardiola's legacy; he has at least a part in this story.

    Of course, other related areas as the number of fouls that have come down (in quantity and severity) helped a lot and Guardiola had little to do with that part.
     
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  17. PuckVanHeel

    PuckVanHeel Member+

    Oct 4, 2011
    Club:
    Feyenoord
    @benficafan3

    I saw this funny tweet (click tweet to see thread):


    For a half they also played about as good
     
  18. benficafan3

    benficafan3 Member+

    Nov 16, 2005
    "And Guardiola took only a billion worth of players to get to that point, but hey, he's the best manager in the world"

    lol

    Also Puck, regarding your point about that documentary making Guardiola seem so special, worth remembering and keeping in mind that documentary, which I enjoyed watching, was for all intents and purposes a propaganda piece.

    Whereas the Sunderland documentary on Netflix seemingly just followed the club over the course of the season, Man City's documentary just did everything possible to put them in the best light. Not surprising given that I believe there were rumors this a condition of sorts for it even being made/filmed.
     
  19. PuckVanHeel

    PuckVanHeel Member+

    Oct 4, 2011
    Club:
    Feyenoord
    #169 PuckVanHeel, May 6, 2019
    Last edited: May 6, 2019
    Still not convinced but here a video with some more exposition:





    In terms of contribution to 'innovation', maybe it is sometimes overlooked ('forgotten') Mourinho was one of the main protagonists behind the 'tactical periodization model' that found an entrance into football (also applied by Benitez, Ancelotti, Villas Boas among others). I'm inclined to say he's with/after physical education professor Frade the main guy in introducing it to football. At least in a practical sense.

    There's some good stuff on this in Fieldsend's 'The European Game' book. In there is by the way also the following section: "When on UEFA Pro License courses, coaches are tasked with creating a thesis of study. They often seek advice from Frade. He tells them simply to study what Johan Cruyff did at Barcelona as the ideal game model. "This passion of Cruyff's game is not for nothing. We are talking about someone who was a milestone in the qualitative evolution of football." [Frade his own words]. Consequently, Guardiola says literally in that Amazon documentary series that 90% [sic] of his training and tactical methods are the same as what Cruijff did.

    Bottomline and point: Mourinho not automatically the lesser innovator as Guardiola (I expect to see this model covered in Cox's upcoming book). He played his part in establishing a new branch of coaching, so to speak.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/...ctions-and-soccers-most-magnificent-mind.html
     
  20. PuckVanHeel

    PuckVanHeel Member+

    Oct 4, 2011
    Club:
    Feyenoord
    As widely known by now, he also relies a lot on his teams making professional fouls (some of them not even whistled) to prevent counters.

    Not sure whether a mid table team has the same luxury or gets the same leniency. The way Fernandinho (or Busquets under Guardiola) get away with 5 tiny but effective fouls in a match has become notorious.

    On the other hand, he gets bumped down because of this type of nonsense:

    1126398031811624960 is not a valid tweet id


    1126435866874978305 is not a valid tweet id
     
  21. PuckVanHeel

    PuckVanHeel Member+

    Oct 4, 2011
    Club:
    Feyenoord
    This is a terrific article:



    This too:

     
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  22. benficafan3

    benficafan3 Member+

    Nov 16, 2005
    #172 benficafan3, Nov 10, 2019
    Last edited: Nov 10, 2019
    I've been happily proven wrong about Klopp, at least relative to my previous valuation, he's really killing it at Liverpool.

    Winning the Champions League, in my mind, was already enough to put him ahead of Wenger but the league title with Liverpool would seal it at this point in his career.

    Del Bosque took a country to their first World Cup title ever and a successfully defended Euro title, two consecutive tournament wins at that. That's gunna take some doing to beat. I don't think Klopp is there yet but I do expect him to surpass Del Bosque in legacy.

    I'd think of Mourinho as an appropriate benchmark/'reference' point in terms of the level Klopp can reach, at least not far from it, for better or worse. That will take real considerable doing, dependent on his Champions League success IMO, with or without Liverpool, but he's still relatively young and doesn't seem like the type to retire early.

    And thankfully at the same time we can continue to see Guardiola exposed for what he really is. Overvalued.
     
  23. celito

    celito Moderator
    Staff Member

    Palmeiras
    Brazil
    Feb 28, 2005
    USA
    Club:
    Palmeiras Sao Paulo
    Nat'l Team:
    Brazil
    Depends on how one rates Guardiola. But you surely can't look at yesterday's result as a barometer of anything as his team is struck with significant injury problems. Last season he got the better of Klopp in the league head to head.
     
  24. locoxriver

    locoxriver Moderator
    Staff Member

    May 22, 2005
    Los Angeles
    Club:
    CA River Plate
    Nat'l Team:
    Argentina
    Gallardo = #1
     
  25. Milan05

    Milan05 Member

    Dec 2, 2015
    Club:
    AC Milan
    Klopp vs Wenger is a close one but I’m also leaning towards Klopp. His work at Dortmund cannot be understated. He turned a midtable Bundesliga team into a European giant. Dortmund today are as relevant as they are because of Klopp. It was a huge achievement to win 2 Bundesliga titles and reach a Champions League final with them. We all know how he’s transformed Liverpool. It’s still early days, but it’s looking very likely that he’ll win them their first league title in 30 years.

    I have heard rumours that Klopp’s next destination after Liverpool is the German NT. If he can add a World Cup medal to his trophy cabinet, he will have established himself as one of the greats IMO.
     

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