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The glory of football most often goes to the players - it is the likes of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo who are surrounded by all the cameras, and who bask in the limelight after their team wins an important game. No matter how good the players are individually, football is a team sport. It is the effort of eleven men on the field, and dozens of others off the field who make a single victory possible.
Perhaps the most important of all those men is the manager of a football team. He does not make a single pass or slide into an important tackle which will save his team. However, a good manager always manages to leave his mark on the game in a positive way. The correct tactical change, a timely substitution, the charisma and presence on the touchline and in the dressing room - a good football manager is what makes the club successful.
This decade, we have seen managers who have changed the way the game is played. From gegenpressing to tiki-taka to swift counter-attacking football, the game of football has been tactically revolutionised by some of the greatest minds to grace the game. In this list, we honour the best of the best as we choose our top 10 managers of the decade.
10. Mauricio Pochettino
Teams managed this decade - Espanyol, Southampton, Tottenham Hotspur
The only thing preventing Mauricio Pochettino from a higher finish on this list is a lack of silverware for the manager. Starting this decade as the Espanyol manager, "Poch" was drawing praise for his tactical acumen and his personality early on his career.
Namely, the imposition of a specific tactical style on all of the clubs' team from the senior side down to youth level, attending training sessions to receive updates from all levels, a preference for 4–2–3–1, a focus on a high-pressing game and the promotion of young players from the academy were a few things the manager became known for before his move to England.
He departed from Spain to coach Southampton FC, and he lead the Saints to their highest points tally since the Premier League began in 1992-93. However, most of Pochettino's great work came with North London side Tottenham Hotspur - when the Argentine joined them, Spurs were a Europa League team trying to make a consistent mark for themselves in the top 4. When he left them, the team had reached the Champions League finals and are currently enjoying their most successful run in Premier League history.
It was Pochettino's clever work with a limited budget at Spurs that made the top 4 of England a "big 6". It was him who ended the dreaded St.Totteringham's Day tradition, where arch-rivals Arsenal fans would celebrate the day when their "inferior" neighbours Tottenham could no longer mathematically finish above them in the Premier League. For the past three seasons, the Lilywhites have managed to finish over the Gunners in the league table, and those days of embarrassment are well and truly over.
Pochettino was recently sacked by the club after a poor start to this league season, but at the age of 47, he is the youngest entrant on this list. There is no doubt that the former Espanyol man will finish his career with some major trophies, as his route to the top is just beginning. When we re-write this list ten years down the line, Poch might just be in the top 3
Also check out: EPL table Champions League table La liga table 2019-20.
9. Carlo Ancelotti
Teams managed this decade - Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Napoli
Carlo Ancelotti is the only manager this decade to have managed one top team across all of Europe's five biggest leagues. One of the most decorated and best coaches of all time, the former Italian international has managed three league titles (one each in Germany, France, and England) and one Champions League title.
Ancelotti finishes ninth on this list due to his stints after Real Madrid, which although impressive, do not compare to the managers above him on this list. Regardless, the three-time Champions League-winning coach has done some great things this decade - the most notable of them being his capturing of the Champions League with Real Madrid, who achieved their historic "La Decima" feat under him. Ancelotti's Madrid is one of the best teams of this century, and his tactical mastery plus his versatility and fluidity regarding his team's formation has been lauded by football aficionados.
Apart from his time at Madrid, Ancelotti has also impressed with other teams. He won the Premier League title with Chelsea in 2010 while setting a then-record for most goals scored (103), and he captured the Ligue in 2013 with Paris Saint-Germain as well as the Bundesliga with Bayern Munich in 2017. Despite his lacklustre time with Napoli and an abrupt ending to his Madrid and Bayern career, Ancelotti's place on this list is deserved without question.
8. Jupp Heynckes
Teams managed this decade - Bayer Leverkusen, Bayern Munich
The only thing preventing the legendary Jupp Heynckes from finishing higher up on this list is his early retirement - who knows how much further Bayern Munich would have gone under his leadership had he not called it a day in 2013?
Despite Heynckes being in the world of management for only three and a half years this decade, his team's performances within that time frame are enough to warrant him a place here. There are only three managers on this list who have managed to reach the Champions League final twice in a row, and only two managers who have completed the treble this decade - Heynckes is the only one on both of these lists.
The former Real Madrid coach was the manager of Bayer Leverkusen until 2011, with whom he worked wonders by leading them back to the Champions League and a Bundesliga runner-up position. However, it was his time at Bayern Munich which stands out - in his two seasons with the Bavarian club, the former German international reached the Champions League final both the times and completed a historic treble in 2013.
After losing the 2012 CL Final to Chelsea, the team bounced back and defeated rivals Borussia Dortmund next year to capture the elusive crown, making them five-time European champions. Heynckes' fluid tactics and his team's brilliant counter-attacking play made the Bayern Munich team of the 2012-13 season one of the best teams the century, and as such, the manager's place here is well deserved.
7. Massimiliano Allegri
Teams managed this decade - AC Milan, Juventus
One of the most versatile and tactically adept managers of this generation, Massimiliano Allegri makes this list due to his impressive work in Italy over the past decade.
Allegri started off this decade with Italian heavyweights AC Milan, who he joined in 2010 after an impressive spell at Sassuolo and Cagliari. In his debut season with Milan, the former Italian international surpassed all expectations as he won the Serie A, the first time that the club had won the trophy since 2004. He defeated neighbours Inter in both the league games that season, becoming the second-youngest manager to achieve that feat. He beat Inter again to secure the Italian Super Cup next season.
Allegri departed from Milan to join Juventus in the summer of 2014. In his debut season there, he won the Scudetto with the Old Lady and lead them to the finals of the UEFA Champions League, their first appearance in the finals since 2003. They lost the finals to Barcelona, but Allegri's tactics and the fluidity of his team were applauded by fans and experts around the world.
The former Milan manager did the double with Juventus three years in a row, and in the process, Juventus became the only team to 3peat the Coppa Italia trophy. A four-time winner of the Panchina d'Oro (an award handed to the best manager in Italy for a particular season), Allegri has been the best Serie A coach of the decade.
The manager has said that he intends to retire at the age of 55 due to the load of his job, and he is 52 right now. There is no doubt that Allegri is the best free-agent coach in the market at the moment, and wherever he goes, that team will have gained a gem of a manager.
6. Antonio Conte
Teams managed this decade - Sienna, Juventus, Italy, Chelsea, Inter Milan
Out of all the brilliant managers in the league, only one has gone unbeaten for an entire season and earned the crown of "Invincible" by winning the league title that year; that man is Antonio Conte. He is also one of only two managers to manage a team in the lower leagues.
Conte started off the decade by leading Sienna to promotion as the club reached Serie A. After that, he left for Juventus, who were the first major team which the Italian was in charge of. In his debut season with the Old Lady, Conte managed to win the Serie A title without a single loss, being the first manager in the history of Italy's top division to accomplish that feat.
Conte continued to impress domestically as he did a 3peat of Serie A titles and won the Panchina d'Oro (Serie A's coach of the season) on all three occasions. His team set records for conceding the least goals and winning the league with a record 102 points. However, due to his disappointing run in the Champions League, Conte left Juventus in 2014.
After a brief stint with the Italian national team, Conte headed to England to manage Chelsea. In his first season with the club, he won the Premier League. He followed that up next season with an FA Cup, but as is the case with the Blues most of the times, the union did not last long. The former Italian international was dismissed in 2018, and he took a year's hiatus before joining Inter Milan, whom he manages right now.
Conte's tactics and his innovative 3-5-2 formation is applauded by many experts of the game. His defensive prowess and his team's direct style of attack are a deadly combination, which saw him gain success in England and Italy. However, the manager's lack of European success hinders his chances of a top 5 finish.
5. Diego Simeone
Teams managed this decade - Catania, Racing Club, Atletico Madrid
At the time of writing, Diego Simeone is the longest-serving manager for any club in the top 5 leagues of Europe, having been in charge of Atletico Madrid since 2011. It takes a special level of dedication and ability to manage one team from the depths of mediocrity to the biggest glories of Europe, which is something Simeone can proudly claim to have done.
Simeone is one of the most entertaining and dynamic characters in world football. Resembling more a gritty war veteran than the manager of a top football club, the former Catania manager is a tough-as-boots personality who loves his defence more than he loves his all-black suits.
A common feature of Simeone's teams is defensive compactness and quick counter-attacks. The manager chooses to focus a lot on the former, and for a while in the middle of this decade, no team in Europe could match Atletico's defensive prowess or break down their "bus". The Argentine international has often come under fire for playing too defensive a brand of football, which does not please the eye, but by the looks of it, he cares about that as much as he does about conducting himself in front of the camera. (*that* famous celebration against Juventus, anyone?)
When Simeone took over Atletico, the club was languishing in mid-table and struggling to make a name for themselves. Five years later, the club had reached two Champions League finals, won the Europa League, and broken the Barca-Madrid hegemony over the La Liga title as they captured the crown in the 2013-14 season. Atletico secured another Europa League victory in 2018, and if Simeone had managed to win even one of his two Champions League finals, he would have ranked higher on this list.
Nevertheless, the former River Plate coach has transformed Atletico into one of the best teams in Europe. However, it looks unlikely that the team will reach the heights it did in 2013-14, and if the Atletico-Simeone marriage is to end any time soon, it might change the face of world football in the years to come.
4. Jose Mourinho
Teams managed this decade - Inter Milan, Real Madrid, Chelsea, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur
Some call him football's greatest villain, some call him a tactical genius who is capable of the impossible - whatever your stance may be on Jose Mourinho, no one can deny the sheer genius and mastery of the Portuguese, who has established himself as one of the greatest managers of all time.
There is no one quite like Mourinho in the history of football. A dynamic personality who is a great leader of men, the former Porto manager is the ultimate pragmatic entity in the beautiful sport. Mourinho's end goal has always been the same - to win the game. How he goes about achieving it, that is entirely something else. You may not like his arrogance, his habit of picking fights with fellow managers, or his tactics which often seem negative; however, no one can deny that the man is pure box office entertainment, and he knows how to win.
This decade, Mourinho started by completing the treble with Inter Milan. He left for Real Madrid afterwards and led them back to the Champions League semi-finals while reclaiming the La Liga title from Barcelona. Mourinho's Madrid set several records in the 2011-12 season - most games won in a La Liga season (32), most away wins (16), most points obtained in any of the top European leagues (100), improving the most goals scored record they already had set earlier (121) and finishing the season with the highest goal difference (+89). The Los Blancos topped the league nine points clear of runners-up Barcelona.
A return to Chelsea beckoned in 2013, and he recaptured the Premier League title with the Blues in the 2014-15 season. After a disastrous start to the next season, the former Porto coach was fired and he joined Manchester United for the 2016-17 season. His spell at Old Trafford was not the best, but he did manage to win the Europa League and the EFL Cup with the Red Devils before being shown the door.
Currently, the Portuguese is managing Tottenham Hotspur as he hopes to lead them to the end of long trophy drought. Known for his defensive football but equally adept at counter-attacking and demolishing any sort of opponent, football in the 21st century would just not have been as much fun without Mourinho.
He has conquered several leagues, and it would be foolish to think that his time at the top is over. It is always fun to watch Mourinho in action, and we hope he stays at the top of his game for a long time to come.
3. Zinedine Zidane
Teams managed this decade - Real Madrid
The top clubs in Europe desire nothing more than to win the Champions League title. As the greatest and most elite club competition in the world, teams spend hundreds of millions and fire managers yearly to capture the European crown.
In the history of football, only three managers have been able to win the Champions League (or the European Cup) thrice. There's Carlo Ancelotti, who took 12 years between his first and third title. The legendary Bob Paisley, who achieved the feat in four years and held that record for over forty years. Enter Zinedine Zidane - one of the greatest players of all time, the former French international made the Champions League his playground as he did a 3peat with Real Madrid in the competition from 2016 to 2018. To give this some more context, not a single team had been able to retain the Champions League since it was rebranded in 1992; not only did Zidane retain it, he did one better and kept hold of it for three years.
Initially, assistant manager to Ancelotti, the ex Galactico took over the reins as the first-team manager after the former was fired midway through the 2015-16 season. In that season, Zidane won the Champions League. In his next season, he did the double as he won the La Liga alongside the CL. In 2017-18, Zidane created history by winning the CL yet again and cemented his status as one of the greatest managers in the history of this competition.
Detractors of Zidane make the case that he just inherited a great squad with the presence of a peak Cristiano Ronaldo and that he was "lucky" in achieving what he did. However you may call it, the fact remains that the manager coached his team to do the unthinkable, and his tactical mastery in big games was nothing short of managerial brilliance.
Winning one Champions League title after inheriting a team midway may be termed lucky - winning three in a row is nothing short of pure genius and determination. Despite Zidane's lack of longevity in this decade (because he came into the managerial game late), his accomplishments in Europe's greatest competition are enough to warrant him a top 3 finish.
Zidane is one of the best man-managers of this era, as the respect which his players have for him is immense. The World Cup winner is now back with the Los Blancos, and if he is to win the Champions League title again, he might just start entering the conversation for the greatest manager ever.
2. Jurgen Klopp
Teams managed this decade - Borussia Dortmund, Liverpool Football Club
The man behind the popularity and innovation of "gegenpressing", Jurgen Klopp is arguably the greatest leader of men that the world of football has ever seen. A football lover to his core, the 6'4" former German international may look like a happy, smiling father figure, but behind that wide smile and the kind eyes lies one of the best footballing brains to enter the world of management.
Klopp started off this decade as the manager of German club Borussia Dortmund. He was successful in breaking the Bayern Munich hegemony of the Bundesliga as he went on to capture back-to-back first division titles with his men in black and yellow. He came up short against Bayern in the finals of the Champions League in 2013, and he left Dortmund a couple of seasons later after seven years in charge. The job which he did with the club on a minimal budget and with star players leaving is nothing short of historic.
Appointed the Liverpool manager in 2015, Klopp has transformed the Reds from a midtable team to a side which reminds one of the days of Bob Paisley and Bill Shankly, a period where the team dominated world football. Despite losing his first three finals with the club, Klopp had his sweet moment when he led his team to Champions League glory in 2019.
At the time of writing, Liverpool are 10 points ahead of their closest rivals in the Premier League table with half the season to go, and it looks likely that their 30-year-old league trophy drought will end come May 2020. Klopp believes in the ideology of pressing, wherein he makes use of the spaces which players can operate it more than the possession stats. Gegenpressing, a tactic which the former Mainz manager made famous, is a style of play wherein which the team, after losing possession of the ball, immediately attempts to win back possession, rather than falling back to regroup.
Klopp has stated that a well-executed counter-pressing system can be more effective than any playmaker when it comes to creating chances. The Liverpool coach has reached 4 European finals this decade and is the winner of several major trophies. However, his most important trait is perhaps his charisma and his ability to motivate his men, which is second to none. Not only is Jurgen Klopp a legendary manager, but he is also a model leader who inspires his team to glory.
1. Pep Guardiola
Teams managed this decade - Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Manchester City
Never in doubt, was it? As impressive as Jurgen Klopp has been across two leagues with a lesser budget than that of our number one pick, no one comes close to matching the beautiful style of football and the unrivalled resume of Pep Guardiola this decade.
With one Champions League title and six league titles across three major leagues, Guardiola has been the most dominant manager in world football this decade. Starting off with his Barcelona team who won the treble in 2008-09, the Spaniard managed to best Sir Alex Ferguson again in the Champions League final of 2011, where he secured his second title.
After three seasons at Barcelona where he assembled what is quite possibly the greatest club side in the history of football, Pep left Spain for the German heavyweights Bayern Munich. In Germany, Pep re-established the Bayern hegemony in the Bundesliga, winning the league all three seasons he was in charge and accomplishing the double twice.
He smashed Bundesliga records as his Bayern squad in 2013-14 wrapped up the league with seven games to go, and no competitor came close to the Bavarian team in his time at the club. His failure to lead his team to the Champions League title is a blemish on an otherwise perfect record in Germany.
After three seasons, Guardiola turned his eyes to England as he looked to conquer the Premier League. After a trophyless first season, the former Barcelona player vowed to improve and he smashed the Premier League record for most points, as his Manchester City team gathered 100 points in the 2017-18 season as they captured their first PL title under Pep.
The following season, they completed an unprecedented domestic treble as the Cityzens won the league title, FA Cup, and the English Football league cup. This season, Guardiola will be eyeing the Champions League as he continues his quest for the trophy after his Barcelona departure.
The Spaniard has a lot of detractors - those who say that he only takes over teams with an unlimited budget and an already talented squad, citing that he is unable to do what the likes of Mourinho and Klopp have done with teams who were not very successful when they took over. To an extent, that argument may hold some weight.
However, nobody can take away the tiki-taka philosophy which the manager has ingrained in all the teams he has been to, and the impact he has had on the league and the players whom he made the most dominant in the country. In this list, there is no argument that Pep Guardiola deserves to be number one.
