Who’s the Best Manager in World Football?

(Could it be the man in the picture above? Conte recorded an impressive 56% win percentage with the Italian national team)

There are always football (soccer) fans and pundits around the world debating who the best players are. It’s usually a case of choosing between Barcelona’s Lionel Messi and Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo. Another debate that seems to arise a lot is the one where people try and decide who the best football managers are in the world.

This is of great ongoing interest to football fans and is often the topic of conversation, especially in the highly demanding roles in the English Premier League.

Great teams, containing star soccer players, need a good coach to help them on their way to success after all. But what makes a football manager the best though?

You’d start off by saying that they must be managing a club big in stature.
You’d also say that they must be managing in one of the biggest leagues in the world too. Sometimes, some managers get a lot of success by winning the league repeatedly but in leagues and countries where there is simply no competition. The English Premier League, La Liga, the Bundesliga and Serie A are the biggest, most competitive leagues around and these are the divisions where managers can really make a name for themselves.

There’s always those who suggest that the top managers get the International jobs but you’d expect them to have success in club management prior to that. If a manager proves himself to be accomplished at both international and club level that would really set him apart and one man this applies to is current Chelsea boss, Antonio Conte. The fiery Italian won numerous league titles with Juventus, recorded an impressive 56% win percentage with the Italian national team and most recently won the Premier League title with Chelsea last season. This brings us on to another requirement of being a top management, the ability to be successful in more than one country.

Pep Guardiola, Carlo Ancelotti and Jose Mourinho have been around years now and have tasted success in various countries. Guardiola has done it in Spain and Germany with Barcelona and Bayern Munich and he looks like he will deliver for Manchester City in the very near future too. Ancelotti has been successful in Italy with Milan, England with Chelsea, France with PSG, Spain with Real Madrid and Germany with Bayern, where he is still at the helm. Mourinho hit the heights in Portugal, England Italy and Spain with Porto, Chelsea, Inter, Real Madrid and now Manchester United.

You’d say that the best coach is one of the previously mentioned plus Antonio Conte, just based on the fact that they have been successful around the world, in competitive leagues.

There has to be mention for the likes of Zinedine Zidane who has already achieved great things at Real Madrid, back to back champions league trophies was a record breaking achievement. Will Zidane end up coaching his national team at some point? Or will Zidane end up coaching his sort of adopted country Spain’s national team.

Diego Simeone at Atletico Madrid has achieved success against the odds as his side have always run Real Madrid and Barcelona close and at times surpassed them. Massimiliano Allegri has won the Serie A title three times in a row now at Italian giants Juventus and that is no mean feat.

Those who are often mentioned in the debate of who is the best manager, are usually some of the best soccer coaches in the world but picking a single one is very difficult. The likes of Guardiola, Ancelotti, Conte and Mourinho continue to impress and not just in one place either, they have always been willing to test themselves in other countries and this is what really does set them apart from the competition.