Most Successful Managers

Football managers often bear responsibility for a team’s success and failures, and there have been some truly successful managers over the years. Jose Mourinho wins trophies at almost any club he manages and Pep Guardiola has managed some of the biggest clubs in Europe.

The impact that players such as Messi and Ronaldo have on the game is undeniable, however, managers too can have similar effects. For example, Guardiola’s style of play at Manchester City is being replicated all over the world, even in the lower English leagues.

Who Are the Best Football Managers?

To reveal who are the best football managers, Betsperts have analyzed the most successful football managers based on their win rates, trophies won and salaries to determine who are the greats of this beautiful game.

Football Mangers with the most trophies

Football managers with the most trophies

1. Alex Ferguson

Possibly the most famous and widely regarded as the best soccer coach of all time, Sir Alex Ferguson is best known for managing Manchester United between 1986 and 2013–when he retired. Ferguson was well-known for valuing players in the youth squads, which saw iconic legends like David Beckham, Paul Scholes, and Ryan Giggs rise to the Man United first team. This is a team that between 1992-2013 won the English Premier League 13 times, along with 18 pieces of various silverware (FA Cup, League Cup, and Community Shield). He achieved almost complete domestic dominance for two decades, the last time that happened was in the 1960s when Liverpool FC achieved something similar.

2. Mircea Lucescu

Mircea Lucescu is best known for his twelve-year run as the coach of Shakhtar Donetsk, where he became the club’s most successful manager. He won eight Ukrainian Premier League titles, six Ukrainian Cups, and seven Ukrainian Super Cups, with a UEFA Cup to finish it off. He is now the coach of Dynamo Kyiv, which are Shakhtar Donetsk’s biggest rivals–in the soccer world, this would be like if Alex Ferguson had joined Liverpool–last season he claimed the domestic treble with Dynamo Kyiv.

3. Pep Guardiola

Pep Guardiola has managed three of the best teams in the world at the relatively young age of 51. He started his coaching career with Barcelona and in his first season won the treble of the La Liga title, the Copa del Rey and the UEFA Champions League, becoming the youngest manager to win the latter trophy. In 2011, after winning the La Liga title for the third year in a row and the Champions League for the second time in three years, he was awarded the Catalan Parliaments Gold Medal and named FIFA World Coach of the Year. After a sabbatical, he coached Bayern Munich for three seasons, winning the Bundesliga title every season. Currently, he’s the coach of Manchester City.

Football managers with the highest win-rate

1. Pep Guardiola

Having coached some of the best teams soccer has seen in the last two decades, it’s no surprise that Pep has such a winning streak. He currently holds records in the La Liga, Bundesliga and Premier League for most games won consecutively–the latter they now share with Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool. To go on an 18-game win streak over the course of a long nine-month season takes a serious amount of focus and discipline, truly a feat worthy of making Pep one of the greats.

2. Bill Struth

One of the most successful legends in soccer, Bill Struth has won a total of 30 major trophies while coaching Rangers FC from 1920-1954. They won the Scottish league title 18 times during his tenure as their coach, achieving a total win rate of 66.8%. In 2005, Rangers chairman Sir David Murray unveiled a bronze bust of Struth in the Main Stand at their stadium the Ibrox.

3. José Mourinho

Nicknamed “The Special One”, Mourinho is widely regarded as another of the greatest soccer managers of all time, winning a total of 27 trophies in his managerial career. Currently, he is the coach of Italian Serie A team Roma, but he’s coached Chelsea FC, Porto, Real Madrid, Manchester United, and Tottenham Hotspur, to name a few. Over that time, despite having competition from other great managers, Alex Ferguson, Pep Guardiola, and Arsene Wenger, he’s managed a 63.8% win rate. An astonishing feat in a heavily competitive era of soccer.

Football managers with the highest earnings

1. Pep Guardiola

Since having been taken over by the Abu Dhabi United Group in 2008, Manchester City has risen to the top of English soccer, and their expenditures have been something of a controversial topic in recent years. That being said, they can certainly afford to pay Pep €23 million a year, with the success he brings it’s a sure thing.

2. Jürgen Klopp

Klopp was appointed to Liverpool in 2015, not long after Brenden Rogers almost led Liverpool to their first title in nearly three decades. Since then, with nowhere near the funding that his competitors were given, he has transformed Liverpool into a force of nature. He brought the club their first Premier League Title in 2019-20. As of 2022, they’ve made it to three Champions League Finals in five years, and in the current season, they are chasing a historic quadruple, a feat that’s never been accomplished. With such a transformation in a relatively short period, Klopp is worth every penny as far as Liverpool fans are concerned.

3. Zinedine Zidane

Known as one of the greatest players of all time, “Zizou” went on to become a rather remarkable and successful coach too. Taking on the reigns of the Spanish giants Real Madrid, who Zidane spent most of his career playing for, he became the first manager to win the UEFA Champions League in three consecutive years. Currently, he is not coaching a team, having left Madrid in 2021, but while there he earned a massive €16.8 million a year or $17.67 million.