25. Tele Santana. Failure to win the 1982 World Cup with Brazil
might, in some circumstances, have seen Santana vilified. But what
a failure! Their joyous football is still remembered more fondly
than Brazil's 1994 World Cup victory.
24. Sir Alf Ramsey. Destined to be England's only World Cup winning
manager for some time to come, Ramsey brilliantly made the most of
his resources in 1966 and had the courage to trust his own
instincts and omit Jimmy Greaves. Embittered in his later years but
no wonder given the shameful treatement at the hands of the
FA.
23. Enzo Bearzot. Brazil should have won the 1982 World Cup but
instead it was Bearzot's Italy. And they did so by casting off some
of the defensive shackles that characterised football in his home
country.
22. Cesar Luis Menotti. 'El Flaco', the skinny one, revelled in his
reputation as a liberal free-thinker but what really made his name
was winning the World Cup for Argentina on home soil in 1978. What
followed was an anticlimax, particularly at Barcelona.
21. Fabio Capello. The sergeant-majorish Italian was sacked by Real
Madrid in the summer for not winning the title with sufficient
panache but style was never his priority. That was winning. His AC
Milan side once went unbeaten for 58 Serie A matches which trumps
Arsenal's Invincibles.
20. Franz Beckenbauer. Brief spells at Bayern Munich and Olympique
Marseille are not much of a club career to go on but two World Cup
finals with Germany - losing to Argentina in 1986 and gaining
revenge in 1990 - would suggest that the Kaiser knew a thing or two
about coaching.
19. Vicente Del Bosque. For years, he seemed destined for lowly
coaching roles at Real Madrid but ended up taking charge for the
most successful spell in the club's modern history. Quiet,
unassuming, almost Paisley-like, he made a team out of the
galacticos. Madrid showed their gratitude for two European Cups by
sacking him.
18. Luiz Felipe Scolari. The Brazil side he inherited in 2001 was
struggling to qualify for the World Cup finals. They ended up as
winners. 'Big Phil' punches his weight as a club and international
manager. No wonder Brian Barwick wanted him.
17. Marcello Lippi. "Such a good-looking bastard he makes most of
us look like Bela Lugosi," Sir Alex Ferguson once said of the
Italian. And it is his charisma as much as coaching intellect that
has underpinned his triumphs with Juventus and, most memorably, in
the 2006 World Cup finals with Italy.
16. Jose Mourinho. A truly exceptional tactician and motivator and,
boy, he knows it. There will be complaints that this big trophy
hunter with FC Porto and Chelsea is ranked too low. To climb the
charts, all he has to do is to prove that he loves the beautiful
game half as much as he enjoys advancing his own career.
15. Johan Cruyff. The longest-serving and most successful of
Barcelona managers fitted double heart bypass surgery in between
winning four league titles and the Catalan club's first European
Cup in 1992. A shame he gave up management but still a huge
influence in Barcelona club politics.
14. Mario Zagallo. Brought in shortly before the 1970 World Cup
finals, Zagallo's job was to find enough room in the team for Pelé,
Gérson, Tostão, Jairzinho and Rivelino. It is probably not as easy
as it sounds, but he fine-tuned what is widely regarded as one of
the world's greatest teams. Just a shame he did not use his
experience to see that Ronaldo was in no state to play in the 1998
World Cup final.
13. Helenio Herrera. With an ego the size of the San Siro, the
French-Argentine cast a big shadow over European football in the
1960s. A great motivator and disciplinarian who imposed rigid
catenaccio on his teams, he enjoyed his greatest success at Inter
Milan where he twice won the European Cup. He might have been
higher up the list but for the subsequent allegations of corruption
against that regime.
12. Jock Stein. "Jock, you're immortal," Shankly told his great
friend in the dressing room after the 1967 European Cup triumph
which marked a first for a British team. What's more, he did it
with a bunch of Glaswegians. Would he have succeeded outside
Scotland? Probably, but it is hard to tell from his 45 days at
Leeds.
11. Arrigo Sacchi. A one-time shoe salesman who built one of the
greatest club sides at AC Milan and did so with innovative tactics.
With Baresi closing the back door and Van Basten knocking in the
goals, Sacchi used the athleticism of Rijkaard and Gullit in a
powerful pressing system.
10. Arsene Wenger. Ranked above managers who have won more and with
very good reason. A champion of style and sporting beauty and, most
remarkably, a football man you can take at his word. There is not a
single club that has not coveted him in the last ten years.
9. Miguel Munoz. He inherited the great Real Madrid side and
probably did not have to do much from the sidelines as Puskas, Di
Stefano and the rest stuffed Eintracht Frankfurt 7-3 to win the
European Cup in his first season. But he also went on to win nine
titles and build the European club champions of 1966.
8. Bela Guttman. Jose Mourinho calls himself a special one but this
brilliant and brash Hungarian is credited with establishing the
cult of the manager. One of the pioneers of the attacking 4-2-4
formation, he enjoyed his greatest success at Benfica where, having
recruited Eusebio, he secured successive European Cup victories in
the early Sixties. "The third season is fatal," he said, although
he rarely stayed long enough to find out.
7. Brian Clough. No doubt he would put himself top of the pile and
his feats were truly extraordinary. He turned Derby County into
league champions and Nottingham Forest into the best team in
Europe. What a shame he was never given the opportunity to prove
his talents with England but then he might have rubbed everyone up
the wrong way like he did at Leeds.
6. Bob Paisley. Still the only coach to have three European Cup
medals - although, unfairly, no knighthood - the unassuming son of
a County Durham miner would have been too modest to trot out his
great signings like Dalglish, Hansen, Souness and Rush. "Mind you,
I wasn't only here for the good years," he once said. "One year, we
came second."
5. Bill Shankly. The builder of another of football's great
institutions, Shankly would surely have shared in Liverpool's later
success in Europe had he not retired far too prematurely. It is
hard to believe that Bob Paisley and Joe Fagan would have gone on
to those later triumphs without his colossal influence.
4. Sir Alex Ferguson. After knocking over the Old Firm in Scotland,
he has built a modern-day monster out of Manchester United and has
done so with teams of flair and adventure. A giant of football and
yet his CV will always have an unmissable hole without that second
European Cup. Clinch that and perhaps we can elevate him into the
top three.
3. Ernst Happel. A man of few words but many trophies, the Austrian
was league champion in four different countries (Holland, Belgium,
Germany and Austria). He also led Holland to the 1978 World Cup
final. But what most impresses is that unfashionable Feyenoord and
Hamburg have won the European Cup once each; Happel was the common
denominator. Even Clough might be impressed at that CV.
2. Sir Matt Busby. If club-building scores high, then it is hard to
look past the man who took over the reins at Manchester United in
1946 when Old Trafford was literally a bomb site. He then faced the
most difficult of all rebuilding jobs when he lost a brilliant
team, and almost his own life, in the great tragedy of Munich.
Fergie has won more trophies but was there ever a more deserved
triumph than United's 1968 European Cup victory?
1. Rinus Michels. The Dutchman, who died in 2005, was named coach
of the century by FIFA in 1999. For once, that organisation knew
what it was doing. The originator of Total Football, Michels won
the European Cup with Ajax, the Spanish league with Barcelona and
Euro 88 with Holland. He should also have won the 1974 World Cup.
What's more, you would have paid Wembley prices to watch his
teams.
Rinus Michels, No 1
