The Greatest Football Managers of the last 10 years
Football’s best managers of the last decade
It’s the players on the football pitch that tend to get most of the credit, but in the modern game, much of the match is dictated by the brains of the person in the dugout.
In most clubs, it’s the football manager that’ll really take a team to success (or to failure). And just as with everything, some are better than others. We’re lucky to still have some of history’s best football managers doing their thing in leagues around the world. Today, you could argue the best managers are Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp, Conte, and Ancelotti. Add in Sir Alex Ferguson — who retired nine years ago — and you have a formidable team of football experts.
All of these managers have a steady stream of success behind them. And Conte is doing such good things that bookmarkers have Tottenham as one of the favourites to pull off a Premier League title next season.
These managers all have one thing in common: they understand players extremely well. In this article, we’ll outline just why they can be considered the best in the game over the past ten years.
Sir Alex Ferguson
Sir Alex Ferguson isn’t just one of the best managers of the past ten years - he’s the best manager of all time. He just makes this list, having retired in 2013, and his record speaks for itself. He created several world-beating teams that won a slew of titles, European trophies, and domestic cups. His crowning achievement came in 1999 when his Manchester United team won the Premier League, Champions League, and FA Cup. Would United be in the mess they’re in now if he was still manager? Not a chance.
Jurgen Klopp
How many trophies would Klopp have won for Liverpool if Guardiola wasn’t also in the league? Of the two managers, Klopp probably just edges it over Guardiola because he has to work with much less money than the ex-Barcelona manager, who has all the riches in the world at his disposal at the Etihad.
Klopp, instead, draws on his personality to get the job done. He was great at Dortmund but achieved another level of success at Liverpool — and did it all in a fun and exciting way to boot.
Pep Guardiola
Guardiola will rightly go down as one of history’s all-time great managers. He’s certainly been among the best in the past ten years. He got the most from Messi at Barcelona, romped to success at Bayern Munich, and then built a Manchester City side that would beat any team on the planet, from any era.
His biggest success, however, is probably changing how people play the sport. Today, you’ll see teams of all levels playing out from the back, and that’s all down to Guardiola’s philosophy. He has made the game better.
Antonio Conte
People don’t often talk about Antonio Conte when they’re discussing the best managers of the past ten years, but they should. He’s won so much, with multiple teams. You don’t win four Italian league titles and a Premier League if you’re not an expert at what you’re doing.
His biggest success was probably taking Chelsea from 10th position to title winners in the space of one season.
He’s doing great things at Tottenham Hotspurs currently, too, to the point where the North London club may realistically be considered contenders for the title. If that happens, then Conte will go down as one of the all-time greats.
Carlo Ancelotti
Finally, there’s Carlo Ancelotti. This is a manager who doesn’t just win trophies but makes sure he's the coolest person in the stadium while doing so. Everyone already had massive respect for Ancelotti, but the esteem in which football fans held him went even higher this year following Real Madrid’s Champions League victory. It was arguably the best Champions League campaign of all time, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the smooth Ancelotti in the dugout.
