25. Fernando Diniz
Age: 50
Club: Cruzeiro
Nationality: Brazilian
Fernando Diniz has never left Brazil in his 15-year managerial career, a journeyman of the Serie A – but though he's only really been genuinely brilliantly successful at one club, his influence extends far beyond that.
Diniz's unique brand of football, labeled ‘relationism’ relies not on a conventional formation but the idea of players forming bonds with one another and building play according to where they find themselves, rather than on exploiting space. It worked a treat at Fluminense, where he picked up a Copa Libertadores in 2023 and was tasked with reshaping the Brazilian team on an interim basis. Sounds Carsley-esque, right?
The Brazilian's style is typically South American, though, and with so many coaches copying Guardiola-like 3-2-5 shapes in attack, Diniz is still doing something unrecognisable.
24. Mauricio Pochettino
Age: 52
National team: United States
Nationality: Argentine
Mauricio Pochettino was one of the most heralded managers in world football during his time at Tottenham, taking his team from relative obscurity to Premier League title challenges and a Champions League final. His ability to develop young players and create a team full of energy and attacking verve was hugely impressive.
Since leaving Spurs in 2019, the Argentine has had turbulent spells with Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea, and he is now in charge of the USA ahead of the 2026 World Cup.
23. Eric Roy
Age: 57
Club: Brest
Nationality: French
Eric Roy has guided Ligue 1 side Brest to new heights, with a third-place finish last season securing them a place in this year’s new-look Champions League. The 57-year-old, who had a brief spell at Sunderland as a player, has been with the Brittany-based team since the beginning of 2023, after several years working as a sporting director for clubs including Lens and Watford.
Roy has established a reputation as an excellent motivator, creating a well-drilled and disciplined Brest side. While not amongst the most innovative coaches tactically - understandable given his previous managerial job was with Nice in 2012 - he has quickly proved his doubters wrong in France.
22. Abel Ferreira
Age: 45
Club: Palmeiras
Nationality: Portuguese
Abel Ferreira may not be an overly familiar name to European football fans, having spent the last four years in Brazil with Palmeiras, where he has won two Serie A titles and two Copa Libertadores.
The 45-year-old had previously enjoyed successful spells with PAOK in Greece and Braga in his native Portugal. A coach who prioritises quick, direct transitions from defence to attack, Ferreira has an exciting future, whether in South America or back in Europe.
21. Didier Deschamps
Age: 56
National team: France
Nationality: French
Inarguably one of the best international managers of his era, Didier Deschamps has been a remarkable success with France. It is now more than 12 years since he was appointed, and he has since taken Les Blues to World Cup glory in 2018, as well as the 2022 World Cup final and Euro 2016 final.
Occasionally criticised for his cautious tactics, Deschamps is uniquely adept at winning knockout matches regardless of the aesthetic merits of his teams. His target now will be to win another World Cup in 2026.
20. Gian Piero Gasperini
Age: 66
Club: Atalanta
Nationality: Italian
Gian Piero Gasperini told reporters that crowning his managerial career with a European title last season made him no better a manager than when he'd never won anything – and we're tempted to agree: he's always been a superb boss.
Atalanta have gone from Serie A also-rans to consistent European contenders since the highly-respected and attack-minded Italian arrived in 2016, finally earning a trophy to match his reputation with a Europa League triumph last season. Along the way, Atalanta saw off – and often dominated – Ruben Amorim’s Sporting, Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool, and finally dealt Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen their first and only defeat of the season.
19. Luis Enrique
Age: 54
Club: Paris Saint-Germain
Nationality: Spanish
A domestic treble and a Champions League semi-final in your first year in charge of a new club isn’t bad going – even if it is at Paris Saint-Germain, where that is just about the minimum expectation.
Lionel Messi ranks Enrique alongside Pep Guardiola as the best managers he has ever played for, while Guardiola himself has described Enrique as his toughest opposition manager alongside Jurgen Klopp.
18. Hansi Flick
Age: 59
Club: Barcelona
Nationality: German
Formerly a long, long-serving assistant to Joachim Low in the German national team before taking a technical director role with the German FA, Flick only stepped back into his managerial career in 2019 when he took over at Bayern Munich.
Two league titles and a Champions League meant he was back with Germany in two years, this time as manager, but was unable to turn around the fortune of a side that has underperformed since he helped them win the 2014 World Cup. Flick has made a promising start at Barcelona since taking over in the summer, however, where he will be trying to bring his unique hybrid gegenpressing/possession-based stylings to the side.
17. Michel
Age: 48
Club: Girona
Nationality: Spanish
The one at Girona, not the one formerly of Olympiacos. Michel took the Manchester City sister club on an unexpectedly convincing title challenge for much of last season, just two years after taking them to promotion from the second tier; they ultimately finished an excellent third.
Michel’s system typically lines up in a 3-3-1-3 – a formation inevitably linked with Marcelo Bielsa – but with his own twist on it, prioritising packing the centre of the pitch to help maintain a numerical advantage in a slow build-up before killing teams off with moves into the channels.
16. Thiago Motta
Age: 42
Club: Juventus
Nationality: Italian
All right, so Bologna needed the extra Champions League place Italy earned through their co-efficient to qualify for this season’s edition of the tournament – but their fifth-place finish was the best the club had done in Serie A since 1971. Motta opted to leave rather than guide Bologna to the tournament, however, joining Juventus in the summer.
A flexible manager who likes his side to have plenty of the ball and build the play gradually from the back, Motta’s style requires lots of positional rotation, and he famously thinks of his formations in vertically lines up the pitch, rather than the traditional horizontal banks: he refers to his 4-3-3 as a 2-7-2 for that reason.
15. Luis de la Fuente
Age: 63
National team: Spain
Nationality: Spanish
Going with a head coach who has worked his way up through the youth teams hasn’t always worked for Spain – ask Julen Lopetegui – but boy has it paid off with de la Fuente. The 63-year-old had an unremarkable career as a club team manager but found his home in the Spanish FA from 2013, progressing from under-19s to under-21s (with an Olympics silver medal along the way in 2021)
That earned him the trust to take control of the senior team after the 2022 World Cup. And he’s only gone and led a young Spain side to the trophy in his first tournament in charge, lifting the Euro 2024 trophy this summer and winning every game along the way.
14. Eddie Howe
Age: 46
Club: Newcastle United
Nationality: English
Eddie Howe took Bournemouth from the bottom of League Two to ninth in the Premier League in less than a decade – and for that, he should perhaps always be regarded as one of the best managers in the world. But since arriving at Newcastle, he's arguably shown a more impressive side of himself.
Howe went away to study from the likes of Andoni Iraola, Jurgen Klopp and Diego Simeone to come back a better manager… and he did: a more rounded coach, tactically versatile, able to take a game to bigger sides better and shut up shop more convincingly. The modesty it took for him to assess his own game, the desire to be as positive as possible and the tactical acumen to have reinvented himself since arriving at Dean Court is, dare we say it, not what much of English management lore was built on. He'll be England manager one day: we're sure of it.
13. Julian Nagelsmann
Age: 37
National team: Germany
Nationality: German
The gulf between Germany and most of their opponents at Euro 2024 was clear, bar Spain. The gulf between their coach and everyone else's was obvious, too.
Nagelsmann was tactically flawless at his home Euros, reinventing Toni Kroos as a quarter-back and showing England a thing or two about ‘too many cooks’ in attack. Still just 37, he has the experience of a veteran at the top level now and has refined his style to the prototypical German model of possession and pressing: and he'll lead Die Mannschaft into the World Cup in 2026 as one of the favourites – off his name alone.
12. Antonio Conte
Age: 55
Club: Napoli
Nationality: Italian
The Serie A cheat code, the Duracell bunny, the man who made the back three cool again. Antonio Conte's Napoli are balling – as we all knew they would – and the Lecce-born boss is still in the prime of his life.
We all know what to expect from Conte teams by now. They will suffocate the life out of you and keep everything tight at the back, shaping tools from other managers' discarded fringe stars to compete among the elite. Silverware surely beckons for him once more: you just can't put a good madman down.
11. Ruben Amorim
Age: 39
Club: Sporting
Nationality: Portuguese
The brain behind the rise of Portugal's incumbent unstoppable force, Sporting are enjoying an unprecedented renaissance in their modern history. Ruben Amorim has gotten this group to turn a two-horse race into their title to lose – and they've looked good in Europe, too.
Is Sporting's true success with the recruitment or the coaching? Well, a little of both. Amorim is a sharp mind who's been sought out by some of Europe's finest – and he's taken big scalps in crunch clashes. Still under 40, a bright future lies ahead.
10. Thomas Tuchel
Age: 51
National team: England
Nationality: German
Like a wily politician rising to No.10 through various cabinet roles, battling the in-fighting and the backstabbing, Thomas Tuchel sidestepped through minefields at Dortmund, PSG and Chelsea to get to the promised land of German football: the Allianz Arena. You'd have thought that Bayern Munich would have had the least politics to deal with behind the scenes of all those clubs, too.
In a decade at the top, Tuchel has established himself as one of the elite of the European game, thanks to his ability to platform superstars better than almost anyone else in football. He was the only one who could get a tune from Neymar and Mbappe at the same time; he found peace at Stamford Bridge in a back three.
Really, the Bayern job probably didn't work out because the German is still best when he's the underdog. His greatest heights have come when he's stolen the result from someone bigger and badder – which makes his next move all the more intriguing.
What will he do with England, exactly?
9. Arne Slot
Age: 46
Club: Liverpool
Nationality: Dutch
Arne Slot was subject of a FourFourTwo magazine feature over the summer of 2023, introducing Pep Guardiola's ‘disciples’ in European football. “Replacing Klopp, inspired by Pep,” we said.
In Jamie Carragher's words, Arne Slot is truly a student of the game: a man who obsessed over Guardiola, Marcelo Bielsa and the old masters to make something new in Dutch football. And though he's not been a coach all that long, really – since 2016 – he has shown sides of himself in his short career already that are distinctly him and him alone: he can reinvent teams from nothing and he's an elite communicator of ideas.
“He used to show us clips of Liverpool all the time,” American midfielder Cole Bassett, who was at Feyenoord during Slot’s first season told FourFourTwo in the feature. “They were the team he used to emphasise to us: if we wanted to play at the top level, that’s what you had to do.” It seems he was always destined for Anfield, after all – but Slot is no one's imitator.
8. Diego Simeone
Age: 54
Club: Atletico Madrid
Nationality: Argentine
Diego Simeone is caricatured as having a devil on each shoulder. Over the years, we have been at the forefront of those praising his practice of the dark arts: no one does it better.
But we're now at the point in the timeline where El Cholo has earned longevity in an industry allergic to keeping the faith. The Argentine has survived it all: he arrived at the height of tiki-taka and fought it with a 4-4-2, changing his ways when he needed to bulk out his backline. He's won titles in an age in which Barça and Real ruled like no one ever had. He's inspired underdogs across the globe.
Simeone will go down as an all-timer for what he's brought to the game. And he's still got life in him yet: does he have a dramatic next chapter at Atletico to come?
7. Lionel Scaloni
Age: 46
National team: Argentina
Nationality: Argentine
An Argentine Lionel ended a 28-year wait for an international trophy for his nation. Only Messi had been playing in the national setup for over a decade: Scaloni was the arrival who set the ball rolling.
Now, Argentina are a force in international football, having won their last three tournaments: the last of which, Messi barely featured. It's a very different task to the club game and Scaloni has managed to galvanise this group and add focus, aligning an entire nation not just to one player but one goal.
Aside from the obvious outstanding hero, this isn't exactly a golden generation, either. Scaloni deserves his credit for what he's done.
6. Unai Emery
Age: 52
Club: Aston Villa
Nationality: Spanish
When waxing over what Unai Emery has achieved at Villa Park, pundits always look backwards – to the Europa League triumphs, the subsequent ‘downfall’ at so-called bigger clubs and then the re-emergence as a serious, top-level boss.
Emery has always had it: he just didn't always have the environment. Villa suits him down to the ground though, with a group of players prepared to run the hard yards, stay compact in his midblock and press with the fervour he asks. They relish spoiling a day and are looking ever more dominant as he evolves them.
Emery is a better coach than his Arsenal days, his PSG days – and yes, more tactically astute than he was at Sevilla, too. The Basque is enjoying his best spell in management in the Midlands.
5. Simone Inzaghi
Age: 48
Club: Inter Milan
Nationality: Italian
As a player, Simone Inzaghi lived in the shadow of brother, Filippo. As a manager, he's the one draping his cloak over Serie A.
In and out of possession, Inzaghi is unparalleled in Italian football, able to throttle an opponent's defence or stifle their attack with equal aplomb. The Italian took over from Antonio Conte and brought evolution not revolution – but in his reinvention of Hakan Calhanoglou as a deeper midfielder, his use of No.8s as attacking weapons and his precisely drilled backline, he has taken Inter Milan to a new level.
Inzaghi's jaunt to the Champions League final in 2023 was seen as an outsider getting lucky from the weak side of a draw. In years to come, perhaps people will think of it a little more as it actually was: an expert tactician who deservedly almost took a superbly coached group within a whisker of the biggest prize in the sport. More is to come, for sure.
4. Mikel Arteta
Age: 42
Club: Arsenal
Nationality: Spanish
Arsenal are unique within English football's elite as a club led by Arsene Wenger's on-field leaders, schooled in the Gunners' way of play. Edu Gaspar is sporting director, Per Mertesacker heads the academy and Jack Wilshere takes on the under-18s: all of whom were generals for their previous boss.
Mikel Arteta is often compared to compatriot Pep Guardiola for his positional play nous or even one-time boss David Moyes for his defensive rigidity – but make no mistake: he is Wenger's heir, too, in that he's always looking for the edge. He trusts his players as people, emphasises the collective and wants on-field relationships to blossom so that his team figures things out in-game, as much as they do from his own leadership.
Only really Jose Mourinho, Jurgen Klopp and Antonio Conte have mounted title challenges against Pep Guardiola: now Arteta has, too. But he's not just a sum of those who have inspired him, he's making history himself at Arsenal. Silverware surely has to follow.
3. Xabi Alonso
Age: 42
Club: Bayer Leverkusen
Nationality: Spanish
Xabi Alonso's overthrowing of German royalty without so much as losing a fixture is one of the most impressive achievements a manager has ever been able to boast. That it was his first full season in senior management is nothing short of astonishing.
Alonso has learned from the best – so seeing him employ a system that he never actually played in, under the likes of Ancelotti, Guardiola and Benitez, was a curveball. The results have been extraordinary: Granit Xhaka has become one of the best midfielders in the world, Florian Wirtz has conquered injury hell to reach a level we all dreamed of and his defence is one of the most balanced in world football – not to mention the two wing-backs who have performed perhaps unique roles under Alonso.
A legendary management career hopefully beckons. Alonso is the most exciting thing in the dugout – and we can't wait to what he has up his sleeve for his next trick.
2. Carlo Ancelotti
Age: 65
Club: Real Madrid
Nationality: Italian
Where football was reinvented by those who gave it structure in the late 2000s, it's perhaps an oddity that it's an Italian grandfather – brought up on old footage of catenaccio and the tales of dastardly defenders – who has most successfully fought against the tide of rigidity and patterned attacks.
Carlo Ancelotti's mantra of bending his system to his players will be remembered for the likes of Seedorf and Kaka – but it's perhaps never been better than with Bellingham and Benzema at the Bernabeu. Don Carlo's ability to always find a way is the perfect philosophy for a club whose DNA is imprinted on the Champions League trophy – and even into his 60s, he's finding new ways to succeed with egos where mere mortals would flounder.
Ancelotti is an all-time great – and the recognition he's receiving this late into his career for being the genius he always has been is welcome, to say the least.
1. Pep Guardiola
Age: 53
Club: Manchester City
Nationality: Spanish
Who else? He reshaped the sport, he won everything there was to win. But perhaps the thing that makes Pep Guardiola the greatest in the modern game – perhaps of all time – is his ability to dust himself off and do it all again. And again. And again.
He's always four or five steps ahead. Every new tactical iteration of a simple 4-3-3 is revolutionised ahead of anyone else cottoning on, as he marches towards trophies with an icy relentlessness. Dynasties are fleeting in football, challengers welcomed by neutrals, as the old guard always has to bow out before they're boring – and yet Guardiola is now looking to a fifth successive title in a country that had only seen three in a row before.
Almost two decades on, we're still searching for new ways to describe the things he's done. We're still not used to this standard of ‘elite’. He's the best all right – and he probably always will be.
