The dugout
Twenty managers
Every manager on this page answers the same question: how do you want your team to lose the ball? Their answers differ, and that difference is the history of tactics.
1986 – 2013
Sir Alex Ferguson
Manchester United
Scotland
The last manager who built three teams
1996 – 2018
Arsène Wenger
Arsenal
France
The professor who changed English habits
2002 – today
José Mourinho
Porto · Chelsea · Inter · Real Madrid
Portugal
The translator who became the special one
2008 – today
Pep Guardiola
Barcelona · Bayern · Manchester City
Spain
Positional play as a system, not a style
1995 – today
Carlo Ancelotti
Milan · Real Madrid · Bayern
Italy
The quietest man in the room
2008 – 2024
Jürgen Klopp
Dortmund · Liverpool
Germany
The pressing era’s most human coach
1994 – 2006
Marcello Lippi
Juventus · Italy
Italy
The last Italian World Cup winner
1987 – 1996
Arrigo Sacchi
Milan · Italy
Italy
The man who moved defending off the ball
1965 – 1988
Rinus Michels
Ajax · Netherlands · Barcelona
Netherlands
The inventor of total football
1991 – 2014
Ottmar Hitzfeld
Dortmund · Bayern
Germany
Two European Cups with two clubs
1991 – 2018
Fabio Capello
Milan · Real Madrid · Roma · Juventus
Italy
Nine league titles in four countries
1985 – 1996
Johan Cruyff
Ajax · Barcelona
Netherlands
The coach who built the modern academy
1976 – 2013
Giovanni Trapattoni
Juventus · Inter · Bayern
Italy
Ten league titles and every European trophy
1999 – 2016
Vicente del Bosque
Real Madrid · Spain
Spain
The calmest man in Spain’s golden era
2016 – 2021
Zinédine Zidane
Real Madrid
France
Three European Cups in two and a half years
2011 – today
Diego Simeone
Atlético Madrid
Argentina
The coach who made defending a strategy
1974 – 1983
Bob Paisley
Liverpool
England
Three European Cups in nine years
1965 – 1993
Brian Clough
Derby · Nottingham Forest
England
Two European Cups with a provincial club
Three generations, three ideas
Michels and Sacchi built football as a system of spaces. Ferguson, Wenger and Mourinho built teams as human organisations. Guardiola and Klopp combined the two: organised space, and humans running to fill it.