Ranked! The 50 best managers in the world right now

25. Marco Silva

After difficult spells with the likes of Hull City, Watford and Everton, you could be forgiven for believing he was done at England’s top level.

Yet Marco Silva’s current tenure at Fulham continues to go from strength to strength, having now led the Cottagers to three consecutive mid-table finishes in the Premier League: it is no surprise fellow top clubs are beginning to take note of the 47-year-old’s managerial capabilities.

Consider where the Whites were when the Portuguese took over, though. Not only did Silva stop the yo-yoing, he built a solid squad that withstood the losses of a 25-goal-a-season striker (Aleksandar Mitrovic) and his next-best player (Joao Palhinha). He's shown quiet genius to take Fulham up the table.

Often blending solid structures with attacking flair, Silva deserves all his plaudits and more with what he's done with this side. There's still a case that he's hugely underrated – not that Fulham fans have a problem with that.

24. Didier Deschamps

There are those who bemoan his lack of tactical acumen – but Didier Deschamps is still the most successful manager in the history of the French national team, and deserves almighty recognition for the job he has done with Les Bleus over the last 13 years.

A World Cup winner back in 2018, the so-called ‘water carrier’ has struck the correct balance, creating a cohesive team environment by developing positive relationships with his players. And yet, he's not afraid of the big decisions.

Look at the 2022 World Cup final, in which he made two first-half subs in order to save the game. Or the Euros the year before, when he reintegrated Karim Benzema in the prime of his life.

People underestimate this job. It's only thanks to Deschamps that the team has been stable for over a decade, with walkouts, inappropriate live marriage proposals, in-fighting and politics blighting a side that stood on top of the world in 1998 and very publicly fell from grace not long after. Deschamps is still le roi, all right.

23. Claudio Ranieri

Claudio Ranieri has managed no less than 19 teams. In other lifetimes, he helped Monaco to promotion, managed an Atletico Madrid side with Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, wrote the first chapter of Chelsea under Russian rule and flopped at Fulham, Inter Milan and most curiously, the Greek national team.

Yet when Claudio goes somewhere he's loved, he produces something deeper than form.

We're still talking, almost a decade later about the impossible dream of Leicester City yet in 2024, he answered the call of boyhood Roma. He was simply asked to steady the ship after years of tumult: he ended up taking I Lupi from midtable to fifth, losing just once from Christmas onwards.

Scenes of the 73-year-old bidding farewell to legions of fans at the end of the season could make even a Roman statue shed a tear. If it is to be the end, it was a glorious sign-off.

22. Ernesto Valverde

Recognised for his quiet authority, Bilbao’s constant hotbed of talented stars under Ernesto Valverde speaks for itself. He is Andoni Iraola's biggest influence and continues to bring a very English style of play to Spanish football.

Commonly regarded as one of Spanish football's best pragmatists, the Spaniard is renowned for getting the best out of a group with often limited resources to hand. He was successful, too, when he moved to a bigger club: perhaps swallowed up by the task eventually at Barcelona, he did win two La Liga titles during his tenure at Camp Nou.

Since finding solace in a third spell with Athletic, it's surely fair to call him one of the greats of the modern age. The record speaks for itself.

21. Cesc Fabregas

He will be the next big manager. A career that is still in its infancy, Cesc Fabregas is already being linked with some of Europe’s top jobs.

Having only started out back in 2023, the former Arsenal midfielder is flying with now Serie A side Como, leading them to a 10th-placed finish last season, after spells with their Under-19 and B sides respectively.

Preferring to set up in a 4-2-3-1, Cesc is seen as a human-centred coach, valuing both character and ability. He's tactically outclassed some of the biggest managers in the game – but he relies on people rather than profiles.

And if he's anything like he was as a player, rivals should be scared. A phenomenal football brain with no qualms about the aggressive side of the game – not to mention displaying it at a younger age than most of his peers – he already has the traits to take over at a huge club.

It's a case of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’.

20. Vincent Kompany

Eyebrows were raised all over Europe when Kompany landed the Bayern Munich job after Burnley were relegated on his watch in 2024.

The former Manchester City captain and acolyte of Pep Guardiola cut his managerial teeth in title races with Anderlecht before Burnley were promoted from the Championship in his first season in charge. Their style of play meant more to the bigwigs at Bayern than his inability to upset the odds and keep a promoted team in England’s top division.

Bayern liked what they saw in the Belgian and stuck to their guns. They were right to.

There’s only one way to keep the Bayern job: win the Bundesliga. Where Tuchel failed in 2023/24, Kompany succeeded in 2024/25. They were narrowly beaten by eventual runners-up Inter Milan in quarter-finals of the Champions league and Kompany’s stock has never been higher.

It's proof that sometimes, appearances really don't matter and that philosophy is king in coaching these days.

19. Oliver Glasner

He bagged European football for Wolfsburg in his first season, Eintracht Frankfurt in his second season and, to the shock of pretty much everyone, Crystal Palace in his first term, courtesy of an unlikely FA Cup triumph.

It’s what Oliver Glasner does.

Given the calibre of clubs he's managed – with no disrespect intended in the slightest – the Austrian might just have the most impressive CV in football right now. Hand him a plucky upstart to manage, and he’ll bring the tactical sturdiness and confidence to get them through the toughest challenges.

It’s an exciting time to be a Palace fan under Glasner. If they can keep hold of him, that is.

18. Julian Nagelsmann

The poster boy for the new era of youthful, highly-educated German coaches, Nagelsmann was appointed as Hoffenheim’s head coach at the age of 28 and has been climbing speedily up the football ranks ever since.

After improving significantly improving the fortunes in Sinsheim before RB Leipzig came calling, Nagelsmann was given the glorious, tempting, poisoned chalice that is the Bayern Munich job. They wanted his razor-sharp tactical mind and got what they asked for until they flapped at Nagelsmann only being second in the Bundesliga in March 2023.

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They probably regretted letting him go. Now the manager of the German national team, Nagelsmann remains a highly respected young coach who’s considered one of the game’s most exciting prospects.

He only has a single Bundesliga title with evergreen favourites Bayern to show for all his promise and success with Germany is a high bar, but he goes into the World Cup next year as one of the best minds at the tournament.

17. Nuno Espirito Santo

While there’s certainly an argument that taking the Tottenham Hotspur job was a misstep by Nuno and his trusted agent, Jorge Mendes, his managerial performance in England speaks for itself.

Before Spurs and a title-winning stint in the Saudi Pro League, Nuno took a Mendes-fuelled Wolverhampton Wanderers into the Premier League and kept them there. They’d never been more solidly a top-flight club in the modern era and they’ve struggled for the same sense of direction since he left.

Even that had nothing on his 2024/25 season in charge of Nottingham Forest. Wrangling a hastily assembled and mismatched squad, Nuno squeezed career-best football from the likes of Chris Wood, Morgan Gibbs-White, Anthony Elanga, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Matz Sels, and nearly took them into the Champions League.

And all playing a style of football alien to the top half of the table. Nuno is perhaps still underrated, due to the Spurs gig – but has been astounding in English football.

16. Lionel Scaloni

Argentina’s third World Cup-winning manager came out of nowhere. After a playing career that took him from Argentina to Spain, to Italy and briefly to England, Scaloni was given the national team job in 2018 with no experience as the leading man at any level until he was given Argentina’s Under-20 job the same year.

He’s delivered something close to perfection. Scaloni has taken Argentina to three major tournaments and won them all. They triumphed in the 2021 and 2024 editions of Copa America, winning both finals by a single goal. They won the World Cup in 2022, defeating France on penalties in the final.

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They even told us it was coming by thumping European champions Italy at Wembley months earlier. Scaloni might have the greatest player in the history of the game at his disposal but that’s a title Lionel Messi needed a World Cup to lock down.

Only Scaloni pulled it off.

15. Thomas Frank

Tottenham Hotspur only had eyes for one man when Europa League winner Ange Postecoglou got the boot. When Dean Smith left Brentford for Aston Villa, Thomas Frank stepped up and supercharged the work they’d been doing together at Griffin Park.

Under the former Brondby boss, the Bees were promoted to the top flight for the first time in 90 years and stabilised in the Premier League immediately. Frank pursued a brand of swashbuckling football that entertained and established Brentford as a solid mid-table outfit.

Frank unleashed Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa. He was the making of Ivan Toney. Despite some challenges – challenges Frank himself righted in-season, such as flawless home results but away form that was nothing but a blemish – the flight of the Bees made the loss of their main man inevitable.

Now, he's looking to transform Tottenham. He may just be their best appointment since Mauricio Pochettino.

14. Andoni Iraola

Iraola has a shy demeanour – he gave up a law degree for the beautiful game. But you'd never know it, watching the ferocity with which he teams play.

Bournemouth were promised a degree of controlled chaos when Iraola was appointed manager in 2023, after his Rayo Vallecano team had become known for its tactical fluidity and physical mobility, a unit possessed of the kind of dynamism required for the Cherries to close the gap on bigger clubs with more financial freedom.

In two seasons on the south coast, Iraola took a talented group of unfashionable players and won 34 matches in all competitions. Iraola’s front-foot, aggressive, fearless football is a tactical leveller and it’s starting to build careers – with Dean Huijsen off to Real Madrid, Ilya Zabarnyi to Paris Saint-Germain and Milos Kerkez to Liverpool.

This is a team, too, that have posted record points tallies in both campaigns under the Basque. Bournemouth are fearless under his leadership, with a man-to-man press capable of bringing down the big boys: see last season's double over Arsenal, mauling of Newcastle United and first-ever Premier League victory over Manchester City.

It was a masterstroke to appoint him. It was even wiser to keep him after he failed to win a single game weeks into his tenure.

13. Gian Piero Gasperini

In 2023/24, Atalanta thumped Xabi Alonso’s impenetrable Bayer Leverkusen in the final. It was his first trophy. Manager Gian Piero Gasperini told reporters that he was no better a manager for the triumph.

He had the receipts. Built on a vibrant attacking ethos, the rise of Atalanta under Gasperini was remarkable. In his nine seasons in charge, La Dea were ever-present in the top half of Serie A. Two seasons before he arrived, they finished 17th. Just a few seasons before that, they were in the second tier.

Gasperini is no flash in the pan. Two spells with Crotone, Genoa and Palermo, and one with Inter Milan, preceded his longest tenure and laid the groundwork for his greatest triumph after decades in the game. His thrilling 3-4-3 system made Atalanta frequent fliers in European football.

“Atalanta have, in my view – no disrespect towards others – the best coach of the last decade in Italy and a real reference point for so many tacticians,” Lazio coach Marco Baroni said earlier this year. He may not be so willing to praise the man now he's on the other side of the Eternal City, but he was spot on.

12. Diego Simeone

Feared, revered, and resolutely among world football’s highest-paid managers, Simeone has made the Atletico Madrid job his own since replacing Gregorio Manzano in 2011.

Atleti are a big club in an impossible spot competing with Barcelona and Real Madrid and needing to punch above even their own substantial weight to bring home trophies both at home and in Europe. Over the course of a decade and a half, Simeone has found a way.

Under the four-time La Liga Coach of the Year, the Rojiblancos have won the league twice and the Europa League twice. They reached two Champions League finals in three years, taking Real Madrid into extra time on both occasions before losing as if to prove the point that taking a tactical approach that seeks to limit the impact of the biggest hitters is the only way.

Simeone has turned it into a lucrative art form. And along the way, he's reinvented himself time and again, to keep on attacking the establishment. He's a management legend, by now.

11. Eddie Howe

It was a long wait for Newcastle United fans.

70 years after their last major trophy, their Carabao Cup triumph in 2025 was a historic, momentous occasion for the Magpies. The club’s ownership situation lent a sense of inevitability to the end of their drought but Howe was the man who really made it happen.

He showed exceptional promise in two spells in charge of boyhood club Bournemouth and hauled them from the bleakest of days at the bottom of League Two all the way to their first season in the Premier League. That rise was a story for the ages and turning Newcastle into trophy winners cemented his reputation.

Howe works with talented players at St James’ Park and has shown his tactical smarts in his ability to get the best out of players like Alexander Isak, Bruno Guimaraes, Jacob Murphy and Sandro Tonali.

Howe is among the most capable, cerebral modern English managers and there’s plenty still to come.

10. Carlo Ancelotti

The most decorated man in European competition. The only coach to have lifted titles in Europe's top five leagues. There is simply no one more fitting for the Selecao.

What's more, Carlo Ancelotti's reputation as a manager who bends his philosophy and relies on his legendary man-management makes him perfect for international football. Don Carlo has been at the top of the game for over two decades and is still finding success simply through just his aura, now.

And yet he's still capable of tactical brilliance. He fashioned Vinicius and Rodrygo into a front pairing with Jude Bellingham as a battering ram behind. He denied Pep Guardiola time and again with defensive masterclasses. He may be more laissez-faire than your typical calcio coach, but he's still shrewder than top managers almost half his age.

Ancelotti will go down as one of the best managers of all time – that's certain, now. If he delivers a sixth world title in Brazil, he might just go down as no.1. Who's to say he won't?

9. Unai Emery

Unai Emery was typecast, for a while, as the Europa League specialist: a somewhat conservative coach able to thrive just below the elite. He's broken into the top tier, now.

After successive disappointments in London and Paris, the Basque was reborn at Villarreal, then deified in the Midlands. He has an ability to build all-conquering sides seemingly from the parts that no one else wants: he's Champions League quarter-finalists out of Morgan Rogers, Boubacar Kamara, Youri Tielemans, Ross Barkley and, of course, Marcus Rashford – all players that bigger clubs passed on.

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And now he's far more than just a cup manager, having taken Villa into the top four, then being an Emi Martinez blunder away from Champions League football a second time. No one won more points in the Premier League last season based on their squad spend, either.

Emery's reputation has never been better. It's testament to his determination following the Gunners gig: his reinvention has been wonderful.

8. Antonio Conte

The fervour he evoked at Chelsea and Inter was enough to write his name in history. And yet we may now be watching his finest work.

With his Napoli adventure, Conte has added layers to his legacy. A 4-2-4 enthusiast at heart who brought the back three into vogue in England – messieurs Guardiola and Wenger even imitated him – his system was a cliche until he reinvented it in Naples.

Not even loaning Victor Osimhen or losing Khvicha Kvaratskhelia midseason could stop him. The Leccese moved to a back four, put Scott McTominay into conversations with Diego Maradona and delivered quite possibly his most impressive title yet. He continues to breathe life into Romelu Lukaku. Now Kevin De Bruyne's joined him.

Antonio Conte is the greatest Serie A manager of his era. Scudetti with Juventus were one thing; repeating the feat with Inter was another. Translating his success to Napoli has secured his status.

7. Mikel Arteta

It's a common misconception that Mikel Arteta went to shadow Pep Guardiola to learn about how to implement the same brand of positional play. He was already a tactical mastermind that Pep himself phoned for advice.

On his own two feet, the Basque has taken Arsenal from their ‘banter era’ to the Bernabeu. Now it's clear exactly what he was learning at the Etihad: he has instilled the culture in North London that breeds success and re-imagined ‘the Arsenal way’ for a new generation, combining the hard-as-nails George Graham-era defensive solidity with technical wizards that Wenger would have adored.

And there's a reason that the famously tetchy Goonersphere are still patient with Arteta: there's a clear feeling that it's just a matter of time.

This is a manager who still got results with Mikel Merino up front. Who has transformed Arsenal's big-game record. Who dragged the club to second in the table with four injuries to the first six choice attackers. Who has sold this project to superstar signings over the past five years. It's coming.

To deny that Arteta is anything other than world-class is churlish these days. He has been phenomenal since arriving at the Emirates and he's far from done.

6. Xabi Alonso

Was there ever a more obvious elite football manager than a man who played for Guardiola, Mourinho, Ancelotti and Benitez? Oh, and Xabi Alonso's father was a coach, too.

Intelligent, tenacious and composed as a player, the Basque has been much the same in management so far. He's brought an aura, too, from his playing career: he simply feels as if he belongs at the top level.

But stepping into the Bernabeu hot seat at the age of 43 as just your second job in management is testament not just to Alonso's education but his experience. It's the stuff of legend by now: he dragged relegation-battlers away from the bottom and turned them into Invincible Double-winners.

Now, he's in charge of the biggest club on Earth, has changed his system accordingly and we'll get to see how he handles egos. Combining the positional play that he thrived under to a ‘relationism’ impossible to defend against, Alonso is the embodiment of elite coaching in the 2020s. It feels like his destiny to transform the sport.

5. Hansi Flick

Barcelona were becoming a little insular, preoccupied with their Cruyffian ideals and doing things the typical Blaugrana way. It showed when they sacked Ernesto Valverde for Quique Setien in a title challenge, backed up by hires of former players, Ronald Koeman and Xavi Hernandez.

Hansi Flick has brought some much needed outside perspective to Catalonia. He doesn't play in a 4-3-3, the football is centred on pace rather than patience – and yet Barcelona feel more themselves than ever before.

Not only has the identity crisis been averted, the German has managed to recapture lightning from Raphinha with an arm around the Brazilian's shoulder, Pedri is reborn as the orchestrator and Frenkie De Jong is showing some of the best form of his Barça career. Let's face it: they were desperately unlucky not to get to the Champions League final, too.

Flick's Bayern template has been re-purposed to perfection: free-wheeling left-back, wingers given the keys and Robert Lewandowski in god mode. With this team still firmly a work in progress, too, there's serious potential to only go up from here.

Initial doubts over Flick's suitability at this club from a subsection of Culers have been erased spectacularly.

4. Pep Guardiola

Pep Guardiola's stringent principles took him to the top. The mantra that the touchline was your best defender. The principle that having the ball closer to the opposition goal was the best way to not concede. The idea that opponents were most vulnerable within six seconds of receiving possession.

He changed the sport with his playbook. But what's kept the Catalan at the top of the world is his ability to dust himself down and go again.

Guardiola didn't just re-write football once, he keeps doing it: inverting full-backs, then making them more defensive; putting natural wingers out wide, then re-inverting them for the fun of it. He has stayed at the very zenith of football simply by evolving quicker than anyone else around him: we're still looking for new ways to describe things he's done.

It's one thing to have won everything in the game, or to have broken virtually every record for the taking – he has, and he has – but to have redefined the very standards to which every other coach has been held in the past two decades takes something else entirely.

He will surely surpass even mentor Johan Cruyff when he retires. Guardiola's added longevity to his long list of achievements and continues to leave everyone else in his wake.

3. Simone Inzaghi

As a player, Il demone di Piacenza lived in the shadow of brother, Filippo. As a manager, he's the one draping his cloak over Serie A.

Inter Milan's route to the Champions League final in 2023 was seen as lucky: an outsider with a weaker draw. Two years later, they were deserved finalists (the less said about Munich, the better, though).

Simone Inzaghi has been unparalleled by all but a handful of coaches since he took over at the San Siro in 2021, delivering another Scudetto, two more Coppas, three more Supercoppas and re-establishing Inter as the Nerazzurri as a serious force in European football – the first time anyone had done such a thing with an Italian club since Juventus' dynasty.

Yet to have done so with such a unique tactical setup is extraordinary. Out of possession, Inzaghi's 3-5-2 suffocated the life out of teams across Serie A: on the ball, the midfielders dropped to build up, the centre-backs ventured forward, in a balletic synergy of moving parts.

He reinvented Hakan Calhanoglu and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, made a cult hero of Lautaro Martinez and replaced the likes of Achraf Hakimi and Andre Onana with such effortlessness that their departures looked like part of the plan. By its final hour, this Inter team were finished though, and with it, their manager had emphatically taken them as far as possible.

But Inzaghi is a huge loss to European football: for his oneness and his wonder.

2. Arne Slot

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.

Yet Slot is unashamedly his own man. Brought up on Match of the Day highlights beamed to Hardenberg and stories of totaalvoetbal, and an elite communicator of ideas.

As the season unravelled, it became obvious that the Dutchman's superpower is in reinvention. He needed not to re-shape Jurgen Klopp's final project but to tweak it, add control and chisel at the likes of Mohamed Salah, Luis Diaz and Ryan Gravenberch to make them more rounded.

And when things weren't going his way, again, he'd reinvent. There may not have been a more impressive in-game tweaker than Slot for a decade or more. Liverpool were not only able to snatch points from nowhere, but to find advantages from having fewer men on the field.

It was immensely impressive, to take hostage of the Premier League almost immediately. He was capable of hiding his own team's weaknesses and exploiting his opponents, like a magician misdirecting a crowd with slight of hand. And he did so with uncertainty hanging over his three best players.

It's been a pleasure to watch Slot so far. We can't wait to see his next trick.

1. Luis Enrique

When asked before his semi-final whether you had to win the Champions League to be considered a great manager, Luis Enrique shrugged and, perhaps diplomatically, answered, “no”. Easy for him to say: he already won the Treble with Barcelona in 2015.

Easy, too, to look at the wealth invested in Paris and to declare this an easy job. Yet the 55-year-old didn't just succeed where Carlo Ancelotti, Laurent Blanc, Unai Emery, Thomas Tuchel, Mauricio Pochettino and Christophe Galtier couldn't – he did it where Kylian Mbappe, Neymar and Lionel Messi couldn't either.

Luis Enrique's achievement isn't just to have landed the prize that the club so desperately coveted but to have done so with a swagger.

French underperformance in UEFA club competition is historic – Paris hasn't always been cool – and yet it's taken a Spaniard to establish a dynasty that brings the banlieues to the Parc Des Princes, in a fluid, free-flowing attack that platforms young, French talent.

In hindsight, it seemed so easy. And yet perhaps that's what has made Luis Enrique's 2025 quite so spectacular: it's simple football at its core, performed by a superteam.

Joao Neves and Vitinha have been exceptional. Gigi Donnarumma has ascended to his potential. Nuno Mendes has seemingly grown six inches, Achraf Hakimi given a stage for his unique talents. And that's without mentioning the regeneration of Ousmane Dembele – 4/11 favourite to win the 2025 Ballon d'Or – as a forward built for the 2020s and the stage given to Desire Doue to reenact Neymar nostalgia.

Easy? No. Terrifying for the rest of Europe? You bet.