Ranked! The 50 best managers in the world

30. Ivan Juric

Previously appointed as Genoa manager on three separate occasions, Juric enjoyed two successful seasons at Hellas Verona, finishing ninth and tenth despite operating with one of the league’s smallest budgets, before being poached by Torino. There, the Croatian has continued his perennial mid-table league finish, coming tenth in the past two campaigns. 

His death metal style of football is where he truly stands out, relentlessly encouraging his players to aggressively man-mark opponents with such ferocity that it seems the only defensive word in their vocabulary is ‘press’.

29. Edin Terzic

Borussia Dortmund so nearly managed to break the Bayern Munich stranglehold on the Bundesliga last term, and Terzic had a huge role to play in their resurgence. While they fell at the last hurdle, the German boss had Dortmund playing some excellent football with a vibrant team. 

Losing Jude Bellingham in the summer would have hurt any team – and so it's proven. It's been really tough with Dortmund struggling to compete as their recruitment has been outwitted by the likes of Leverkusen, though a Champions League semi-final is another big achievement for Terzic as a young manager.

The flux is real, too: six men have tried to replace Jurgen Klopp, none of them staying particularly long. Terzic has managed longer than all of them (across two spells). 

28. Gary O'Neil

One of the most exciting young coaches in the Premier League, Gary O’Neil’s transition from a tough-tackling midfielder to his expansive tactical approach as a coach has been a pleasure for most to watch.

The former Middlesbrough man guided Bournemouth to Premier League safety back in 2022/23 as they recorded a respectable 15th-placed finish in the table that season. Opting to go their separate ways, O’Neil then joined Wolves and the Wanderers have developed into one of the surprise packages of the season, with the 40-year-old’s style revolving largely around versatility and adaptability.

27. Marco Rose

The Borussia Dortmund gig didn’t quite go to plan but Marco Rose is still an exceptionally talented coach, now at RB Leipzig. Like all good Red Bull coaches, he favours a high-intensity style that wins admirers – he led Leipzig to a DFB-Pokal last term – but his work with individual players is excellent, too.

Even though BVB struggled at times under Rose, several players improved under his tutelage: just as at Borussia Monchengladbach and Red Bull Salzburg. 

26. Xavi Hernandez

Not every great former play can turn into a great manager, but Xavi Hernandez quickly dismissed that pattern with his ideology at Barcelona back in 2021, after a strong spell with Al Sadd over in Saudi Arabia. 

A league and cup double followed in 2022/23 at the Nou Camp and the former World Cup winner has been hailed for his possession-based style that the likes of Catalan greats Johann Cryuff and Pep Guardiola would be especially proud of. 

In three years at Barcelona, Xavi Hernandez has turned a crisis club into champions, re-instilled the style of football that the club aspires to and overseen the integration of a new generation primed to lead this club out of the dark. It's not all been peachy but as a young manager, he has the aura of authority and the tactical understanding that we all expected he’d have when we watched him slicing open defences with pinpoint precision.

25. Gian Piero Gasperini

We've called them all sorts: Chris Wilder's Sheffield United with a Master’s degree, a mad scientist's Frankensteinian beast and the strangest side in Europe. They attack in clusters, with numerical superiority and shift play horizontally like a pinball buffer. Atalanta have ingrained positional interchange, with players moving into each other’s roles depending on the scenario. It’s getting easier to defend against but it's still marvellous when it comes off. 

But if ever there’s a manager who doesn’t get the credit they deserve, it’s Atalanta boss Gasperini. Prior to his arrival in 2016, the Bergamo side seemed destined for relegation to Serie B. 

Now look. Atalanta have been consistently challenging for European spots under the Italian, even achieving qualification for the Champions League for the first time in the club’s history in 2019. They’ve played in the competition a further two times under Gasperini’s stewardship, such has been his influence on the side. They could be Europa League winners this season, too. Who knows?

24. Andoni Iraola

For some Bournemouth fans to think that Andoni Iraola has given them the best football they've seen is some compliment – given how good they were when they were promoted to the Premier League the first time around.

The Basque's hybrid press and intrinsic feel for deploying players across his 4-2-3-1 has helped the Cherries to a record points tally. It's not just how frenetic they can be, how brilliant in attack: it's that Iraola has turned attacking midfielders into destroyers, wingers into full-backs and perfectly utilised Justin Kluivert as an overloader for any situation. It's been marvellous – and it may yet be just beginning. 

23. Thiago Motta

Beginning his journey into management back in 2018 with PSG’s academy sides, Thiago Motta is continuing to make waves as one of the most exciting young coaches across Europe. 

His Bologna side looks destined to qualify for the Champions League this season and his infamous 2-7-2 build-up in possession has shocked Italian football, given the complete domination on the ball that helps to punish teams in forward areas. Now being linked with some huge jobs across Europe, it remains within the realms of possibility that Motta could soon take his crazy tactics elsewhere away from Italy. 

22. Vincenzo Italiano

Italian football prides itself on coaching acumen perhaps more than any other, so a man named “Italiano” was always going to be a ‘final boss’ of Serie A’s tactical nous, right? 

Fiorentina have been meticulously built in the image of their coach to be well-structured in buildup but ambitious in attack: this is a manager, after all, who continues to push higher and higher with each season, guiding Spezia to promotion, keeping them in the top flight and then improving i Viola. He's reached one Conference League final – he may reach another. 

21. Imanol Alguacil

Imanol Alguacil took Real Sociedad to the Champions League with an exciting brand of play which bucks plenty of the trends of modern football, using players in close proximity to one another to build overloads rather than exploiting space. As a result, La Real have taken the game to plenty – he even re-energised 37-year-old David Silva in the final season of his career.

Having gotten a tune out of Take Kubo when some failed, using Mikel Oyarzabal as a complete forward and building a side on a Mikel Merino/Martin Zubimendi midfield that could rival any in football on its day, Alguacil has turned the Basque outfit into a vibrant attacking unit that attack with directness, despite holding a lot of possession. This season has been tougher – but Alguacil has more than proven his acumen in a field of top Basque coaches.