Coaches coaching coaches

 There was this debate about whether Guardiola or Alex Ferguson is the greatest manager. I've actually done a search and found that at one point I wasn't sure. 

Alex Ferguson's great strength is his longevity. He built at least 3 great teams. Previously, he had already built a great team in Aberdeen, that would beat Real Madrid in the Cup Winner's Cup, would win the Scottish league, and a few cups. 

Like Guardiola years later, he would initially find it hard to manage in England after having found success in Scotland. I think there were a few other managers who won the league in Scotland after he did and went to England to manage. Graeme Souness, Alex McLeish, Steven Gerrard, Martin O'Neill, Gordon Strachan, Brendan Rodgers, Ange Postecoglu. Some were good managers, none of them were truly great. 

He built a team in 1993 after having dismantled the previous team. He achieved second in 1988, and then went into a slump and only got back to second again in 1992. By then, much of his first great team was already in place and he only had to sign Cantona as the last piece of the puzzle. I've talked previously before about how and why he was a great manager. 

But one conspicuous failure was that none of his proteges were great. On top of the proteges I've mentioned in my previous article on Alex Ferguson, there's also Ole Gunnar Solksjaer, who would probably do a decent job at a mid table side, but had one decent season and was found out the next. There's Steve McLaren, for whom winning the UEFA league and the Eredivisie would be his signature achievements. There's Rene Meulensteen, who didn't make the grade. Then there's Rooney for whom I said "the jury's still out". Well the jury are back and he's crap. The one player that has the potential to be a great manager is Michael Carrick, and time will tell whether he's going to be Steve Bruce / Mark Hughes level or better. Likewise, it's likely that Van Persie and Van Nistelrooy will be coaches in the future and let's see how they fare.

In contrast, Guardiola has already produced proteges like Mikel Arteta, Xavi and Xabi Alonso (never mind that he just lost his long unbeaten record when he lost the Europa Cup final to Atalanta, who probably deserved something from the COVID tragedy). There's also Enzo Maresca, who won the League Championship with Leicester. The jury's out on him too. The jury's out on Vincent Kompany, but I think he will establish himself as a mid table league manager. 

It seems that whatever great knowledge Guardiola has can be picked up, whereas the thing that makes Alex Ferguson great are hard to learn. Guardiola and Ferguson have different strengths: Guardiola is a strategy / tactical genius, whereas Ferguson is a great man manager and has a great desire to win. I guess the most impressive thing about Ferguson is that he managed to last for more than 20 years as a top manager in England when most people would have burnt out within 10 years. Guardiola will probably barely cross the 10 year mark, if at all. Man City will have to face justice for the 115 charges on Financial Fair Play, and Guardiola claims that they would have lied to him that Man City satisfied the FFP rules, and that would be grounds for him to leave the club. 

The big blot on Guardiola's CV is probably his Champion's League record. He did trounce Man U twice for 2 Champion's League titles, but he could have won 1 or 2 more between 2011 and 2023. During this time, Real Madrid won it 5 times. People say that Guardiola may not have the man management skills to get people over the line in cup games, that he's more suited to be a league manager. 

The other great blot on his CV is that he's always managed teams which have great assets. Bayern Munich and Man City were rich teams, whereas Barcelona had great homegrown players. The answer to that is to compare his teams with what they were just before or just after he was in the manager's seat. At Man City, Mancini and Pellegrini achieved success, less success than Guardiola and having outspent their rivals. In contrast, when Guardiola was in charge at Man City, Man U spent as much as he did. Arteta also spent big at Arsenal, he just spent it well. 

There was a time when Germany seemed to have all the greatest coaches. That was when Hansi Flick, Thomas Tuchel, Jurgen Klopp and Julien Nagelsmann had a high stock. Then the German football team faltered and Bayern Munich faltered so badly that nobody wants to manage them anymore. Perhaps what's going on at Bayern is less a disaster than a cycle coming to its natural end. Right now, with Ruben Amorim being a hot manager, maybe there is a craze for Portuguese coaches. I wonder what the next trend will be.