Great players who were also great managers

Querulous Megapode said:
I think that's an insanely low opinion of Cruyff on both counts.

Beckenbauer also seems highly accomplished in multipe managerial and adminstsrative roles overall (not strictly coaching, true), but I'm only very superficially familiar with his post-playing career.
Click to expand...
Beckenbauer was more a motivator and mascot than an accomplished coach.
 
thisisnottaken1 said:
There aren’t many, are they?

I think this might have already been a thread (sorry) but yeah. Most of the greatest players in history have been pretty meh as managers (for example, Maradona), and most of the greatest managers in history were nothing special as players (not even necessarily bad). The only man of whom I can think who could be regarded as one of the best ever players and one of the best ever managers would be Johann Cruyff.

Anybody else?
Click to expand...
Depends on your definition of "great".

Pep was not a great player, but he was a very good player at the top level. Xabi Alonso also was not Maradona or Messi great, but he was at least as good as Ole or Ruud, who you are probably hinting on

Johan Cruyff was genuinely great player, in my opinion, and absolutely transformational manager who gave birth to a whole style, including having huge influence ln Barca's style, all the way to Pep's management career
 
Cruyff is surely the only footballing figure who could be considered as both one of the 10 greatest players of all time and one of the 10 managers of all-time.

Despite Zidane’s incredible talent and achievements as a player and then a manager, he hasn’t been a manager long enough to make the top 10 there, and his inclusion in a list of 10 greatest players of all time is more debatable than Cruyff’s.
 
GuybrushThreepwood said:
Cruyff is surely the only footballing figure who could be considered as both one of the 10 greatest players of all time and one of the 10 managers of all-time.

Despite Zidane’s incredible talent and achievements as a player and then a manager, he hasn’t been a manager long enough to make the top 10 there, and his inclusion in a list of 10 greatest players of all time is more debatable than Cruyff’s.
Click to expand...

Im not really sure how much longevity you neeed when you consider that Zidane has won a 3 peat and several la liga´s in his short career.
 
duffer said:
To be considered one of the 10 best managers in the history of the game? More than 3-5 years.
Click to expand...

Dunno maybe not top 5, but top 10 isnt beyond reason.
 
Gehrman said:
Dunno maybe not top 5, but top 10 isnt beyond reason.
Click to expand...

He took over a side that already had prime Ronaldo, Modric, Kroos, Marcelo and all the rest.

He did a fantastic job winning 3 on the bounce, I'm not denying that but top managers 10 ever? Nah, he's gotta do more over an extended period, with different players and maybe even a different team.
 
Enrique was a very good player and a very good manager. But I would call great.
 
Great player, great manager : Only 1 - Pep Guardiola

The others are either : Great player, good manager or Good player, graet manager. Another who can reach that level is Xabi Alonso.
 
Can’t believe no one has mentioned Mario Zagallo yet. Two World Cup wins as a player, one as manager, one as assistant manager, two more finals as a manager. Four World Cup wins and six finals in total, as a player and manager.

Of the currently active managers, there is Diego Simeone, and potentially Xabi Alonso too. Pep Guardiola, Didier Deschamps and zinedine Zidane are obvious ones that have already been mentioned.

Other all time greats I’ve not seen mentioned are Rinus Michels, Giovanni Trappatoni, and Valeriy Lobanovsky.
 
Last edited:
Malkovich said:
Great player, great manager : Only 1 - Pep Guardiola

The others are either : Great player, good manager or Good player, graet manager. Another who can reach that level is Xabi Alonso.
Click to expand...
Are you only referring to players and/or coaches from the last 10 years?
 
Malkovich said:
Great player, great manager : Only 1 - Pep Guardiola

The others are either : Great player, good manager or Good player, graet manager. Another who can reach that level is Xabi Alonso.
Click to expand...
Guardiola wasn't half the player Cruyff was. If you limit it to just one, then Cruyff is the answer, not Pep.
 
stefan92 said:
Guardiola wasn't half the player Cruyff was. If you limit it to just one, then Cruyff is the answer, not Pep.
Click to expand...
Absolutely.

And if you look at something like "the 20 best players ever" only Cruyff, Beckenbauer and Zidane had success as coaches.
 
Gehrman said:
Dunno maybe not top 5, but top 10 isnt beyond reason.
Click to expand...

I think it’s too much of a stretch with just 5 full seasons of high level football management, and at one club / team, under his belt.

For example there’s no way that I’d rank him as a greater manager than Matt Busby, Ottmar Hitzfeld, Helenio Herrera, Ernst Happel etc. at this point.

I think it’s also debatable whether he is one of the 10 greatest players of all time though his case there is definitely stronger - a lot of lists I’ve seen do include him but I have doubts. Of course he was a great player though.
 
I think by now you could easily argue that Cruyff was not half the manager Guardiola is. His la liga record is very nice on paper, but he could very, very easily have only won one league title during his time at Barca. After his first, the others went right to the final day, and none of them were even entirely in their own hands anymore, relying on Real choking in the final game twice and Deportivo missing a penalty in theirs. More importantly, he retired on a low after being obliterated by Capello's machine and as soon as he started to face substantial setbacks in the league. I only give him so much credit for being an influence on Pep as it's not directly related to his managerial abilities.

Don't get me wrong, he was still obviously an elite manager. Great? Maybe... he's one of the better candidates, but I think purely as a manager that's easily as debatable as Guardiola being a great player. I think a lot of people had forgotten that Guardiola was derailed by repeated injuries when he should have been entering his peak and that he'd been widely viewed as one of the best midfielders in the world before that, particularly as a deep-lying playmaker. Not the forum to mention it on, but tbh, he looked comfortably superior to Keane and Ince in those CL games vs United.

Beckenbauer was definitely not a great manager tactically. He really struggled to get an immensely talented squad that had many gifted technicians to play good football. Some of his choices at the 86 WC were shockingly negative as they ground their way through with football that was arguably worse than the 2002 team despite the draw opening up perfectly for them in the knockouts and far more talent being available. However, I still wouldn't argue much with anyone seeing him as a very good international manager because of his gravitas lending him considerable motivational presence. He did win the World Cup after all, but he falls short of greatness as a manager overall, imo.

.
 
Beyond his playing career, Ferenc Puskas managed Panathinaikos to a European Cup Final in the 1970/71 season while they were still an amateur club.
 
Iker Quesadillas said:
Maybe not a great player but Vicente del Bosque had a pretty respectable playing career: 339 appearances for Real Madrid, with 5 league titles and 4 domestic cups won. Miguel Muñoz who is Madrid's longest-serving manager also had a very successful playing career there and was the club captain for the early European Cup wins.
Click to expand...
He was a great player, it's just time, people today barely remember Rial or worse Gento.
 
JPRouve said:
Deschamps was great for France, Juventus, Nantes and Marseille. He was a very good DM and also a great leader, he won almost everything while always being a key player. Now was he a glamorous player? No.
Click to expand...

Deschamp it's in the mold of Dunga and Simeone, very high profile players in their roles during their time and from good to great coaches either. None of them a Platini, but certainly qualify as great players.
 
Spoony said:
Yep. Guardiola was a good player but a not great one.
Click to expand...

Guardiola was more than just good, he was excellent, nothing to envy any of the more recent very succesfull recent Spanish mids.
Of course almost anyone compare to Johan would be a lesser player, but Pep it's one of the best examples for this thread.
 
Malkovich said:
Great player, great manager : Only 1 - Cruyff

The others are either : Great player, good manager or Good player, graet manager. Another who can reach that level is Xabi Alonso.
Click to expand...
You spelt his name wrong.
 
duffer said:
If we take this to the really top end and look at a list of the best 10 players ever and then the best 10 managers ever, is anyone on both lists? I don't think so.

How far down do you have to go? Cruyff might make the top 20 in both lists.
Click to expand...
Cruyff and then Zidane Id assume would be the first two names but I’m not where on the list either pops up (don’t have enough knowledge on historical great managers).
 
Ancelotti's CV as a player is quite impressive, playing 200+ games for Roma and Milan and winning two European cups. But I never saw him play, so I don't know how good he was.

Dino Zoff was a great player and a good manager. With a little more luck in the Euro 2000 final, perhaps he would have been considered a great manager today.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.