Is Johannes in Norwich yet ?

[PurpleCanary 6,215]

1 hour ago, TheGunnShow said:

Paradoxically, the obvious counter-argument to the idea that great players aren't very good managers would be the recently departed Franz Beckenbauer, who walked into the West Germany job straight off and lost one World Cup final, then won a second! Could possibly, at a stretch, put Pep Guardiola and Didier Deschamps in there too.

Then again, if we use Germany for examples, Berti Vogts and Rudi Völler were great players but not outstanding managers. Sepp Herberger just about had an international career but was an excellent international manager. Any list of the greatest international football managers that doesn't have Helmut Schön on it isn't fit to be used as toilet paper, let alone for serious discussion - and he only had 16 caps for Germany so was hardly a great either. Derwall only had two caps but got a EURO 1980 win out of them and lost the '82 final. Erich Ribbeck took over when they were at their lowest and didn't have much of a pro career either. Löw and Flick were really solid pros but not outstanding, but Löw had cobbled together an outstanding Germany team and Flick did splendidly at Bayern but not with Germany.

A fair point. I was really thinking only of managing clubs, and I would say my sole example of Cruyff as a truly great player stands up. Managing an international side is very different, lacking some of the attributes needed at club level.

[Sheva 146]

Truly great player and then manager…….
 

In his initial two and a half seasons, Zidane became the first coach to win the Champions League three times in a row, won the UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup twice each, as well as a La Liga title and a Supercopa de España.

[TheGunnShow 7,120]

35 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

A fair point. I was really thinking only of managing clubs, and I would say my sole example of Cruyff as a truly great player stands up. Managing an international side is very different, lacking some of the attributes needed at club level.

As much as I think he's had it relatively easy in terms of having the finance available to do it, I'd put Guardiola there too. At a lower, but still proven international level as a player then Carlo Ancelotti also has to be in there and at a stretch, Vicente del Bosque (who was still good enough to clock up over 400 appearances for Real Madrid) but is more storied as a manager.

Totally agree that managing an international side is radically different and I'd say Southgate is a prime example of a manager who is better suited to international football instead of club football as it's very hard to get a particularly functional structure into a team from disparate clubs in the training sessions available to him.

[Google Bot 3,713]

"Super Caley go ballistic, Celtic are atrocious" ..anyone remember that headline?! 🙂