Who is the best football managers of all time?

The first question that arises when trying to answer this question is what thing makes a manager the best; what indicator can be used to measure bestness. The answer is trophies. The number of trophies a manager has won during his tenure is the most evident thing that can be measured. However, not all trophies are equal, thus only club-level competitions listed below will be taken into calculation.

1. Domestic competition
   a. the top-level league;
   b. the top-level cup (FA Cup, Copa del Rey, etc.);
   c. the super cup (Community Shield, Supercopa de España, etc.).
2. Continental competition
   a. top-tier competition (UEFA Champions League, Copa Libertadores, etc.);
   b. second-tier competition (UEFA Europa League, Copa Sudamericana, etc.);
   c. the super cup (UEFA Super Cup, Recopa Sudamericana, etc.).
3. International competition
   a. FIFA Club World Cup.

The result of the calculation is:

Alex Ferguson sits at the top with a 16-trophy lead above Valeriy Lobanovskiy.

If the calculation only takes English, Spanish, Italian, German, French, and Dutch domestic competitions (1) into account, the result is:

Alex Ferguson stands still at the top of the table. The lead is 9 trophies ahead of Arsène Wenger at the second place. Valeriy Lobanovskyi has no trophy, making him go down from the second place to the bottom.

If the calculation only takes continental (2) and international (3) competitions into account, the result is:

Alex Ferguson is still at the top with 8 trophies, but he shares the top with Pep Guardiola and Carlo Ancelotti. Arsène Wenger shares the bottom place with Leo Benhakker, Antonio Conte, and Jürgen Klopp with no trophy.

From these calculations, Alex Ferguson is the best football manager in term of trophy collection. In term of continental and international trophy collection, Ferguson, Pep Guardiola, and Carlo Ancelotti are the best.

Talking about Guardiola, he collects 23 trophies in just 10-year managerial experience. That is around 2 trophies per year. Impressive, isn’t it? However, there are two managers that have a higher trophy-per-year rate. They are Zinedine Zidane and Bob Paisley.

Bob Paisley has retired while Zidane and Guardiola are still active. That means Zidane and Guardiola’s trophy-per-year rate can be bigger in the future. Not only trophy-per-year rate, their winning percentages are also amongst the best in the list.

Guardiola and Zidane are two of the three managers who have more than 70% winning percentage. The other one is Ștefan Kovács, but he has retired.

Finally, there are four answers to this question, i.e.:

• Alex Ferguson—in terms of club-level trophy collection;
• Alex Ferguson, Pep Guardiola, and Carlo Ancelotti—in terms of continental and international club-level trophy collection;
• Zinedine Zidane—in terms of trophy-per-year rate; and
• Pep Guardiola—in terms of winning percentage.

By looking at Guardiola and Zidane’s trophy-per-year rate, it is very likely that they can overtake Alex Ferguson and Carlo Ancelotti. If they can maintain their rates, in just nine years they can collect trophies more than what Ferguson did during his 39.5-year managerial career.