The Champions League is a glorious trophy to lift aloft. Some managers are lucky enough to get their mitts on Big Ears multiple times - Carlo Ancelotti holds the record with five.
But most managers never get the opportunity...and there are those with big trophy hauls who have never managed to pull off that big European Cup or Champions League triumph.
Each of the managers featured has participated in the post-1992 Champions League , purely because it’s unfair to involve gaffers who never even had a crack at winning it back in the days when only title-winners got a shot. So, no place for World Cup winner Joachim Low, who’s picked many things, but never a line-up for a Champions League game; nor Liverpool legend Bill Shankly, who predates our timespan. Got it? Right...
12. Antonio Conte (Juventus, Chelsea, Inter, Tottenham)
Conte has long been held to be one of the continent’s best managers, with his recent Serie A title win with Napoli standing as his sixth league title as a manager in Italy and England.
Yet the rather large blot on his copybook is a poor record in Europe. A 2012/13 quarter-final with Juventus is the furthest he’s ever taken a club in the Champions League, while even his run to the Europa League final with Inter in 2020 ended in a 3-2 defeat to Sevilla.
In fact, Chelsea's FA Cup triumph in 2018 is the only proper cup Conte has won across his managerial career (we're not counting the Supercoppa Italiana, the Italian equivalent of the Community Shield). That makes Conte more or less the polar opposite of the next man on our list...
11. Unai Emery (Spartak Moscow, Valencia, Sevilla, PSG, Arsenal, Villarreal, Aston Villa)
While Emery's European record in Paris was remarkable for the wrong reasons (see: Barcelona 6-1 PSG), the Spanish gaffer has done well in Europe elsewhere, most notably at Sevilla and Villarreal.
At Sevilla, Emery won the Europa League three times in succession, besting Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool in 2016 to complete his hat-trick. Struggling to make an imprint at PSG ensured he didn't last long, while he always faced an uphill battle replacing Arsene Wenger at Arsenal.
But the Spaniard found his feet once again at Villarreal, though, winning the Europa League in 2021 before taking the Yellow Submarine to the Champions League semi-finals, beating Juventus and Bayern Munich en route. While his side lost to Liverpool, it was certainly a compelling performance. Aston Villa put in a good showing on their way to the quarters last season, too; there's no shame in losing to that PSG side.
10. Didier Deschamps (Monaco, Marseille)
Some claim that France won the 2018 World Cup due to the sheer depth of their talent rather than any tactical brilliance on their manager's part. But far be it from us to ignore the pinnacle of international glory on a manager’s CV, plus – 14 years previously – Deschamps did do something special in the Champions League.
It got lost in the story of Jose Mourinho winning the competition with Porto – because of course it did – but Monaco also had a good run in 2003/04. Deschamps’ overachievers knocked out Real Madrid and Chelsea to make up the Champions League’s most unlikely final.
Monaco lost 3-0 to Porto, but a World Cup win and an against-the-odds Champions League runners-up spot takes ‘the water carrier’ into our top 10.
9. Otto Rehhagel (Werder Bremen, Kaiserslautern)
King Otto’s Champions League record isn’t really the stuff of royalty, the sum total being a good run to the quarter-finals with unfancied Kaiserslautern in 1998/99. Yet the German’s record elsewhere is the stuff of greatness.
His 14 years at Werder Bremen are viewed as the club’s golden age: Rehhagel reeled in two Bundesliga titles, a pair of DFB-Pokals, three German Supercups, plus European success with the 1992 Cup Winners’ Cup.
Rehhagel then pulled off the ultimate international upset by managing Greece to Euro 2004 glory; a triumph we sincerely admire almost as much as we sincerely never, ever, want to watch any of those matches again.
8. Kenny Dalglish (Newcastle)
A three-time European Cup winner as a player, Dalglish’s managerial record in this competition amounts to a modest six games with Newcastle in the late 1990s, when they went out in the group stage. Still, they finished above Barcelona...
Of course, the big asterisk is that Dalglish took a superb Liverpool side to a host of domestic honours in the late 1980s, while English clubs were banned from Europe post-Heysel. After leading the club through the Hillsborough disaster, and winning a league title in 1990, Dalglish abruptly resigned in 1991.
He’d later rubber-stamp his greatness as a gaffer by winning the Premier League with Blackburn in 1994/95, becoming just the fourth manager to conquer the English championship with two different clubs - but he never managed them in the Champions League, taking the step up to a director of football role immediately afterwards.
7. Mircea Lucescu (Galatasaray, Shakhtar Donetsk, Inter Milan, Besiktas, Rapid Bucharest, Dynamo Kyiv)
Only nine managers have taken charge of a century of Champions League games. You'll need no introduction to Carlo Ancelotti, Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger, Pep Guardiola, Jose Mourinho, Diego Simeone, Max Allegri and Jurgen Klopp. Romania’s Lucescu is the final member of that illustrious group.
The fact that he’s never come close to winning it – quarter-final spots with Galatasaray and Shakhtar Donetsk being his best finishes – in no way reflects his coaching ability. Outside of a brief spell with Inter in Italy, Lucescu hasn’t exactly managed the type of clubs you expect to win this competition. Yet he has had outstanding success.
A league winner in multiple countries with various clubs, the 73-year-old Lucescu pulled off his greatest feat at Shakhtar. There he merged no-nonsense Ukrainian defenders and freezing Brazilian attackers into a surprisingly cohesive unit, winning eight league titles, plus the club’s first European trophy with the 2009 UEFA Cup.
6. Mauricio Pochettino (Tottenham, PSG)
Mauricio Pochettino's lack of trophies at Tottenham became a bit of a stick to beat him with, but there's no question the club have not enjoyed a better period in recent memory than when he was in charge. Unfortunately, their incredible run to the 2019 Champions League final ended in a tepid defeat to Liverpool.
The Argentine banished a few ghosts with a Coupe de France and a Ligue 1 title in his 18 months at PSG, and led them to a Champions League semi-final in 2021 (where they were defeated by Manchester City) before being eliminated in the round of 16 by Real Madrid the following year.
Pochettino never got the chance to manage Chelsea in the Champions League: they had finished 12th just before his arrival for a single season at Stamford Bridge in 2023/24.
5. Massimiliano Allegri (Milan, Juventus)
Allegri’s appointment was greeted with scratched heads – and even some chucked eggs – when he was given the Juventus job in 2014. After all, his spell at Milan had started with a Serie A win in 2011, but eventually saw him sacked with a disorganised club in 11th.
History would go on to show that Allegri was not the problem at Milan, and he extended Juve’s domestic dominance while turning them into a European force during his first spell in charge: they were runners-up to MSN-era Barcelona in 2015 and to a Cristiano Ronaldo-inspired Real Madrid in 2017.
Juve struggled throughout Allegri's second spell, however, going out to Villarreal in the round of 16 in 2022 and winning just one group stage game as they crashed out at the first hurdle the following year.
4. Bobby Robson (Porto, Newcastle)
England’s greatest managerial export. The avuncular Robson took the Three Lions to a World Cup semi-final and won a host of competitions in England, Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands – all while not actually knowing the first names of any of his players.
His success in European competition wasn’t to be sniffed at either. A UEFA Cup victory with Ipswich in 1981 was followed by a 1997 Cup Winners’ Cup triumph through a Ronaldo-inspired Barcelona.
There was a nice Indian summer to his career too, as Robson led his hometown club Newcastle into the Champions League twice.
3. Valeriy Lobanovskyi (Dynamo Kiev)
“Lobanovskiy's influence on me was so profound that I still often see him in my dreams,” said Andriy Shevchenko, one of the Ukrainian master’s most famous pupils. But you could fill a library with tributes to a coach who defined that hackneyed phrase: he was ahead of his time.
A believer in science, analytics and periods of high-pressing intensity, Lobanovskiy managed the Soviet Union at two World Cups and took them to the runners-up spot at Euro ‘88. Yet it’s his three spells at Dynamo Kiev that define him, involving 13 league titles, plus two Cup Winners’ Cups triumphs.
He’d probably top this list if he’d reached a European Cup/Champions League final. However, the closest Lobanovskiy got was in 1999 when he led a brilliant Kiev side spearheaded by Shevchenko to the semi-finals, and an agonising, 4-3 aggregate loss to Bayern Munich.
2. Arsene Wenger (Monaco, Arsenal)
Forget the last decade of slow decline at Arsenal (albeit a slump which involved three FA Cup wins): Wenger had established his greatness by then. A trio of Premier League titles – two doubles plus an unbeaten season – were achieved with dazzling elan, and on a relative budget that shamed some of Europe’s biggest spenders.
Wenger helped modernise Arsenal, yet his European record was curiously mixed. There were remarkable victories – a 5-1 destruction of Inter, a win over Real Madrid at the Bernabeu – but never a triumphant campaign.
Arsenal under Wenger reached the UEFA Cup final in 2000 (a shootout loss to Galatasaray) and the club’s first Champions League final in 2006 (a 2-1 loss to Barcelona). Close, but no cigar for a manager who's racked up more Champions League wins than anyone aside from Alex Ferguson and Carlo Ancelotti.
1. Diego Simeone (Atletico Madrid)
Simeone still has plenty of time to define his managerial legacy, but, judging strictly on which managers have come closest to a Champions League victory only to have it snatched away, he tops this list at a canter.
Simeone was twice a hair’s breadth from winning Europe’s top prize (we don’t mean the song contest, although we wouldn’t put that past this fearsome competitor). In 2014, Atletico were 1-0 up over Real Madrid until Sergio Ramos equalised three minutes into injury time. A knackered Atleti were punished in extra time.
Los Colchoneros came even closer two years later, losing to Madrid on a penalty shootout. Agonising, yet Simeone has proved he’s not just a nearly man. He beat Real in the 2013 Copa del Rey Final, then twice broke the Spanish duopoly with a La Liga victory in 2014 and 2021, respectively. A pair of Europa League wins (2011 and 2018) underline that he’s a special coach, albeit one still lacking a certain big-eared trophy for now.
