There are many incredible managers in world football at the moment, with some experienced veterans in the game enduring a wonderful 2024, while younger bosses are emerging to stake their claim as the best around in 2025.
With the 2024/25 season just over halfway complete, there is plenty of time for coaches to stake a claim that they are deserving of a higher spot among other leading tacticians as they enter the crunch periods of the campaign where, for many, it will be make or break.
With all that said, below is a list of the 20 best managers in football currently, and the following factors have been taken into consideration when trying to order them.
Ranking factors
- Trophies.
- Recent success (Honours won).
- Longevity.
- Performance compared to expectations.
- International managers and out-of-work bosses are ranked lower due to a lack of recent games.
| 20 Best Managers in World Football (2025) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Rank | Manager | Team |
| 1 | Pep Guardiola | Manchester City |
| 2 | Carlo Ancelotti | Real Madrid |
| 3 | Arne Slot | Liverpool |
| 4 | Simone Inzaghi | Inter Milan |
| 5 | Xabi Alonso | Bayer Leverkusen |
| 6 | Mikel Arteta | Arsenal |
| 7 | Diego Simeone | Atletico Madrid |
| 8 | Jurgen Klopp | Unattached |
| 9 | Hansi Flick | Barcelona |
| 10 | Unai Emery | Aston Villa |
| 11 | Lionel Scaloni | Argentina |
| 12 | Luis Enrique | Paris Saint-Germain |
| 13 | Didier Deschamps | France |
| 14 | Thomas Tuchel | England |
| 15 | Julian Nagelsmann | Germany |
| 16 | Antonio Conte | Napoli |
| 17 | Luciano Spalletti | Italy |
| 18 | Luis de la Fuente | Spain |
| 19 | Nuno Espirito Santo | Nottingham Forest |
| 20 | Gian Piero Gasperini | Atalanta |
10 Unai Emery
Current team: Aston Villa
Before the 2023/24 campaign kicked off, very few would have given Aston Villa a chance of securing a Champions League spot, but Unai Emery ensured that the West Midlands outfit finished in the top four. Comparing the state of the Villans now to when the ex-Arsenal boss took over from Steven Gerrard shows just how remarkable this achievement is.
He has been highly regarded as a brilliant tactician after winning multiple European trophies in his career with Sevilla, and Emery nearly added the Europa Conference League to his extensive list of honours before Villa were dismantled by Olympiacos. Nevertheless, he has elevated the likes of John McGinn, Ollie Watkins and Ezri Konsa to heights that previously looked impossible, which proves the Spaniard is a brilliant man-manager and his side are in the middle of a very exciting season in the Champions League.
9 Hansi Flick
Current team: Barcelona
While his reputation took a hit after a poor spell in charge of the Germany national team, Hansi Flick has reminded the world just how good a manager he is now that he’s at Barcelona. The former Bayern Munich coach settled in nicely at Camp Nou and had the Catalan giants flying at the top of the table.
A recent slump has seen the club surrender their outright lead at the top of La Liga, but it is still very much all to play for in Spain. Flick has proved himself to be an intelligent manager, though, and is the man for the job at Barcelona.
8 Jurgen Klopp
Current team: Unattached
Jurgen Klopp is currently not a manager, having left Liverpool at the end of the 2023/24 season. However, he will be fondly remembered as one of the best managers in Premier League history after rebuilding the Reds from a mid-table side into regular title challengers.
At the start of 2024, it looked like there was a strong possibility that the 57-year-old would be sent off in the greatest way possible. Liverpool were actively competing in four competitions and looked almost unstoppable in the wake of Klopp’s announcement. Unfortunately, the most successful manager the Merseyside club has had in the Premier League era bowed out with only a League Cup triumph in his final campaign. He now works in a non-coaching role for the Red Bull football group.
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7 Diego Simeone
Current team: Atletico Madrid
One of the longest-serving managers in Europe’s top five leagues, Diego Simeone has hovered among the best coaches in the world for quite some time. In the 2023/24 season, Atletico Madrid enjoyed another successful term as they qualified for the Champions League yet again.
The disappointment will come with the lack of silverware collected as the Spanish club were knocked out of the Champions League in the quarter-finals despite being drawn on the favourable side of the brackets. Simeone is perhaps the best manager around when it comes to taking a pragmatic and solid approach, which is why he’s paid mega-money. With the addition of the likes of Conor Gallagher and Julian Alvarez, this season is shaping up to be a promising one.
6 Mikel Arteta
Current team: Arsenal
Arsenal fans would back their boss as the best on the planet as Mikel Arteta has transformed the club’s fortunes in recent years and had them in contention to win the Premier League title for a second successive season. If the north London side had become champions of England for the first time in 20 years, the Spaniard would have been praised as a hero.
However, all five of the managers above him on this list won a trophy in the 2023/24 season. The Gunners were knocked out of both domestic competitions in the early stages and exited the Champions League in the quarter-finals. Arteta has done a phenomenal job to have the supporters of the club dreaming of success in the near future, but the one criticism of him is that, at the moment, it always seems as though next year will be the year to end the trophy drought.
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5 Xabi Alonso
Current team: Bayer Leverkusen
The work Xabi Alonso has done during his two seasons at Bayer Leverkusen is incredible. His team went on the longest unbeaten run in Europe’s top 10 leagues and knocked Bayern Munich off their Bundesliga perch for the first time in over a decade.
Alonso lifted the German league title and added the 2024 DFB Pokal to Leverkusen’s trophy cabinet, but he ultimately came up short in Europe in what was otherwise a tremendous season. Many clubs across the continent have been linked with the best young manager in world football, but the 43-year-old has pledged his future to Bayer Leverkusen, much to the delight of the side that have benefitted greatly from his tactical intelligence.
4 Simone Inzaghi
Current team: Inter Milan
To be ranked above the likes of Klopp, Alonso and Arteta in 2024 is an incredible achievement and a testament to the work Simone Inzaghi has done at Inter Milan. The Serie A title returned to the Italian giants after they secured the trophy in the best way possible; against fierce rivals AC Milan at the San Siro.
He also came so close to being the first Inter boss to bring the Champions League back to Italy in the 2022/23 season, narrowly losing in the final against Manchester City. Inter have since bounced back domestically though, and are seeking a second consecutive Scudetto while also being among the favourites in Europe this time around.
3 Arne Slot
Current team: Liverpool
After a solid run with Feyenoord, Arne Slot was chosen to replace Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool last summer. He arrived with gargantuan-sized boots to fill. Considering the legacy that the former coach left behind at Anfield, Slot had a lot to live up to, and it would have been easy for the pressure to get to him quickly. Instead, he’s taken the Reds and shot them straight to the top of the Premier League.
He’s enjoyed the best start of any manager in Liverpool’s history and is showing no signs of slowing down right now. The Reds have nailed finding Klopp’s successor and then some with the Dutch genius. He’s shot up the rankings of the best managers in the world so far this season, and he might not be done yet.
2 Carlo Ancelotti
Current team: Real Madrid
As one of the few people to have won the European Cup as both a player and manager, Carlo Ancelotti will leave an ever-lasting legacy. The Italian first dipped his toe in the world of management in 1995 and, almost three decades later, he’s still among the best around.
Ancelotti has an aura around him that helps him gain respect from players. Being able to take control of the Real Madrid squad full of superstars and get them working hard for the badge is a difficult task in itself. The 65-year-old has won league titles in four of the top five European leagues – Spain, Germany, Italy, and France – and most recently secured a Spanish league and Champions League double. His success in the latter means he is unquestionably the greatest manager in the competition’s history.
1 Pep Guardiola
Current team: Manchester City
Pep Guardiola still has enough credit in the bank to be regarded as the best manager in world football. Manchester City won a fourth consecutive Premier League title under the former Barcelona man, and yet 2023/24 still felt like a slightly underwhelming campaign. Those are the high standards set by the Catalan genius.
Having secured the Citizens’ first-ever European trophy as part of a historic treble in the 2022/23 season, Guardiola has cemented himself as one of the greatest managers of all time. While his side have struggled as of late, there’s no doubt that the former Barcelona man is still the best manager in the world. Considering he recently signed a two-year extension to remain at the Etihad, there’s still plenty of time for the 53-year-old to threaten to overtake the legacy left in the Premier League by Sir Alex Ferguson, which nobody thought possible when the legendary Scot retired in 2013. His 39 career trophies make him the second-most decorated manager in football history.
With all that said, the recent struggles that City have gone through have been disastrous and if things don’t turn around soon, Guardiola is dangerously close to losing his status as the best manager in the world.
