Soccer’s coaching tree: Modern game’s roots go beyond Cruyff

We abbreviate historical past over time. As time passes, we sand down extra edges and get rid of a number of extra particulars.

At some level we arrived at a reasonably easy abstract of the evolution to fashionable soccer: The Dutch did the Total Football factor, Johan Cruyff taught it to Pep Guardiola and Pep Guardiola gained eleventy kajillion trophies by perfecting it. AC Milan’s Arrigo Sacchi had his personal model of that, Jose Mourinho mastered the darkish arts, German coaches cherished the gegenpressing, et finis.

Granted, that’s certainly comparatively correct, however there are a number of profitable managers on the market, and amongst them solely Guardiola performed for Cruyff. Guardiola himself has produced an ever-growing coaching tree — he coached Barcelona’s Xavi and served as boss for Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta and Manchester United’s Erik ten Hag at completely different instances — however loads of different high-level coaches received their direct data from others. And the distant previous continues to be having a reasonably direct affect on the current.

Carlo Ancelotti, four-time Champions League-winning supervisor, as soon as performed for Nils Liedholm, who scored in opposition to Pele’s Brazil within the 1958 World Cup closing. Ancelotti had obtained his footballing Ph.D even earlier than he related with one other of the game’s nice managers, Sacchi, at Milan. In 1991, Luis Enrique earned his first cap with Spain below the watchful eye of supervisor Luis Suarez, one of many world’s larger stars within the Nineteen Fifties and topic of the world’s first £100,000 switch.

– Stream on ESPN+: LaLiga, Bundesliga, extra (U.S.)

We know the options of the so-called fashionable recreation — the heavy possession, the urgent, the counter-pressing and so forth — however how did it come collectively? Where (and from whom) did at present’s finest coaches most instantly obtain their knowledge? Where (and when) did this contemporary recreation take form?

To derive a solution that went beyond “Duh, Cruyff, Guardiola, weren’t you paying attention?” I regarded on the résumés of 32 of at present’s finest coaches*. The record consists of each supervisor who certified for an computerized Champions League bid from Europe’s Big Five leagues (I included each Julian Nagelsmann and Thomas Tuchel from Bayern Munich), plus the coaches of the reigning champions from the Netherlands and Portugal. It consists of the members in each Champions League closing from the previous 10 years, plus the managers of final yr’s World Cup winners (Argentina) and 2021’s Euros winners (Italy). It additionally consists of Brighton & Hove Albion’s Roberto De Zerbi, if solely due to all the great issues Guardiola has stated about him.

Who did these males play for? Under whom had been they assistants? For fashionable soccer’s collective coaching tree, the place did branches kind — the place did clusters of those managers be taught concerning the recreation and ply their commerce?

(* The full record: Imanol Alguacil, Real Sociedad; Massimiliano Allegri, Juventus; Carlo Ancelotti, Real Madrid; Mikel Arteta, Arsenal; Antonio Conte, unattached; Roberto De Zerbi, Brighton; Luis Enrique, unattached; Urs Fischer, Union Berlin; Hansi Flick, Germany; Pep Guardiola, Manchester City; Franck Haise, Lens; Eddie Howe, Newcastle United; Simone Inzaghi, Inter Milan; Jurgen Klopp, Liverpool; Roberto Mancini, Italy; Jose Luis Mendilibar, Sevilla; Jose Mourinho, AS Roma; Julian Nagelsmann, unattached; Stefano Pioli, AC Milan; Mauricio Pochettino, Chelsea; Marco Rose, RB Leipzig; Maurizio Sarri, Lazio; Lionel Scaloni, Argentina; Roger Schmidt, Benfica; Diego Simeone, Atletico Madrid; Arne Slot, Feyenoord; Luciano Spalletti, unattached; Erik ten Hag, Manchester United; Edin Terzic, Borussia Dortmund; Thomas Tuchel, Bayern Munich; Xavi, Barcelona; Zinedine Zidane, unattached. Why 32? Because I used to be aiming for 30 and blew proper previous it.)

Nineteen Eighties Italy

“Liedholm was looking for the game, always, with any team. He taught individual technique to his men until a very old age, he always wanted to improve them. He said that the basis of football is the good agreement between man and the ball. And to get along, they had to spend as much time together as possible. He was looking for quality, he loved differences. Intelligence. He ended up sowing the seed of doubt in our football as well. Liedholm didn’t change Italian football, but he made change possible. … When, a few years later, Sacchi arrived at Milan and gave a very strong blow to our habits, he recognized that without Liedholm, it would have been much more difficult. Maybe impossible.” – Mario Sconcerti, “Storia Delle Idee Del Calcio” (“History of Football Ideas”)

“I knew his battered legs weren’t ideal for getting up and down the touchline, but you play football with your brain, not your feet. Ancelotti’s brain would give us the right balance and timing. By staying tight and compact around him, the rest of the team would ensure he had minimal space to cover. – Arrigo Sacchi, “The Immortals: The Season My Milan Team Reinvented Football”

Italian soccer fell into a bit of a funk in the 1970s. Total Football took over the universe, with Cruyff’s Ajax winning three straight European Cups and the Netherlands making back-to-back World Cup finals. English clubs adapted well to the sport’s new tactical rules, too, winning six straight European Cups from 1977 to ’82. Italian soccer, meanwhile, was a little too loyal to the defensive, win-at-any-cost catenaccio ideals that had allowed Italian clubs to rule much of the 1960s.

Things began to shift in the 1980s. Italy won an unexpected World Cup title in 1982, and Serie A became the hub for a lot of major investment in the sport. The league brought in a number of foreign stars to pair with a burgeoning class of domestic standouts. Combine the lasting no-stone-unturned thinking of Italian managers of this era with major star power, and Italy ended up as the perfect school for future managers.

The list of 32 coaches above includes nine from Italy and doesn’t even touch on the influence and successes of current coaches such as Claudio Ranieri or former coaches such as Sacchi, Giovanni Trapattoni, Fabio Capello, Marcello Lippi and Gianluca Vialli. But of the Italians on the list, many were plying their trade as players in the 1980s. Conte was learning the ropes from Carlo Mazzone and others at Lecce, Mancini from Luigi Radice at Bologna. Spalletti played midtier ball for clubs like Spezia and Empoli, where he became manager immediately after retiring. Pioli played for Trapattoni for a couple of seasons at Juventus. Journeymen like Allegri and Sarri bounced from club to club.

Ancelotti ended up the most decorated of the bunch. At Parma he played for Cesare Maldini, future Italy manager and father of Paolo. At Roma he played for not only Liedholm but also Sven-Goran Eriksson, whose positive leadership style and mastery of the 4-4-2 earned him jobs and influence throughout the world. And at Milan, of course, Ancelotti ended up connected with Sacchi, the former shoe salesman whose beautiful Parma side caught the eye of Milan owner Silvio Berlusconi. In “The Immortals,” Sacchi gushed about how important Ancelotti was — even with bad knees and diminished physical capabilities — to bringing his vision of possession and counter-pressing to fruition.

Late-1990s Barcelona

“Years after that nice confluence of minds in Barcelona, it’s the fashion of soccer they practiced that is still the dominant fashion. In numerous kinds these ideas of urgent and possessing, tailored in keeping with circumstance, underpin the fashionable recreation — extra universally, because of the globalized nature of recent soccer, than any fashion has earlier than. Even those that, like Mourinho, have rejected the Cruyffian ideas or, like Diego Simeone, Mauricio Pochettino or Jurgen Klopp, come from a unique background, have been not directly molded by it. That’s the place the attain and affect of Cruyff’s philosophy is absolutely seen. It’s not simply that those that discovered themselves working collectively on the Camp Nou have been enormously profitable in their very own proper, it is that each different membership and coach on the elite stage of the sport has not directly needed to discover options to the questions they’ve requested.” – Jonathan Wilson, “The Barcelona Inheritance”

Among all the former mentors for the 32 coaches above, a few managed to touch quite a few names on the list. As manager of Spain’s national team from 1998 to 2002, Jose Antonio Camacho was snakebitten. At Euro 2000, Spain won Group C but drew eventual champions France in the quarterfinals, missed a penalty in the 90th minute and dropped a 2-1 heartbreaker. At the World Cup in 2002, Spain won Group B and advanced to the quarterfinals but had two goals controversially disallowed and lost to hosts South Korea on penalties.

Camacho’s Spain were a good team that had to wait a few more years for their ultimate success. They were also a team that featured both aging stars such as Guardiola and Luis Enrique and up-and-coming midfielder Xavi. Between that influence and the fact that he coached both Pochettino at Espanyol and Zidane at Real Madrid, Camacho had his hands on five of the 32 coaches above. That’s the most of anyone.

That Spanish influence percolated more deeply at one specific club. Louis van Gaal, an ideological successor (and occasional verbal adversary) to Cruyff, coached Guardiola, Luis Enrique and Xavi at Barcelona, and for three years he employed a holdover (and former translator) from predecessor Sir Bobby Robson’s staff, the spirited Mourinho. Van Gaal was a true believer in the positional ball that Guardiola mastered, and while his rigidity and stubbornness got him into trouble at times, he was still able to preach his version of the Total Football gospel at Ajax (where he won the 1995 Champions League), Barca, Bayern (where he reached the Champions League final), Manchester United and in three stints with the Dutch national team.

Other coaches helped to affect these identical people on this interval. Lorenzo Serra Ferrer coached Guardiola, Luis Enrique and Xavi at Barca in 2000-01, and Charly Rexach coached Guardiola on Barcelona’s B workforce, then led Luis Enrique and Xavi in 2001-02. Radomir Antic coached Luis Enrique at Real Madrid in 1991-92, then each Luis Enrique and Xavi throughout a quick however influential stint at Barca in 2003. Frank Rijkaard, former Sacchi acolyte, coached that pair, too.

That Cruyff was the preliminary visionary of what would develop into Barcelona’s fashion of play — and that Barca then created most of the managers who would outline and dominate the fashionable recreation within the many years that adopted — exhibits precisely what sort of affect he had. (That’s doubly true once you learn concerning the affect Total Football had on Sacchi’s imaginative and prescient of the game.) As Guardiola famously stated, “Cruyff built the cathedral; our job is to maintain it.” Still, every of Cruyff’s apostles had their very own imaginative and prescient and interpretation, and coaches corresponding to Van Gaal ended up having specific affect on those who adopted.

The affect of Cruyff and Barcelona additionally impressed an alternate imaginative and prescient. Spurned of a managerial job at Barcelona, Mourinho as a substitute crafted his personal imaginative and prescient of an up to date Italian fashion of protection, counterattacking and wins over magnificence. He gained the Champions League with FC Porto and Inter Milan, created among the finest defensive groups within the historical past of the Premier League at Chelsea and served as a persistent ache in Guardiola’s bottom with each Inter and Real Madrid. He hasn’t seen fairly as a lot success previously decade, however he stays influential, and thru each selection and necessity, the counterattacking recreation has remained important to success for smaller-market golf equipment (corresponding to Fischer’s Union Berlin) all through the world.

2000s Lazio

“I am cheering for Atletico Madrid and Simeone. His football intrigues me. … He said he picked up a few things from me and I am proud of that. Simeone was tough as a player and he still is as a coach. His training sessions are like matches, and then that work pays off on the field. His team presses so well. He is an example to follow.” – Sven-Goran Eriksson to Gazzetta dello Sport in 2016

“I always admire his ability to be unfazed by almost anything, and he taught me a lot about how to approach games.” – Simeone on Eriksson in UAE’s The National

“Mancini was a genius. He saw things on the pitch quicker than anybody else and his vision was incredible. Tactically, he was a coach even when he was a player. His life was football. I’m not surprised he became a great coach. And a winner. For him to lose, that was not a good option.” – Eriksson to The Athletic in 2020

For the 32 coaches above, 4 had been both gamers or assistants for Barcelona in some unspecified time in the future. One different membership impacted 4: Lazio.

In 1999, the Italian capital outfit acquired each the 23-year-old Inzaghi (from Piacenza) and the 29-year-old Simeone (from Inter). They joined a squad who already featured future coaches corresponding to fiery ahead Mancini, defender Sinisa Mihajlovic and, ultimately, ahead Hernan Crespo.

Simeone would go away in 2003, however Inzaghi stayed long-term and was joined by a 29-year-old Scaloni in 2007. Eriksson’s Biancocelesti would win Serie A in 1999-2000 — the membership’s final Scudetto to this point — and when he left to develop into England’s supervisor, the membership employed profitable veterans corresponding to Dino Zoff, Alberto Zaccheroni and Delio Rossi, to not point out an up-and-coming Mancini from 2002-04.

Mancini performed for Eriksson for 9 seasons at each Sampdoria and Lazio. He has lengthy subscribed to loads of fashionable techniques — slowly constructing from the again to tilt the sector, urgent, counter-pressing — and for many years Eriksson was regarded for each his man-management skills and his emphasis on defensive stress.

If nothing else, the Lazio of this era tried to power the problem in relation to what you would possibly name fashionable squad constructing. Owner Sergio Cragnotti set plenty of Serie A information within the division of switch charges, and regardless of a sustained monetary disaster within the 2000s, they had been capable of combine evolving, fashionable techniques with simply the fitting veteran presence to stay persistently aggressive, each in Serie A and, often, UEFA competitions. They by no means supplied the long-term affect seen in Barcelona and elsewhere, however this was a reasonably good check tube for contemporary administration. The three mixed Champions League finals appearances for Simeone and Inzaghi, to not point out Mancini’s 4 league titles (and his Euro 2020 win) actually attest to that.

2000s Hoffenheim

“Billionaire Dietmar Hopp, one of the founders of the SAP software company, took over and had led [TSG Hoffenheim] to the third division by 2006. That’s when [Ralf] Rangnick was brought in to make the final push into the elite. … Rangnick also advised on the construction of a youth academy modeled on Arsenal’s, a training center and a new stadium to make the club’s growth sustainable. … Their high-tempo football was a revelation. At the end of September, they beat Klopp’s Dortmund 4-1 and climbed into second place in the table. ‘That’s the kind of football we want to play one day,’ the BVB coach gushed in Dortmund’s official stadium programme for the next match. … Their football was all about collective movement, with a flat hierarchy where responsibility for organization and creativity was shared.” – Raphael Honigstein, “Das Reboot: How German Soccer Reinvented Itself and Conquered the World”

As with Italy within the Seventies, Germany and German golf equipment discovered success with a really particular fashion — consider Franz Beckenbauer-like sweepers and common conservatism — and rode it for too lengthy. After reaching three straight World Cup finals (1982, 1986, 1990) and successful one, the Germans reached solely the quarterfinals in 1994 and 1998, and whereas a 1996 Euros win threw some off the scent, a dire exhibiting within the 2000 Euros satisfied higher-ups of the necessity for evolution. In got here new necessities for higher youth academies and participant growth; that merged completely with the fashion that Rangnick was growing.

Inspired by not solely Sacchi but additionally Soviet coaching legend Valeriy Lobanovskyi — Rangnick’s FC Viktoria Backnang performed a pleasant in opposition to Lobanoskyi’s Dynamo Kyiv within the Nineteen Eighties, and Rangnick was transfixed by a method that made it seem to be Dynamo had 13 or 14 gamers on the pitch — Rangnick preached of a unique imaginative and prescient for German soccer. While he was initially handled as a heretic, he ultimately turned generally known as a visionary.

Rangnick’s fingerprints are throughout what we would name the fashionable German fashion of play. Tuchel was a youth coach at VfB Stuttgart in 2000-01, when Rangnick was the supervisor. Rose performed for him at Hannover 96 in 2001-02. Nagelsmann coached Hoffenheim youth groups whereas Rangnick was operating the present there. Klopp and former Southampton supervisor Ralph Hasenhuttl turned good acquaintances.

While Rangnick has coached at seven completely different golf equipment previously 25 years (he is presently the top coach of Austria), it was at Hoffenheim the place his imaginative and prescient was most instantly realized. Hoffenheim not solely acquired younger gamers however relied on them, gave them as a lot duty as they may deal with, and pressed and sprinted with abandon. This turned a template a lot of the Bundesliga nonetheless follows.

With Germany’s current lack of worldwide success, nonetheless — and with a few of the coach recycling we have seen throughout the German prime division — you possibly can make the case that Germany’s reboot would possibly want a reboot. But that is neither right here nor there.

Plenty of different figures have impacted at present’s ball and at present’s profitable managers. Marcelo Bielsa coached Pochettino at each Newell’s Old Boys and Espanyol and led Pochettino, Simeone and Scaloni as Argentina’s nationwide workforce coach. Basque product Javier Clemente coached Mendilibar at Athletic Club earlier than serving as Camacho’s predecessor in main the Spanish nationwide workforce. Trapattoni impacted everybody from Pioli to Hansi Flick. Vicente del Bosque coached Zidane and Luis Enrique at Real Madrid earlier than successful the 2010 World Cup with Xavi and Spain. Luis Fernandez coached each Pochettino and Arteta at Paris Saint-Germain in 2001-02, and Mendilibar was his assistant at Athletic Club within the Nineties. Luigi De Canio coached Allegri at Pescara and employed Conte at Siena. Mazzone coached Conte at Lecce and Guardiola at Brescia. And loads of at present’s profitable coaches had lesser-known mentors or, actually, none in any respect.

Still, you’ll be able to inform a great portion of the story of soccer’s evolution by specializing in a number of particular moments (and locations) in time. Cruyff’s fingerprints are all over the place, as are Sacchi’s and Guardiola’s, however we do not get from Point A to Point B with out the affect of Eriksson, Rangnick and others, too.