The 2025/26 Champions League draw for the league phase is set, with the matches to begin next month in mid-September, and it’s anyone’s guess as to how this year’s tournament will ultimately play out.
Obviously, the players are the one who play the game, but the spotlight has become increasingly focused on the manager, and there’s no one style that makes someone successful in the Champions League.
Carlo Ancelotti won two of the last four Champions League titles on chaos, Pep Guardiola won one on structure while embracing the virtues of a free-scoring No. 9 in Erling Haaland, and Luis Enrique finally brought the big one to Paris by embracing a more team-oriented playing style without Kylian Mbappe.
It’s not easy ranking managers at baseline, but ranking them from different leagues with different value systems and tactics? That’s even tougher. But let’s try our best to do just that and rank the 10 best Champions League managers before the 2025/26 campaign gets under way in a matter of weeks.
10. Mikel Arteta, Arsenal
It may seem a little bit low for Mikel Arteta to come in tenth, but there are so many accomplished managers who didn’t even get a sniff of this list. So it’s a big deal for Arteta, who has yet to win a major trophy at Arsenal, to sneak into the top ten at all.
And the Spanish manager does deserve it. What Arteta has done to get Arsenal into second three years in a row in the Premier League is an accomplishment, and although Arsenal are going to keep getting memed’ on for not winning titles until they do, the fact that the Gunners are always in contention is a huge deal.
Now, they are also in contention for the Champions League title for the first time in well over a decade, as they annihilated reigning champions Real Madrid in the quarterfinals before falling to ultimate winners PSG in the semis.
Arteta can often frustrate with his pedantic, possession and defensive-based playing style that is even more rudimentary and draconian than Pep Guardiola’s, but it is undeniably effective and can be even moreso in the gritty stages of the Champions League.
9. Marcelino, Villarreal
There are so many underrated managers in La Liga, and, pound for pound, there isn’t a better country at producing quality managers than the Spanish top flight, as evidenced by the number of great coaches in other European leagues that have their roots in La Liga.
Marcelino was a great manager for Ahletic Club, and he has been similarly influential at Villarreal, helping the team return to the Champions League against the odds amidst stiff competition in the La Liga top five.
He does a great job of letting his players excel and gets more out of attacking footballers than just about any other coach in La Liga – and that arguably includes Hansi Flick.
8. Xabi Alonso, Real Madrid
Although Xabi Alonso orchestrated an undefeated season for Bayer Leverkusen and forever etched his name in the history books, with the amount of great coaching at the Champions League level, you have to do more than that over years before you can even begin to think about cracking the top five.
Alonso has great ideas and relates to his players well, but beyond that season, we haven’t really seen much from him. Leverkusen were underwhelming in the Bundesliga and Champions League last year, and even in the 2023/24 Europa League, they ultimately met their match in the Final against Atalanta and were blown out by Gian Piero Gasperini.
The very early returns at Real Madrid have been mixed so far, but there is much more room for optimism than pessimism with Alonso, who was already undefeated once and should, in theory, only get even better as a manager from here.
7. Diego Simeone, Atletico Madrid
Diego Simeone is one of the biggest coaching legends in world football, having transformed Atletico Madrid from a literal joke in the face of crosstown rivals Real Madrid to a club that conquered La Liga twice and even reached two Champions League titles.
The Argentinian manager is at a bit of a crossroads with Atleti transitioning away from Antoine Griezmann and investing even more in the squad, and you can imagine a scenario where more pressure is placed on Simeone because of all the new signings over the last two summers.
Simeone, though, is still doing an exceptional job and is worthy of both his massive salary and the considerable financial investment into his squad. Atletico were legitimate La Liga title contenders last season and will be again this year, but will they finally get back on track in the Champions League?
6. Pep Guardiola, Manchester City
Questions are being asked about whether or not Pep Guardiola has stayed too long at Manchester City, because it’s rare for a manager to have the same impact at a club for 10 years – let alone remaining in that position for that long.
That Guardiola is the longest-tenured manager at a club with Man City’s trophy cabinet is a massive accomplishment, irrespective of any backhanded compliments pointing towards how much money the UAE are able to spend for him.
But Guardiola’s reputation as the best current manager has taken a serious hit after a 2024/25 season in which Manchester City nearly lost their top-five bearings to Nottingham Forest, and while City pulled through in the end, there was really nothing impressive about what Pep was doing tactically.
In truth, the competition is to tough in the top five that Guardiola sits just outside of it, because all the current members of the top five have been getting more out of their squads and innovating to a higher degree than Guardiola. He’s still a great manager, but he has to bounce back this season to prove he remains at the level he was. Time comes for everyone.
5. Antonio Conte, Napoli
What Antonio Conte did at Napoli last season was nothing short of remarkable, taking a team that tumbled from winning the league in 2022/23 to missing out on European football entirely in 2023/24 to winning the Scudetto again in 2024/25.
And Napoli did it despite jettisoning their two best players from the 2022/23 team last season in striker Victor Osimhen and left winger Khvicha Kvaratshelia, and when you add in the fact that Kim Min-jae left in 2023, the Partenopei didn’t have any of their three best players from their first Scudetto-winning side.
Conte turned Romelu Lukaku back into one of the best strikers in Italian football, and, even more impressively, he turned Scott McTominay from a caricature into the literal MVP of Serie A.
He’s won pretty much everywhere he’s been and consistently overperformed at the club and international level. After outlasting Inter Milan – the club he brought back to Scudetto glory in 2020/21 – to win the title for Napoli, it’s high time Conte got his flowers.
4. Thomas Frank, Tottenham
It may seem bullish to have Thomas Frank in the top five already, but his accomplishments in turning underrated Moneyball budget club Brentford into a team with a legitimate shot at qualifying for European football in the Premier League can’t be ignored.
Furthermore, Frank is already making a big impact for Tottenham. Without a real summer transfer window yet, Frank nearly orchestrated an upset of reigning Champions League winners PSG in the UEFA Supercup Final, undone by the simple fact that Spurs didn’t sign any attackers other than Mohammed Kudus to that point.
Frank destroyed Pep Guardiola 2-0 at the Etihad, and his tactical ideas and renewed structure at Spurs are already a beauty to behold. The humble Danish manager is so good at connecting with players and building an identity, and he is as smart as any manager in world football with half the arrogance of a Pep Guardiola or Luis Enrique. He’s already been a dream hire for Tottenham, whose fanbase needed a strong start after the sadness of moving on from Ange Postecoglou.
3. Arne Slot, Liverpool
Arne Slot brought the Premier League back to Liverpool in his first season replacing Jurgen Klopp, who was the first one to bring the title back to Anfield at long last in the bizarre 2019/20 season.
It looks like Slot could be an even stronger manager than Klopp tactically, and nobody can deny that he was the one to get the most out of players like Cody Gakpo, Ryan Gravenberch, and Curtis Jones as Liverpool had the most Premier League Player of the Season and Premier League Comeback Player of the Season candidates in the same year.
Although Liverpool were bounced out of the Champions League early, they lost to the eventual winners and were actually, by far, the closest team to dethroning PSG, in addition to being, by far, the clear champions of the Premier League that season.
It will be exciting to see what Slot can do in his encore season with Liverpool, as his reprised version of heavy metal football was definitely deserving of top financial backing with signings like Florian Wirtz and Hugo Ekitike in the summer mercato.
2. Luis Enrique, PSG
PSG manager Luis Enrique proved all his haters wrong by being even stronger without Kylian Mbappe, which was just as he boldly predicted. In past stints with Barcelona and the Spanish national team, Enrique had success but undermined himself with his attitude.
This time, though, Enrique himself has matured, and his ability to work with younger and more mercurial players has been a delight, and the way he morphed Ousmane Dembele into a Ballon d’Or candidate finally fulfilling his best in the world potential as a former Rennes and Dortmund wunderkind was truly a sight to behold.
PSG won their first ever Champions League title without a superstar above the team, as their real superstars, Dembele and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, became the fabric of the team with their pressing and pass-first mentality.
Enrique has built something special in Paris, and whether you love him or hate his style, you can’t deny that the Spanish manager is one of the two best in the world right now.
1. Hansi Flick, Barcelona
But the top spot has to go to Hansi Flick, who immediately transformed Barcelona from a talented but inconsistent team into absolute killers, dominating Real Madrid in four Clasicos and collecting domestic trophies for fun.
Flick won everything there was to win for Barcelona except the Champions League, and he was a miracle comeback away from an inspired Inter Milan from achieving that in his first season at the helm.
The sextuple-winning former Bayern Munich manager, Flick has fully washed away the sour taste of failure induced by his lethargic bunch on the German national team to claim his rightful place as a champion, restoring his reputation as a unique manager.
Flick’s ability to condition his players physically and mentally and maximize them tactically is something to be respected greatly, and his cutthroat playing style that emphasizes ruthlessly outscoring opponents is perfect in the modern game and a true breath of fresh air in an otherwise sanitized world tactically thanks to another certain former Barcelona and Bayern manager who appears five spots lower than Flick on this list.
Joe Soriano is the editor of The Trivela Effect and a FanSided Hall of Famer who has covered world football since 2011. He’s led top digital communities like The Real Champs (Real Madrid) and has contributed to sites covering Tottenham, Liverpool, Juventus, and Schalke. Joe’s work has appeared in ESPN, Bleacher Report, and Sports Illustrated. He also helped manage NFL Spin Zone and Daily DDT, covering the NFL and pro wrestling, respectively.