55
CARLOS ALBERTO
PARREIRA
Getting the management
bug as a coach watching Brazil’s
Pele-powered 1970 generation crowned
world champions first-hand is a good place
to start. Since then, no boss has been to
more World Cups than Parreira, who steered
the Selecao to USA 94 glory via shootout
success against Italy. He has taken a joint-
high five nations to the finals – including
2010 hosts South Africa and the rather less
adoring Saudi Arabia, who sacked him, er,
two matches into France 98.5 2
SVEN-GORAN ERIKSSON
Few coaches have told Alex Ferguson
to ‘F**k off’ and lived to tell the tale.
As England manager, however, the level-
headed Swede frequently butted heads with
the Scot. While Eriksson couldn’t prevail as
gaffer of the Three Lions’ golden gang, he’d
fared far better in club management before- as five titles and a UEFA Cup across Italy,
Portugal and Sweden attested. His 1999-
Serie A triumph at Lazio was particularly
notable, as the Biancocelesti celebrated a
first championship since 1973-74.
5 3
FRANZ
BECKENBAUER
The two-time Ballon d’Or
winner guided West Germany to
consecutive World Cup finals in 1986 and
’90; defeated in Mexico City by a mercurial
Diego Maradona, only to avenge that
loss with a 1-0 victory over Argentina in
Rome. He had a spell at Marseille in 1991,
then took Bayern Munich to Bundesliga
and UEFA Cup success by 1996. “He used
his personality,” ex-Germany captain
Lothar Matthaus told FFT. “Football is not
only about physicality – it’s about
psychology, too.”English football has always been about as
receptive to change as a firm Yorkshireman.
Find something that works, and even when
it doesn’t, stick to it with such conviction it
resembles General Melchett sending over
the troops in Blackadder. Kick-and-rush had
always worked – so why change?
Jimmy Hogan knew there was a better way.
Inspired by Fulham manager Jock Hamilton’s
Scottish passing game, Hogan – who enjoyed
a middling playing career in the early 1900s as
an inside-forward – took Hamilton’s fluid style
of football and showcased it around Europe.
“I don’t care whether a pass is long or short,
forwards or backward,” he once stated. “I just
care if it is right for the team.”
Hogan’s loss to the continent remains the
biggest in English football history. From 1910,
he toured the Netherlands, France, Austria
and Switzerland, and was also sent to
Budapest to manage MTK when the First
World War broke out. There, Hogan taught
Hungary the game, introducing ‘the Danubian
Style’ which spread like wildfire across Europe.
Dubbed a traitor upon his post-war return
to England, a disenchanted Hogan went back
out on the road. Ever the itinerant, he spent
time in Switzerland and France, returned to
MTK, gave lectures in Germany, and helped
Hugo Meisl to create Austria’s Wunderteam –
which went 14 games unbeaten from April
1931 to December 1932 and reached the
semi-finals of the 1934 World Cup in Italy.
That summer, Hogan had one final crack at
England with his beloved Fulham – but it wasfar from the heralded homecoming he
craved. Senior players decided they didn’t
want to be coached, and he was sacked
after 31 games. Hogan tried to shake the UK
from its Messiah complex, but came up
against fusty suits who were wedded to
maintaining the status quo.
“I have watched continental football grow
from a mere baby to a strapping young man
who will go on to full manhood and
eventually deprive Britain of her supremacy,”
he sighed.
In November 1953, he was proved right as
Hungary’s Magical Magyars – who had taken
Hogan’s initial possession-based lessons
three decades earlier – dismantled England
6-3 at Wembley, becoming the first foreign
team to defeat the Three Lions in their own
back yard.
“We played football as Jimmy Hogan
taught us,” revealed coach Gustav Sebes
at full-time. “When our football history
is told, his name should be written in
gold letters.”
Hogan should have been a guest of honour
for the Match of the Century. Instead, by
then 71 years old, the pioneer paid for not
only his own ticket, but those of several
young Aston Villa players he was coaching.
“You can see how we have learned some
of his lessons,” Hungarian FA president
Sandor Barcs astutely noted afterwards. “If I
may say so, England could take some of the
hints that Mr Hogan gave us.”
If only they’d listened.51 JIMMY HOGAn
“WHEn OUR HISTORY
IS TAUGHT, HIS n AME
SHOULD BE WRITTEn
I n GOLD LETTERS”
5 4
WILLIE MALEY
“This club has been my
life – without it my
existence would be empty,”
Maley once said of Celtic, the club he
managed for a ludicrous 43 years. An
unorthodox boss, he didn’t watch training,
sit in the dugout during matches nor even
speak to his players on the day of games,
allowing them to learn their positions from
the newspaper. He had an excellent eye for
local talent, though, and his youthful Bhoys
teams claimed 16 league titles and 14
Scottish Cups.20 The Managers FourFourTwo.comGREATEST
MAn AGERS100