As football evolves, so too does the dugout, and in the modern game, we are witnessing a new chapter of fresh-faced tacticians dominating the touchlines and leading some of the game’s top clubs.
There was a time when chairmen avoided younger coaches for their more experienced peers — opting for the safer pair of hands — but in recent years, boardrooms have started to become more adventurous with their appointments, hoping to unearth the next tactical trailblazer who will revolutionise the club — and not just keep them afloat.
We’ve looked at some of the best managers in the game right now who are aged 40 or under (or were at the start of the season) and shaping the tactical complexities and trends of the modern game — from a rising West Ham fan in Ligue 1 who doesn’t even have a UEFA Pro Licence, to two Pep Guardiola students, and the current Bayern Munich boss.
10. Vincent Kompany (36) — Burnley
After leaving Manchester City in 2019, Vincent Kompany re-joined boyhood club Anderlecht — whom he represented between 2003 and 2006 at the start of his career — as player-manager. Things got off to a rocky start. Following a string of defeats, the Brussels-based club endured their worst start to a league campaign since the 1998/99 season and Kompany ultimately stepped down from his managerial post to focus on the playing aspect of his role.
The following summer he did become Anderlecht’s permanent manager after hanging up his boots for good, and after a more stable campaign in which the club finished third in the Belgian Pro League and reached the Belgian Cup final, Kompany move to Burnley. Since relocating to Turf Moor, the 36-year-old has guided The Clarets to first in the Championship and have them looking a shoo-in for promotion, playing some superb football along the way.
This is not the Burnley we are used to.
9. Will Still (30) — Stade de Reims
Born in Belgium to English parents, the self-confessed West Ham fan Will Still has ambitions to manage in the Premier League one day — and he’s looking good value for that aspiration in his nascent managerial career. Unlike Kompany, the 30-year-old wasn’t a household name during his playing career, and that’s simply because he didn’t have one. Instead, this Football Manager-loving tactician rose through the ranks as a youth-team coach and now holds the bridle of a Ligue 1 club.
Having inherited Oscar Garcia’s squad in October — previously working as the Spaniard’s assistant — the multilingual Hammer has his side ninth in the Ligue 1 table and on an unbeaten run of 19 games, the longest active streak in Europe’s top five leagues. To add to the scale of his unconventional rise, he still doesn’t have his UEFA Pro Licence (yet), which means Reims have to pay a fine of €25,000 every time he manages them.
8. Carlos Corberan (39) — West Brom
There was an allure to Carlos Corberan when Huddersfield Town appointed him as their head coach in 2020. Here was a disciple of Marcelo Bielsa — having worked alongside him at Leeds — a young technocrat who was well-versed in tactical sensitivities of one football’s most celebrated and enigmatic coaches.
It had the potential to go either way. Fortunately for The Terriers, he proved a huge hit after an inauspicious start to his tenure. He guided the club to the Championship play-off final last season, where he just came up short to Nottingham Forest, and played some captivating football en route to Wembley.
After defeat in the capital, Corberan moved on to Olympiacos for a brief period and then returned to England in autumn to succeed Steve Bruce at West Brom. When he was appointed, The Baggies were in the relegation zone and had won once all season. They are now ninth and five points off the play-off spots.
7. Domenico Tedesco (37) — Belgium
It isn’t often you get a young coach managing a national team, but that’s exactly the route Belgium have gone down in the post-Roberto Martinez era. There was a time when Domenico Tedesco was vying with Julian Nagelsmann in Germany for the title of being the best young coach. The Italian was leading a new wave of precocious technocrats who were embracing the new data-driven approach to management, and he looked destined for a top European club when managing Schalke.
He hasn’t quite been able to follow Nagelsmann’s path to one of the continent’s traditional heavyweights, but the 37-year-old remains highly regarded on the managerial circuit, hence Belgium’s approach for him. He was lauded at Spartak during his time at the club following Schalke and won RB Leipzig the DFB-Pokal last season. Belgium will be hoping he can deliver a similar level of success for the national team.
6. Matthias Jaissle (34) — Red Bull Salzburg
The ‘Red Bull’ model is held in high esteem. Not only does the franchise have a knack for unearthing hidden gems across the globe and providing them a platform to hone their respective crafts, but they also adopt a similar philosophy for coaches. The likes of Roger Schmidt, Adi Hutter, Marco Rose and Jesse Marsch have all coached at Red Bull Salzburg, having been relative managerial unknowns among the big European leagues prior to the Red Bull Arena.
Matthias Jaissle could be the latest in that lineage to excel in Austria, before going on to cultivate a world-renowned managerial career. At 34, he is tearing it up in Salzburg. The former Hoffenheim defender — who had to cut short his playing career because of injury — currently has Red Bull Salzburg on a 20-game unbeaten run in the league and has been the youngest manager to appear in a European competition this season. He looks the real McCoy.
5. Edin Terzic (40) — Borussia Dortmund
Having worked as a scout and youth coach under Jurgen Klopp at Borussia Dortmund, Terzic moved to Turkey in 2013 to serve as Slaven Bilic’s assistant manager at Besiktas. When the former Everton and West Ham defender became the latter’s No. 1 in 2015, the curly-haired coach followed him to east London. Having seen out the final year at Upton Park and ushered in a new dawn at the London Stadium, Terzic was at West Ham during a club-defining period.
During his time in England, Terzic acquired his UEFA Pro Licence, graduating from the same class as Graham Potter, and in 2018 he returned to the Ruhr Valley to become Lucien Favre’s assistant at Dortmund. He has since become something of a utility man for BVB, carrying out caretaker duties when Favre left, serving as a technical director last season, and now finally getting the No. 1 berth for himself.
The multifaceted coach is currently leading the Bundesliga and hoping to dethrone Bayern Munich.
4. Andoni Iraola (40) — Rayo Vallecano
An Athletic Club legend, Andoni Iraola is fast becoming one of the most sought-after coaches on the continent, with Leeds United notably trying their best to appoint him following Marsch’s dismissal last month. The 40-year-old first dipped his toes in football management in 2018 with Cypriot club AEK Larnaca, but it has been back in his homeland (Spain) where his reputation has really taken off.
His first position on the Iberian Peninsula was with Mirandes between 2019 and 2020. During that time he led the second-tier club to the Copa del Rey semi-finals, claiming the scalps of Celta Vigo, Sevilla and Villarreal along the way. It was only the second time in the club’s 92-year history that they had reached the penultimate round of Spain’s most celebrated cup competition.
In 2020, he moved to Rayo Vallecano and guided the club to promotion in his debut campaign at Vallecas. And last term, Los Franjirrojos comfortably finished in mid-table in La Liga, and Iraola once again reached the Copa del Rey semi-finals. They are currently eighth this term, and are still firmly in with a shot of reaching the European places.
3. Ruben Amorim (38) — Sporting CP
A Benfica player, the Alfacinha is now a leading head coach of Sporting CP, having previously held positions at Casa Pia and Braga. It was with the latter in 2019/20 that he first emerged as a potential world-class coach after guiding the club to the Taca da Liga (a.k.a. the Portuguese League Cup), beating Porto in the final, and alerting Sporting CP to him.
Leoes appointed Amorim in 2020, and they haven’t looked back since. In his first full campaign, he led the club to their first Primeira Liga title for nearly 20 years, and done so by setting a new league record for the longest unbeaten streak in a single season (32 matches in a row).
He continues to shine at the Estadio Jose Alvalade and recently reached the Europa League quarter-finals after eliminating Arsenal.
2. Mikel Arteta (40) — Arsenal
There was an element of uncertainty when Arsenal appointed a coach who had no prior experience as a leading No. 1. But, then this is a club who named the relative unknown Arsene Wenger (at least on these shores) as their manager in 1996 from Nagoya Grampus Eight, and look how that turned out.
Arteta had all the right tools to succeed as a coach: he played under managers as tactically diverse as David Moyes and Wenger, rose through the ranks of Barcelona’s famed La Masia, shared a dressing room at PSG with Mauricio Pochettino, and worked alongside Guardiola at Manchester City.
Fortunately for Arsenal fans he has been able to translate that education to tangible success on the touchlines. He won the FA Cup in his first season (2019/20) — having been appointed midway through the campaign — and is now besting Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp for English top-flight supremacy.
Not to mention, he espouses a simply breathtaking style of football. Arsenal have always oozed passing elegance, and they’re taking it to a new level under Arteta and his silky, snake-hipped cadets.
1. Julian Nagelsmann (35) — Bayern Munich
Julian Nagelsmann is the youngest ever manager to top the group stage of the #UCL.
Just 32 years of age. ? pic.twitter.com/Mw293k9LFE
— Squawka (@Squawka) December 10, 2019
There may be some debate between Arteta and Julian Nagelsmann, given that one is currently leading the Premier League table against all expectations in a much more competitive division (in terms of genuine title-challengers), while the other is floundering in second with a perennial winner.
However, to understand how Nagelsmann got to this position in the first place is to truly bare testament to one of football’s greatest-ever managerial rises. Having had his playing career cut short because of injury, Nagelsmann turned his focus to coaching and worked briefly under Thomas Tuchel at Augsburg.
In the 2015/16 season, he was appointed as the head coach of Hoffenheim at just 28. He joined midway through the campaign, with Die Kraichgauer on the brink of relegation and guided them to safety. He became the youngest ever manager of a Bundesliga club as a result, and in his first full season (2016/17), he masterminded a fourth-placed finish for Hoffenheim, losing just four games and achieving Champions League football for the club for the first time in their history.
That turnaround from relegation candidates to Champions League achievers was simply remarkable, miraculous even. That led him to join RB Leipzig in 2019, and eventually Bayern Munich. Still only 35, Nagelsmann continued The Bavarians’ tradition of winning the Bundesliga in his maiden campaign last term and recently knocked PSG out of the Champions League.
Arteta may be having the better season, but Nagelsmann’s rise from baby-faced unknown for a relegation club to head coach of Bayern Munich in just five years is one of the most astonishing stories in football, and should be recognised thus.
At 34 years and nine months old, Julian Nagelsmann is the second-youngest manager to win the Bundesliga.
Ballon d'Or winner Matthias Sammer keeps his record. ?
— Squawka (@Squawka) April 23, 2022
Honourable mentions:
- Thiago Motta (40) – Bologna
- Nick Cushing (38) – New York City FC
- Wayne Rooney (37) – DC United
- John Heitinga (39) – Ajax
- Raffaele Palladino (38) – Monza
- Gary O’Neil (39) – Bournemouth
- Didier Digard (36) – Nice (caretaker)
- Enrico Maassen (39) – Augsburg
- Ole Werner (34) – Werder Bremen
- Luis Freire (37) – Rio Ave
- Daniel Sousa (38) – Gil Vicente
- Luka Elsner (40) – Le Havre
- Fabian Hurzeler (30) – St. Pauli