A good coach is vital to the success of any football team. Some key qualities of a good coach are a proven and defined style of play, an ability to manage individuals, a great understanding of the game and in extreme cases winning of trophies.
Some will undoubtedly add managerial experience to the above list and while they are absolutely right, there have been and are some young coaches who despite their inexperience proved that they can reach if not beat the standard set by their more experienced peers.
Below are 5 up and coming managers who have impressed this season and could go on to much bigger things in the future.
Bruno Lage, 45, Wolverhampton Wanderers
When Portuguese manager Nuno Espirito Santo announced he would be leaving Wolves last season, the Molineux faithful were doubtful about the club being able to find a befitting replacement for him and even more so when the club’s hierarchy opted for a relatively unknown former Benefica manager in Bruno Lage who had been out of work for a year.
Fast forward eight months later and it has proved so far, an excellent decision for Wolves as with 7 games to go, they sit 7th in the Premier League table 5 points behind 4th placed Tottenham. They have 9 wins their last 15 games which include victories against the likes of Leicester City, Tottenham and Manchester United.
Lage is a coach known for his love of defensive solidity. This has seen Wolves concede only 27 goals in 31 league games (8th best record in Europe) and keep 11 clean sheets in same number of games (4th best record in the league). However, with Wolves scoring an average of 1.06 goals per game, there’s a lot of room for improvement in attack if Lage wants to lead a charge for European football next season.
Lage’s brilliant stint at Benefica shouldn’t be overlooked either.
After serving at the club as youth coach for 8 years and working with Carlos Carvalhal as assistant coach at Sheffield and Swansea City, he returned to the club in July 2018 as reserve coach and was shortly made caretaker manager six months later after a disappointing first half of the season led by Rui Vitória.
Lage went on a 19-game unbeaten run winning 18 league matches and drawing just 1 to conquer his first major trophy, Benfica’s 37th league title with a 94% winning percentage. He also won the 2019 Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira in a 5-0 thrashing of Bruno Fernandes’ Sporting CP. This won him the award of Primeira Liga’s Best Coach of the 2018/19 season and Portuguese Football Federation men’s coach of the year 2019.
In the 2019/2020 season, due to the departures of some key players most notably the sale of Joao Felix to Atletico Madrid, Benfica were out of form at a time winning just 2 out of 13 games. Lage honorably stepped down from his role as his assistant Nélson VerÃssimo took charge at the Estádio da Luz.
Domenico Tedesco, 36, RB Leipzig
Domenico Tedesco began his coaching career at the age of 23 as an assistant coach for the youth team of VfB Stuttgart. After years of working at the youth set-up of Stuttgart and later Hoffenheim, Tedesco received his coaching badges alongside current Bayern Munich boss Julian Nagelsmann from the Hennes-Weisweiler-Akademie, Germany’s football coaching academy, as the top student of the class of 2016.
He was hired by German Second division side Erzgebirge Aue in March 2017. Prior to his arrival, the club had won only one game in the last 5 months and sat rock bottom of the table. He won 4 of his first 5 games as he led the club to a 14th placed finish saving them from relegation.
His heroics at Erzgebirge Aue earned him the job at Schalke 04 and in his first season, he led the club to a second placed finish for the first time in 8 years.
After being sacked by Schalke in 2019 due to poor run of form including a 7-0 defeat in the hands of Manchester City in the Champions League, he joined Russian outfit Spartak Moscow. He led them to their first Champions League qualification in 3 seasons before he left the club in June 2021.
When RB Leipzig appointed Domenico Tedesco in December, the club were in the bottom half of the Bundesliga having apparently lost their way since Julian Nagelsmann’s exit.
He’s had a transformative effect at the Red Bull Arena since his appointment. With 9 wins in his first 14 games including a recent away 4-1 trashing of Borussia Dortmund he took them from 11th to 4th place on the table with 6 games left to go. Since the start of the year, Leipzig have scored the most points in the Bundesliga with 26 points out of a possible 33 and have lost only once all year in all competitions – a 3-2 defeat by Bayern at the Allianz Arena.
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So far, he’s proved to be the perfect successor to Julian Naglesmann and as Leipzig are in the quarter finals of the Europa League as well as in the Semi-final of the DFB-Pokal, Tedesco will have a chance to win the Red Bulls their first ever major piece of silverware.
Vincenzo Italiano, 44, Fiorentina
After his retirement as a player, the former Hellas Verona midfielder started his coaching career by coaching amateur teams. In 2017 he joined Union ArzignanoChiampo which won him interest from Serie C club Trapani who hired him for the 2018–19 season.
He instantly got them promoted to Serie B and this drew the attention of another Serie B club, Spezia who appointed him as manager for the 2019–20 season.
In his first season, he achieved promotion to Serie A for Spezia for the first time in 100 years. In his second, he perhaps more impressively, kept them up in the top flight, proving a tough nut to crack against the big sides in the league as no other team in the bottom half of the table took more points of the teams that ended in the top 3 last seasons while playing a beautiful possession based attacking brand of football.
His performances caught the attention of Fiorentina who were in desperate need of a change of direction as they barely escaped relegation in the previous season. His appointment has proved to be masterstroke as La Viola are not just safe from relegation but are fighting to play European football. Fiorentina currently sit 8th in the league with a game in hand of which victory will see them move into 6th.
Italiano, a coach who likes his team to always have the ball, control the tempo of the game and play with a high defensive line has transformed Fiorentina from a purely counter-attacking side to one who likes to keep the ball and play through the lines.
In Serie A, only Napoli has a higher possession per game ratio than La Viola. They rank ahead of the likes of AC Milan, Juventus and Lazio for Expected goals. In the largest winning margin of season, Fiorentina thumped Genoa by a score line of 6-0. The strength of Italiano’s tactics means that even the sale of star player Dusan Vlahovic has not affected the team as much as some might have feared with the team winning 6 of their last 11 games since his departure.
Having defeated the likes of Napoli and Atalanta en route to the Coppa- Italia Semi-final, Italiano will have a chance of yet again doing the seemingly impossible by lifting a trophy with La Viola. However, it turns out, the sky seems to be the limit for the German-Italian manager.
Xavi, 42, Barcelona
Widely regarded as one of the best midfielders to ever play the game, Xavi’s the man who’s been tasked with the heavy duty of rescuing his beloved club from mediocrity. Not as a player this time around – but as a coach.
After making a record 767 appearances for Barcelona the Catalan moved to Qatari side Al Sadd where he would play for 4 years before managing for them for a further 2½ years. Within those 2½years he won 7 trophies and he was subsequently hired by Barcelona midway through the season after the dismissal of Ronald Koeman due to a string of poor performances after the loss of star player Leo Messi. Barcelona were 9th in the la Liga table, had won 5 games, lost 5 and drew 3 of their last 13 games.
Despite being a strong proponent of the Barcelona/Johan Cruyff philosophy, Xavi has brought a new dimension of play to the classic Barcelona style. Popularly known as Xavi ball, Barcelona now combines possession football with verticality and directness and this enables them to control games even more as the opponents are wary of the threat they pose on the counter and prefer to let them have the ball.
Since Xavi’s arrival, the Catalans have moved from 9th on the table to 2nd and are in the quarter finals of the Europa League. The Blaugranes have taken 29 from a possible 33 points in their last 11 fixtures in La Liga, more than any other side in 2022. Currently on an in impressive 14 game unbeaten run, Barca have improved dramatically in front of goal, scoring 34 goals in that time and conceding just 11 with January signings Ferran Torres and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang having immediate impacts. The Blaugranes have scored 4 goals in six games since the turn of the year which include 4-2 victories over Atletico Madrid in the league and away at Napoli in the Europa League, 4-1 away victory against Valencia and three 4-0 wins at home against Athletic Club and Osasuna, and the brilliant 4-0 win away at Real Madrid in the Santiago Bernabéu.
Gerardo Seoane, 43, Bayer Leverkusen 
Born in Luzern, Switzerland, Seoane began and eventually ended his football career in his hometown at Luzern FC. After hanging his boots in 2011, he immediately took up a coaching role in the club’s youth teams. After serving as youth coach for 7 years, he was trusted to be head coach in January 2018 after a poor first half of the season. Luzern were in the relegation zone having won only 20 points in 19 games. Seoane brought some needed stability to the team as he settled on an attacking 4-2-3-1 formation throughout the rest of the season which saw Luzern finish 3rd as they won 10, drew 4 and lost only 3 of their last 17 games in the league.
Despite his amazing performances at Luzern, Seoane, aged 39, was considered a surprise pick to succeed Adi Hütter as Young Boys’ coach who departed for Borussia Mönchengladbach.
In his first season at the club, he guided the club to their 13th league title and helped the club qualify to the group stage of the UEFA Champions League for the first time in club history.
In his second season, Seaone led the club to a domestic double, delivering their 14th league title (their third in a row) and seventh cup title and first in over 30 years.
After winning his third League title in a row in 2021, Seoane caught the attention of German outfit Bayer Leverkusen.
Currently on place to finish 3rd for the first time since 2016, Seoane has managed to get the best of a Leverkusen team brimming with young talents such as Florian Wirtz and Moussa Diaby. Patrick Schick, who’s the club’s top scorer with 20 goals in 21 games for the club has finally come to life after what had seemed to be an unfulfilled potential of a talented goal scorer at the age of 26.
Scoring an average of 2.4 goals per game, the club’s record highest in the Bundesliga, it’s clear that Seoane has been a coach who likes his team to be on the front foot always. However, this has come at the cost of his defense as only 4 sides in the league have conceded more (42 goals in 28 games).
Sooner or later, Seoane will begin to attract the interest of clubs across the continent if he continues to impress and improve this Leverkusen team and with his reputation as a manager boosted with an impressive track record of winning trophies, the Swiss manager is only destined for a greater future.
