*Update for 2022 World Cup
I. Introduction and Historical Literature Review
The football
managers have created the value on football history as a leadership of tactical
invention and development, players’ skill development and strategical conduct
that significantly impacted on their team history. In the early eras of
football, the managers had a main role of tactical invention and their roles
were limited during the game due to the rule of substitution prohibition. The
followed amendment of the rule enabled manager to fully influence the team. The 50 greatest managers of all-time[1][Miguel
Delaney, 2011) rated managers performance based on trophies acquisition and
statistical record with consideration of players’ resource case by case.
However, the fluctuation of managerial performance level to acquire each trophy
is existed and exclusion of managerial performance of trophyless could be
highly biased for the title that is mainly achieved by player’s ability. The
World Soccer greatest managers of all-time[2] [Jamie Rainbow,
2013] is a result of voting from football experts and the standard to give the
vote is simply varied.
Accordingly, the objective of this work is to
study, integrally regulate and standardize the system of the entire
historical managerial performance evaluation by designating criteria and
related factors to distinguish individual managerial performance out of team
performance approximately and implement procedures to conclude the status of
all-time places for football managers.
II. Methodology
*This methodology is summarized from full procedures in
http://xtrahistory.blogspot.com/2013/01/Rating-Methodology.html
1)
Performance Identification & Classification : The raw data
of performance is considered by comparing to the previous club season based on
the existed player resource. The gap of development/decline and state of
performance are identified as the class.
2) Performance Unit : Because football is primarily aimed to
win the trophy not to achieve the record, the performance is rated between 3
main competition levels mutually by one season not separate competition levels
as following ; Domestic League 50 % Domestic Cup 15 % International Club 35 %
The pre-international club era without cup competition : Domestic League 75 %
The pre-international club era, Domestic League 57.5 %, Domestic Cup 22.5 %
The
non-participation in international club, Domestic League 55 %, Domestic Cup 20 %
The
non-participation in international club without cup competition : Domestic
League 62.5 %
3) Basic
Calculation System : Arrange the performance value in ascending order and pair
with the applied sequence partitioned weight respectively.
The
percentage of coefficient reduction is directly varied to participating amount.
One club
season = 1 Partition
Dependent
International Country : Qualifying round 0.5 Partition, Major Final Tournament
0.5 Partition.
Independent
International Country Coefficient Table
International Country Partition Coefficient
Total Performance = Σ Partition Weight x Round Coeff. x Performance Class
Coeff.
Total Partition
The formula
is calculated separately between club and international country
Total
Partition
1) Managers with absence of
either competition level: 19
2) Managers with both
club and international country appearances :
International
Country part’s total partition = sum of independent international country
Dependent
International Country + Club = 20;
If score of
international country > score of club, total partition of international
country remain the same value because they all are included in the part of
total partition and is also considered as a higher level of competition. Total
partition of club = 20 – DIC total partition
If score of international country < score of club, the 20 total partition is
shared proportionally. The share ratio is calculated as Club total
participating partition : DIC total partition
Then, DIC
total partition is converted to IIC total partition based on its ratio.
Proportion of
Competition Level
1) Club
Managers without either of competitions appearance : 5 % give to the absent
part without any point. The participation part is given by 95 %.
2) Managers with participation in both
competitions : The ratio is calculated between participating partition between
club and IIC. The maximum proportional criteria of international country part
is limited at 50 %.
4) Bonus Definition and Calculation System
4.1) Trophy
4.2 ) Time to Success : It is used in club competition only.
4.3) Continuity of Higher Class
4.4) Adaptability
4.5) Historical Impact
4.6) Foundation
4.7) Statistical Record
5) Conditional Margin
H1 : Independent Highest Performance : Combination of highest performance
score in each competition level
Domestic League 50 % Domestic Club 15 % International 35 %
(International includes both club and country)
H2 : Club Mutual Highest Performance : Highest overall seasonal
performance
L : Lower
performance : The amount of National Level and Regional Level against
total amount based on competition level proportion. The deduction point is 1
and 2, respectively.
Lower Performance = Σ (Total Lower performance amount / Total participate
Amount x Competition Level Ratio) (If total participate amount value in the
system < 20, the deficit value is applied as the negative value minus to 100
% and then use this value multiple to above formula)
Conditional Margin = ((H1*0.35)+(H2*0.15)+(L*0.5))/10
6) Total Point = Basic Score + Bonus Score + Conditional Margin
7) Decisive Factor : If the total point is not different > 0.2,
Primary: Independent Highest Performance, Secondary : Basic Score, Third
: Lower Performance
III. Implementation
Selects the 52 potential candidates by
consideration of trophy or team status achievement and consistency and rates managerial performance in both qualitative ( by considering gap between resources and team performance and quantitative by club season or tournament for each manager to acquire partition performance and applied partition weight to partition performance to obtain basic total score. Finally calculate applied bonus and conditional margin to finalize the scores.
IV. Result
The 50 Greatest Managers of All-Time
Statistics
Italy 7, Germany 6, England 5, Argentina 5, Scotland 4, France 4, Netherlands 4, Spain 4
Sweden 1, Portugal 1, Austria 1, Uruguay 1, Hungary 1, Ukraine 1
The 20 Greatest Domestic Managers of All-Time
The Greatest International Club Managers of All-Time
The Greatest International Country Managers of All-Time
V. Discussion
The methodological implementation
allows the rankings to have represented the managers’ entire performances
against related factors, most important player resource parameter. However, some
inaccuracies of distinguish between managerial performance out of other factors
by approximation is inevitable when player resource level could be unstable by
unknown external circumstantial factors. Nevertheless, the comparison of
performance between previous season to current season is helpful to identify
the gap of performance well.
The significant
weight applied to the managers has provided the equivalent level between peak
and consistency. It reduces the disadvantage of the managers who is limited in
opportunity of participation but markedly achieved competitive peak. In
contrary, it also prevents the case of large amount of lower state of
performance to get ahead of a short time of high peak automatically.
The result shows
Sir Alex Ferguson is the greatest manager ever and beat Ernest Happel by a
large margin although he is not the best in international club and
international country competition because Ferguson performed an unprecedented
phenomenon consistency of top level performance in domestic club career for
both Aberdeen and Manchester United.
Although Rehagel didn't win many trophies like many other top legendary managers, he phenomenally performed during his peak year at Kaoserslautern and Greece allow him to get place in top 10 conveniently.
One of the most debatable issues is the best managers ever of Liverpool whose greatness is largely influenced by their manager’s leadership. The research result suggests that Bill Shankly is their greatest manager ever. He is highly creditable as a predecessor who originated the team foundation although his achievement against time spending is relatively low. Paisley greatly succeed to utilize and develop resource but he performed only nine seasons.
The new generation
likes Joseph Guardiola has already taken top ten place and his career routes is
ascending to become the best manager of all-time in the future if not make his
early retirement since the time to success factor is zero for him and his prime
has been continued as the longest period among the legendary managers.
In the top 50,
there are only six managers whose profile has no achievement in European club
and a few non-European managers have made the list. The best of non-European manager is Helenio
Herrera who is Argentinian but is still successful in European club football.
The best managers who managed the club outside Europe is Luis Alfonso Perez who
led Santos to achieve the highest peak in history of South American club
football.
As club performance
is the major part of evaluation while national team is a minor because of its
more limitation of player resource selection and much fewer in number of
matches, Helmut Schoen, who is the greatest international country manager ever,
failed to qualify for top 50 when his career almost entirely performed in
national team part with a high level of players’ ability.
Reference
[1] http://footballpantheon.com/2011/07/the-50-greatest-managers-of-all-time
[2] http://www.worldsoccer.com/features/the-greatest-manager-of-all-time-341473
