Winning or excelling in a World Cup is traditionally considered as essential to be rated as an all time great football player. That is why Pele and Diego Maradona are considered the greatest ever and a cut above legends like Alfredo Di Stefano and George Best who were also equally talented and entertaining.
Johan Cryuff and Ferenc Puskas got World Cup runners’-up medals but are always remembered for their dazzling performances in the 1974 and 1954 World Cups, respectively. Cryuff is associated with introducing Total Football and Puskas initiated the twin striker revolution.
However this same tradition does not apply to football coaches. There have been many great coaches, like Sir Alex Ferguson, Sir Matt Busby, Bob Paisley, the forceful and authoritative Rinus Michels and Helenio Herrara, Ernst Happel, Bela Guttaman and Valeriy Lobanovski to mention a few. None of them won a World Cup but they are considered as legends because of their success with clubs in the demanding Uefa Champions League/European Champions Cup.
So the parameters to judge the greatness of a coach are different from that of a player. However one coach who could surpass them all is the “Special One”, Jose Mourinho, who has become Real Madrid’s 13th coach in the last 12 years. Of them, only Spain’s coach in the 2010 World Cup, Vicente Del Bosque has lasted more than one year.
Mourinho’s immediate task is to help Real Madrid regain the La Liga title and later annex the Uefa Champions League for the 10th time. Only a single coach in history, Bob Paisley with Liverpool has won three Champions Leagues (European Cups in 1977, 78 and 1983) so Mourinho only needs one more to equal the record there.
If Mourinho’s success rate continues till his retirement, then no coach in the history of the game will be able to match the Portuguese’s diversity. He has already won everything in Portugal, England and Italy and European titles. His next mission is to do the same in Spain, with Real Madrid.
The Austrian coach Ernst Happel is currently No.1 in the diversity category, having been champion in four different countries — the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Austria — as well as lifting the European Cup with Feyenoord (1970) and Hamburg (1983). On a club level, Mourinho is not far from surpassing Happel, a fine dissector of the game.
If the quantity of titles won at the highest level is considered, Mourinho has already won six league titles, two Champions Leagues, the Carling Cup (2005) and FA Cup (2007) with Chelsea, the 2003 Uefa Cup with Porto and many other trophies. At the age of just 47, he could easily double number of domestic championships won if he continues coaching into his late sixties.
Sir Alex Ferguson leads the tally in domestic league titles. He has been league champion 14 times (11 times with England’s Manchester United and thrice with Scotland’s Aberdeen). Ferguson was in his fifties before he first conquered the Premier League, so time is on Mourinho’s side.
However Ferguson’s record may remain unscathed as in the future Mourinho wants to coach a national team in the World Cup, the ultimate icing on the cake of his illustrious career.