Loads of successful football managers today are ex-playeers.
Well, the others who weren’t blessed with the most blistering of careers had to come through the back door.
These ones were at some point teachers.
As we mark the World Teachers’ Day, Thursday, we take a look at the most successful teachers turned football managers.
- Louis Van Gaal
Dutch manager, Louis Van Gaal, is undoubtedly one of the biggest names in football with over 15 domestic titles to his name. Yet the 66-year-old wasn’t as spectacular during his playing career. At age 20, he joined Ajax but was deemed not good enough, forcing him to join the teaching occupation as a PE tutor.
- Guus Hiddink
Like Van Gaal, countryman, Guus Hiddink spent much of the 1970s and early 80s teaching PE at a school for troubled children. “I’ve joked I still feel I’m working with hard-to-raise kids,” he wrote in his autobiography. Thereafter, he would go on to coach some of the big sides in the world, including Chelsea.
3.Rinus Michels
The late, great Michels taught PE at a school for deaf children before becoming head coach at Ajax. As a player, he had won the Dutch league twice; in 27 years as a manager he notched up another four Eredivisie titles, the European Cup, one La Liga title, the 1988 European Championship, and a World Cup final appearance.
