Zidane joins debut season UCL coach winners

Having guiding Real Madrid to their 11th Champions League success on Saturday against Atletico, Zidane has followed in the footsteps of some distinguished tactician who marked their first full season as a coach with European Cup success.

The former Real Madrid playmaker joined the likes of; Jose Villalonga, Miguel Munoz, Tony Barton, Guus Hiddink, Joe Fagan, Vicente del Bosque and Josep Guardiola in winning the Uefa Champions League top prize in his first season as a coach.

Zinedine Zidane: 2016 (Real Madrid)

Zidane was only appointed to his maiden senior first-team coaching role by Real Madrid in January 2016, but has ended his debut campaign by lifting the prestigious UEFA Champions League trophy.

Zidane was an assistant to Carlo Ancelotti at Madrid for two years and coached the reserves before being promoted following the sack of Rafael Benitez.
Josep Guardiola: 2009 (Barcelona)

Fifty-three years on from Pepe Villalonga’s first Madrid success, Pep Guardiola was a similarly immediate success for Barcelona. A European Cup-winning player for the club in 1992, a year after his 2006 playing retirement, Guardiola was appointed to lead Barcelona B. Just 11 months later, he succeeded Frank Rijkaard in charge of the first team. Guardiola had a brilliant debut season, winning the domestic double and the UEFA Champions League with a 2-0 Rome defeat of Manchester United. Another success, against the same team at Wembley, followed in 2011, and next season he joins Manchester City having matched his tally of three league triumphs at Barcelona with a similar hat-trick in as many seasons with Bayern.

Vicente del Bosque: 2000 (Real Madrid)

The first new coach to win the cup in the UEFA Champions League era, Del Bosque was, like Barton and Fagan, far from a managerial novice. A five-time Liga winner with Madrid as a player, Del Bosque had been on the staff for some years at the club, including a caretaker spell as first-team coach in 1994, before he succeeded John Toshack full-time in November 1999. Madrid were already through the UEFA Champions League first group stage and Del Bosque took them all the way to victory in Paris against Valencia and the following season managed a Liga triumph before a Zidane-enhanced UEFA Champions League repeat success in 2001/02. Del Bosque has also proved a dab hand at national-team level with Spain’s victories at the 2010 FIFA World Cup and UEFA EURO 2012.
Joe Fagan: 1984 (Liverpool)

Fagan was hardly a managerial beginner when he was appointed successor to three-time European Cup winner Bob Paisley at Liverpool in 1983. He had been part of the Anfield ‘boot room’ since 1958 and had previously been assistant manager at Rochdale and player-boss of non-league Nelson, where he won the Lancashire. Combination in his first season while working in a gas meter factory. Nevertheless it was the modest Fagan’s first season as a senior full-time manager in 1983/84, and he led Liverpool to victory in the League, League Cup and European Cup, beating Roma in the Stadio Olimpico on penalties. Fagan also took Liverpool to the ill-fated 1985 final in Brussels before retiring, though he remained a guru for later Anfield bosses. He died in 2001, not long after Liverpool’s first European success since Fagan stepped down.
Tony Barton: 1982 (Aston Villa)

A former winger with Fulham, Nottingham Forest and Portsmouth in the 1950s and 1960s, Barton was on the coaching staff at English champions Aston Villa when Ron Saunders resigned in February 1982. Already in the quarter-finals on their first European Cup appearance, Barton guided Villa past Dynamo Kyiv and Anderlecht without conceding a goal to set up a final with Bayern München in Rotterdam. After just ten minutes goalkeeper Jimmy Rimmer was injured but Barton sent Nigel Spink on for only his second first-team appearance and he performed heroics as Peter Withe’s goal proved enough for a 1-0 victory. Barton remained as Villa manager until 1984 but after that had just brief spells in charge of Northampton Town and Portsmouth before his death in 1993.

 

Miguel Munoz: 1960 (Real Madrid)

The captain of Villalonga’s pioneering winners in 1956 and 1957 before retiring as a player, Munoz took charge ahead of the 1959/60 semi-finals having, like Zidane later, coached the reserves. Madrid had won the first four European Cups and under Munoz made it five in stunning style, knocking out Barcelona with 3-1 wins both home and away then defeating Eintracht Frankfurt 7-3 in a famous final in Glasgow in front of 127,621 spectators. By the time Munoz left Madrid in 1974 they had won another European Cup in 1966 and nine Liga titles; he was later to coach Granada, Las Palmas, Sevilla and Spain, reaching the EURO ’84

 

Jose Villalonga: 1956 (Real Madrid)

Appropriately, the first European Cup was won by a coach in his maiden full campaign. ‘Pepe’ Villalonga had actually been appointed to the helm in the middle of 1954/55, winning the league, and then masterminded victory in the new continental competition. He repeated the trick the following season before crossing the city to Atletico, beating Real in two Copa finals and claiming the 1962 European Cup Winners’ Cup. Next for Villalonga was the Spain job, and the 1964 UEFA European Championship success. From 1967 Villalonga ran Spain’s national coaching school before his death in 1973 aged 53.

 

ANTHONY NLEBEM