How Zidane compares to Pep Guardiola – Manager Battle

Editorial Team 6 years ago

Pep Guardiola vs Zinedine Zidane - Manager Battle (First Spell)

After re-appointing Zinedine Zidane as Real Madrid’s manager, Real Madrid President Fiorentino Perez commented “The best manager in the world has rejoined the club. Our destinies are once again united”. Zinedine Zidane has won three successive Champions League titles and there is an argument to be made for him to be mentioned in the category of best managers in recent time. Despite that, in order to be called the best manager in the world, he has to fare better than the man who is regarded by their el-classico rivals and vast majority of neutral football fans as the best manager of our generation.

Zinedine Zidane has been re-appointed as Real Madrid's manager

Over the course of the last 12 years, Pep Guardiola has outclassed the likes of Jose Mourinho in the Spanish League and Sir Alex Ferguson in the Champions League with his impressive tiki-taka. Pep Guardiola took over a Barcelona squad that finished third in the 2007-08 season under Frank Rijkaard 18 points behind champions Real Madrid. In just his first season, Pep Guardiola lead Barcelona to a remarkable and historic treble – La Liga, Copa Del Rey and UEFA Champions League. Barcelona extended the treble winning run to an unprecedented 6 trophies out of 6 by clinching the FIFA Club World Cup, UEFA Super Cup and SuperCopa de Espana.

In his first spell that lasted four years at Barcelona, Pep Guardiola won a total of 14 trophies and Pep is accredited for improving players such as Lionel Messi, Pedro and David Villa. Puyol became a world-class leader and Pique transformed into a ball playing defender under Pep while Victor Valdez became a sweeper-keeper. Pep’s handling of players and making them better technically earned him numerous accolades in the press and he was dubbed as a “coach on the pitch”. The cherry on top of the tenure for the Blaugranes was the 5-0 humiliation of Mourinho’s Real Madrid at Camp Nou beckoning the massive shift of power in Spanish football.

Pep won every trophy available to him in his first spell at Barcelona while Zidane struggled to transform his European success to domestic glory. The Frenchman failed to win the coveted Spanish Cup – Copa Del Rey. The Real Madrid legend also managed to win the La Liga only once out of three attempts. Zidane’s average trophy return in his first spell is 3 per season, which is below Pep Guardiola’s trophy return of 3.5 per season.

Pep Guardiola went on to be successful at Bayern Munchen and Manchester City. The Catalan manager won the domestic league and cup in both countries by playing attractive possession based football. It remains to be seen how Zidane’s second spell at Real Madrid turns out to be. Pep is only two years older than Zidane but has a significantly larger trophy cabinet as Manager with record breaking seasons in La Liga, Bundesliga and the English Premier League.

At this point of time, the stats simply don’t support Perez’s statement. The stats only show who the best manager in the world is! He is creating a dynasty in England and Manchester City are lucky to have the brilliant Catalan.

Editorial Team

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LosMejor's Editorial Team includes a team of experts who cover the UEFA Champions League, Premier League, FA Cup and the Carabao Cup. The Editorial team is headed by Deepak Selvan.