Of all the club tournaments in modern football, continental prizes remain the most sought after. That is especially true in Europe, where managers and players are often judged on how they perform in competitions such as the Champions League and the Europa League.
Which coaches have had the most success in European tournaments? That is the question we have set out to answer in this article, which looks at the elite coaches who have lifted continental trophies on at least three occasions.
Please note, we have only counted the following trophies: the Champions League/European Cup, the Europa League/UEFA Cup, the Europa Conference League, and the Cup Winners’ Cup. We have not counted one-off games such as the UEFA Super Cup, or the Intertoto Cup, which had multiple winners most seasons.
8= Pep Guardiola (3)
3 Champions Leagues
Regarded by many as the greatest manager of all time, Pep Guardiola won the Champions League in his very first season as a head coach at senior level.
Barcelona beat Manchester United in the final of 2009, then did the same two years later. A team containing Lionel Messi, Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta was too strong for the rest of Europe.
Guardiola failed to win the tournament during his three seasons at Bayern Munich, though. For a while he came up short at Manchester City too, before the English side finally went all the way in 2023. That was one of three trophies City won that season, and it was Guardiola’s third European triumph. He is not done yet.
8= Zinedine Zidane (3)
3 Champions Leagues
When Real Madrid made Zinedine Zidane their manager in January 2016, no one could have anticipated the impact he would have. The legendary player replaced Rafael Benitez, who had struggled in his few months at the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu.
As a coach, Zidane had no overarching footballing philosophy. But he was a master of man-management who successfully made a team of talented individuals into a functioning collective. Crucially, he also brought the best out of Cristiano Ronaldo, Madrid’s greatest ever player.
The result was three Champions Leagues in a row, as the Blancos swept all before them in 2016, 2017 and 2018. Zidane later returned for a second spell in the Spanish capital, but he has been out of work since leaving in 2021.
8= Johan Cruyff (3)
1 Champions League, 2 Cup Winners’ Cup
For all his contributions as a player and a manager, Johan Cruyff must go down as the most influential person in the history of the game. He was not just a brilliant forward for Ajax and the Netherlands, but he was also fundamental in promoting the ‘Total Football’ style that both sides played.
Cruyff remained true to those principles as a manager. This was not an idealist espousing his beliefs from a distance: the Dutchman’s methods proved highly successful in European competition.
In 1987 he led Ajax to the Cup Winners’ Cup thanks to a victory over Lokomotive Leipzig. Cruyff followed that up with another Cup Winners’ Cup success at Barcelona in 1989, before the crowning glory three years later: the Catalan club’s first ever European Cup.
8= Rafael Benitez (3)
1 Champions League, 2 Europa Leagues
Rafael Benitez first made his name as a manager at Valencia, leading the Spanish side to La Liga titles in 2002 and 2004, plus a UEFA Cup in the latter year. Liverpool came calling after that success, appointing Benitez as the successor to Gerard Houllier.
The Reds could only manage a fifth-place finish in the Premier League in Benitez’s debut season, yet the Spaniard took his new side all the way in the Champions League, confounding everyone’s expectations – not least with a stunning comeback from 3-0 down against AC Milan in the final.
Benitez later won the Europa League during a brief stint as the caretaker manager of Chelsea in 2013. He was not a popular figure at Stamford Bridge due to his Liverpool connections, but Benitez nevertheless got the job done.
8= Jose Villalonga (3)
2 Champions Leagues, 1 Cup Winners’ Cup
Jose Villalonga never played football professionally. Nevertheless, that did not prevent him being appointed as the manager of Real Madrid in 1954. Two years later he led the Blancos to glory in the first ever edition of the European Cup, overseeing a 4-3 victory over Stade de Reims in the final.
Madrid retained the trophy a year later, overcoming Fiorentina in the showpiece match thanks to goals from Alfredo Di Stefano and Paco Gento. That legendary team also contained the likes of Miguel Munoz and Raymond Kopa.
Villalonga later moved across the city to coach Atletico Madrid, with whom he experienced success in the Cup Winners’ Cup of 1962. More than 60 years on and the Spaniard remains one of the most successful European managers of all time.
8= Udo Lattek (3)
1 Champions League, 1 Cup Winners’ Cup, 1 Europa League
Udo Lattek is one of three managers to have won three different European trophies. His first success was the biggest of all: the German was the man calling the shots when Bayern Munich won the European Cup in 1974 with a 4-0 victory over Atletico Madrid in the final replay (the first game was a 1-1 draw and penalty shoot-outs were not used back then).
At Borussia Mönchengladbach, Lattek became a UEFA Cup winner in 1979 courtesy of a 2-1 aggregate triumph over Red Star Belgrade.
The Cup Winners’ Cup came after Lattek had moved overseas. His Barcelona team, which included Allan Simonsen and Quini, lifted the trophy in 1982 after defeating Standard Liege in the two-legged final.
3= Carlo Ancelotti (4)
4 Champions Leagues
Carlo Ancelotti is the only manager in history to have won the Champions League on four different occasions. It is a phenomenal achievement, with the Italian undoubtedly one of the greatest coaches of his generation.
Ancelotti’s personality and managerial style appears to be better suited to knockout football than the weekly grind of domestic leagues, where his record is much more ordinary when you consider the size of the clubs he has led.
Ancelotti’s first Champions League successes came as the boss of AC Milan in 2003 and 2007. He then ended Real Madrid’s long quest for a 10th European crown in 2014. In his second spell at the club, he took the Blancos to the promised land again in 2022.
3= Sir Alex Ferguson (4)
2 Champions Leagues, 2 Cup Winners’ Cup
Alex Ferguson spent 27 years as Manchester United manager, during which time he transformed them from also-rans to the most dominant team in England. His ability to constantly renew both himself and his side makes him one of the greatest coaches to have ever worked in the sport.
Ferguson’s crowning achievement was in 1999, when he won a treble – including United’s first Champions League for decades. He got his hands on that prize again in 2008, beating Chelsea in the final.
Yet some argue that his greatest accomplishment came at Aberdeen, who won the Cup Winners’ Cup under the Scot’s guidance in 1983. Ferguson won the same tournament with United in 1991, beating Barcelona 2-1 in the final.
3= Bob Paisley (4)
3 Champions Leagues, 1 Europa League
Succeeding an iconic figure like Bill Shankly as Liverpool manager was not an easy task, even if Bob Paisley made it look that way. Previously a member of the backroom staff at Anfield, the shy and retiring Paisley only reluctantly accepted the top job.
Yet he proved to be a magnificent manager. Liverpool won three European Cups on his watch, becoming one of the major forces on the continent in the process. The first came in 1977, as the Reds got the better of Borussia Mönchengladbach in the final. A year before that, they had won the UEFA Cup for the first time.
Liverpool were again crowned European champions in 1978 thanks to a 1-0 defeat of Club Brugge at Wembley Stadium in London. Liverpool and Paisley then made it three in 1981, edging out Real Madrid 1-0 in Paris.
3= Nereo Rocco (4)
2 Champions Leagues, 2 Cup Winners’ Cup
Catenaccio, a defensive style of play made famous in Italy, is most associated with ex-Inter manager Helenio Herrera. But Nereo Rocco was an earlier proponent of a system which directly translates as ‘door bolt’.
He had plenty of success with it too. Rocco’s AC Milan team won the European Cup in 1963, defeating the iconic Benfica side of Eusebio and Mario Coluna 1-0 in the final. Milan’s next continental triumph came five years later in the Cup Winners’ Cup, a competition they won again under Rocco in 1973.
In between those glories was another European Cup. In the final of 1969 Rocco’s side turned on the style to thrash Ajax 4-1, with Pierino Prati notching a hat-trick.
3= Unai Emery (4)
4 Europa Leagues
Unai Emery is the king of the Europa League. He has won the tournament a remarkable four times – only Carlo Ancelotti has won the same continental competition on as many occasions as the Spaniard.
Emery has not always thrived at the biggest clubs. His spells at Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal were mostly disappointing, but his track record with slightly smaller but ambitious sides cannot be argued with.
His first taste of Europa League success came with Sevilla in 2014, after which he won the very same competition with the same club again in 2015 and 2016. Emery was a runner-up with Arsenal in 2019, but he turned three triumphs into four with Villarreal two years later.
1= Jose Mourinho (5)
2 Champions Leagues, 2 Europa Leagues, 1 Europa Conference League
Jose Mourinho began his managerial career with Benfica in 2000, but it was with another of Portugal’s big three clubs that he made his name. Mourinho led Porto to the UEFA Cup in 2003, then went one better by winning the Champions League the following year. It remains one of the most impressive triumphs in the history of that competition.
Mourinho had plenty of high points at his next club, Chelsea, but he could never get over the line in Europe. He had his hands on the Champions League trophy again in 2010, though, with Inter the victors this time.
Mourinho has since won another Europa League, with Manchester United in 2017, and the inaugural edition of the Europa Conference League, with Roma in 2022.
1= Giovanni Trapattoni (5)
1 Champions League, 1 Cup Winners’ Cup, 3 Europa Leagues
Giovanni Trapattoni won league titles in four different countries – Italy, Austria, Germany and Portugal – and he had plenty of success in continental competition too. The Italian was in charge of Juventus when they won the UEFA Cup in 1977 and again when they lifted the same trophy 16 years later in 1993.
Trapattoni collected a Cup Winners’ Cup medal with Juve in 1984, beating Porto 2-1 in the final. His greatest European achievement came 12 months later when the Bianconeri won the European Cup by beating Liverpool in the final.
His other triumph was with Inter, where Trapattoni claimed another UEFA Cup in 1991. A 2-1 aggregate victory over Roma was enough for the Italian’s side to emerge victorious.