World Class Players Who Would Make Poor Manager’s

Football is full of wonderful players with beautiful footballing minds. Some players you look at throughout their career and just know that when their time comes they’ll make a superb manager. Others, however, you just know would have a tough time translating their incredible experiences as players to a coaching style for the next generation. We’re taking a look at some of those players that unfortunately would make sh*t managers.

5. Rio Ferdinand

A man who can make the argument for being the greatest centre back in Premier League history. Rio Ferdinand was a leader, a fighter and a strong voice in the dressing room. He was dedicated to excellence and never let his standards drop as a player. As a manager though, it’s hard to see Rio having the same success.

If his punditry is anything to go by he’s uninspiring but of course that doesn’t mean everything. He seems to offer no realistic solutions to combat issues that different teams have when asked about them and I feel his incredible standards as a player would seem alien to below par talent he’d inevitably have to coach.

4. Zlatan Ibrahimovic

This guy will go down as one of the best number 9s in the game, maybe. He’s ruining his own legacy every day though. He’s like the player form of living long enough to see yourself become the villain.

Be it fighting with black players and then condemning black activists like Lebron James for being too ‘political’, or speaking about himself in third person like he’s still the dogs bollocks, or announcing his heartfelt retirement and coming back out of it, once the hard work of qualifying for tournaments was done by his Swedish team mates, he’s a bit of a walking contradiction. His ego would be too heavy to put aside as a manager and something tells me he’s not the most patient man ever so I’m gonna say he’d be an awful manager.

3. Luis Suarez

This premier league great has been terrifying defences for years and we’ve all experienced some moments of awe watching Suarez. The man is problematic though. We’ve seen a number of high profile incidents involving him that would raise eyebrows.

You can’t imagine Suarez on the sideline because for how good a player he is, he also seems very immature and not the type of guy that could tactically break down another team. A man with racist tendencies and a habit for biting wouldn’t be the best fit in a modern day dressing room.

2. Paul Scholes

Another United alumni, this lad similarly to Rio can make an argument as one of the best in his position of all time in the Premier League.

That doesn’t equate to being a good manager though. Quite frankly he’s an awful pundit who seems to always be in a bad mood or has just realised someone sh*t in his cornflakes.

He wouldn’t be an inspiring coach and the way he speaks about modern players gives me the impression that he doesn’t respect a lot of them and has the ‘good old days’ mindset that’s completely obsolete in today’s game.

He’s talked sh*t about Pogba and Ronaldo and how frustrated they make him on the regular and when they almost define the modern player that’s not a recipe for success.

1. Lionel Messi

Forget premier league era, this man is arguably the greatest to ever do it. When all is said and done we will look back at his countless moments of greatness and count ourselves lucky for being there to see it live. Which is why it’ll come as a sad fact to some that Messi would make a terrible manager. We’ve seen Messi on the pitch and while he’s always been surrounded by leaders through the years like Xavi, Puyol, Iniesta and many others, he himself as not been that leader character.

He’s been the breathtaking player that produces magic but getting his men ready for war has never been his strongpoint. We now see him in a side without leaders and the pressure has fallen on him to step up which he hasn’t been able to do.

This in no way means he doesn’t understand the game better than most players, which I think he does, but I could never see him replicating that success as a manager.