List of managers at the FIFA World Cup

This is a list of all managers who have appeared in the FIFA World Cup, the most prestigious tournament for national teams in association football. Over 370 individuals have managed or co-managed a team in at least one match in the competition.

Statistics and notable achievements[edit]

Carlos Alberto Parreira is the manager who has taken part in the most editions of the tournament, six from 1982 to 2010.[1] Parreira also shares with Bora Milutinović the record for most different nations managed in the World Cup, with five.[2] Helmut Schön holds the records for both most matches managed (25) and most matches won (16),[3] all with West Germany in 1966–1978.

Twenty-one managers have won the World Cup, with Vittorio Pozzo being the only one to do so twice, in 1934 and 1938 with Italy.[4]

The first person who had the roles of both a player and a manager in the tournament is Milorad Arsenijević, who played for Yugoslavia in 1930 and then coached them in 1950.[5] Three men who lifted the trophy as players went on to also triumph as managers: Brazil's Mário Zagallo in 1970, West Germany's Franz Beckenbauer in 1990 and France's Didier Deschamps in 2018.[6]

The youngest manager to appear in the competition is Juan José Tramutola, who co-managed Argentina at age 27 in 1930,[7] while the oldest is Otto Rehhagel, who was in charge of Greece at age 71 in 2010.[8]

While many of the participating nations have on one or more occasions employed foreign managers for the World Cup, the two teams with the most appearances, Brazil and Germany, have always been led by natives. On the other side of the spectrum, Ecuador is the team with the most participations always coached by foreigners – four, always with managers coming from fellow South American countries. No foreign manager has ever won the World Cup, and only two have reached the final match: George Raynor of England, with Sweden in 1958, and Ernst Happel of Austria, with the Netherlands in 1978.[9]

By team[edit]

Below, the teams are listed in decreasing order of number of appearances in the World Cup.

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By year[edit]

Flags indicate the managers' nationalities, while FIFA trigrammes indicate the teams they were in charge of.

Year Managers
1930

Spain F. Bru (PER) • France R. Caudron (FRA) • Belgium H. Goetinck (BEL) • Argentina J. Laguna (PAR) • Spain Mexico J. Luque de Serrallonga (MEX) • Scotland United States R. Millar (USA) • Argentina F. Olazar & Argentina J. Tramutola (ARG) • Hungary G. Orth (CHI) • Brazil Píndaro (BRA) • Romania C. Rădulescu (ROU) • Bolivia U. Saucedo (BOL) • Kingdom of Yugoslavia B. Simonović (YUG) • Uruguay A. Suppici (URU)

1934

Spain A. García (ESP) • England B. Glendenning (NED) • Belgium H. Goetinck (BEL) • Scotland United States D. Gould (USA) • England S. Kimpton (FRA) • Scotland J. McCrae (EGY) • Austria H. Meisl (AUT) • Switzerland H. Müller (SUI) • Hungary Ö. Nádas (HUN) • Hungary J. Nagy (SWE) • Germany O. Nerz (GER) • Italy F. Pascucci (ARG) • Czechoslovakia K. Petrů (TCH) • Italy V. Pozzo (ITA) • Austria J. Uridil & Romania C. Rădulescu (ROU) • Brazil L. Vinhaes (BRA)

1938

France G. Barreau (FRA) • England J. Butler (BEL) • Hungary K. Dietz & Hungary A. Schaffer (HUN) • England B. Glendenning (NED) • Norway A. Halvorsen (NOR) • Germany S. Herberger (GER) • Poland J. Kałuża (POL) • Netherlands J. Mastenbroek (INH) • Czechoslovakia J. Meissner (TCH) • Hungary J. Nagy (SWE) • Brazil A. Pimenta (BRA) • Italy V. Pozzo (ITA) • Germany K. Rappan[b] (SUI) • Romania A. Săvulescu & Romania C. Rădulescu (ROU) • Cuba J. Tapia (CUB)

1950

Switzerland F. Andreoli (SUI) • Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia M. Arsenijević (YUG) •