When the name isn’t enough. Which players have failed as coaches after great careers?

It would be hard to believe if there weren’t so many examples around that this is indeed the case. What is this about? It’s about former football superstars who became really bad coaches after their playing careers ended. And… really bad ones. Of course, there are many examples of players who have become good coaches, but today we’ll focus on the other side of that coin.

The scientific explanation

There are many theories as to why, in many cases, a quality player does not automatically make a quality coach.

Sian Beilock, Ph.D., a psychology professor at the University of Chicago , offers one scientific one, and he describes the problem as follows

The problem is not just for footballers

A ranking on the subject, but focusing on sports in general, was recently released by NBC Sports magazine and featured names such as hockey player Wayne Gretzky and basketball player Magic Johnson. For the sake of our better overview, we will also rank the football “non-coaches” and list the TOP 5 personalities for whom the great football player/bad coach ratio is the most significant.

5. Roy Keane

Roy Keane is an absolute and undisputed legend of Manchester United. An aggressive captain, an Irish international who would die for the club and his teammates on the pitch and demanded the same of them. With United he won sem Premier League titles and once won the Champions League. As

Coaching career? For a man who was pigeonholed by some journalists as Sir Alex Ferguson’s successor after his playing career ended, it was one big disappointment. He was sacked after halfway through his second season at Ipswich Town, with whom he was still unable to attack the relegation places.

Keane’s previous, and therefore first, coaching engagement looked much better, as he and Sunderland dug out promotion from the Championship to the Premier League and Keane became coach of the year in England’s second competition.

Eventually though, things took a bit of an expected turn and Keane had to pack up after disagreements with players who no longer wanted to endure the demanding training sessions and a mentally complicated personality in the form of Keane on the bench.

4. Paul Gascoine

England’s boisterous, complicated personality, but also the darling of the stands. The player who did most of his kicking in the islands for Newcastle United or Tottenham Hotspur, but he also gave joy at Lazio in Rome and charmed the world at the 1990 World Cup in Italy.

Outside of football, however, he also battled demons, most notably alcohol, which also put a stop to his coaching career. Gascoine had to pack up from Kettering Town after just 40 days in the job. The reason? Daily attendance at work under the influence of alcohol. No one has dared to engage him since.

3. Garry Neville

It would be a stretch to say that this legendary Manchester United and England national team full-back is a bigger legend than Gascoine or Keane, but it was the method of evaluation he chose, and therefore the utter and hard-to-replicate fiasco that started and ended his coaching career, that shot him to third place.

Neville first served as an assistant on Roy Hodgson’s coaching staff with the England national team, with whom he competed at Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine as well as the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

His subsequent and most recent engagement was at Valencia in Spain, where he was appointed head coach in early December 2015 and after eight games without a league win and a 7-0 debacle in the Copa del Rey semi-final at the Nou Camp, it was hard to believe that this connection would work. In a sort of lethargy, Neville remained the club’s coach until the end of March 2016, when he was sacked.

2. Thierry Henry

This phenomenal Frenchman and absolute legend of world football who came to personify the successful era of Arsenal in England made his way through Arsenal’s youth and a stint as Robert Martinez’s assistant with the Belgium national team to his first head coaching contract when he landed at French team AS Monaco.

In short, the season-long engagement was not at all successful, and when Henry left the club, this recent title aspirant was stuck in nineteenth place in the Ligue 1 table.

Henry’s second engagement as head coach, admittedly with the Montreal Impact in the MLS overseas, was heavily influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic and despite minor successes such as getting the club to the playoffs, the coach decided to return to the Belgian national team to be close to his family.

1. Diego Maradona

Considered by many to be the greatest footballer of all time. An Argentine idol, a hand of God and a man who knew how to enjoy life. He became immortal in Argentina when his performances led the national team to the 1986 World Cup title.

In his coaching career, Diego was never able to make it at international level, apart from a failed World Cup with the Argentine national team in 2010, when the team crashed out in the quarter-finals after a 0:4 debacle against the Germans.

At club level, this now deceased football demigod led teams in Argentina, the Emirates and Mexico and did not score any successes. If the equation between a quality player and coach was to work, who should confirm it but Maradona?

Source:: elitedaily.com, goal.com, nbcsports.com, themirror.co.uk