Perhaps the Champions League, or European Cup from its birth to its refoundation, is not the most difficult tournament. Pep Guardiola and those who defend this theory refer to the regularity necessary to succeed in championships such as the Premier League, compared to the small number of games necessary to assault the continental throne. However, this company will have some difficulty when its winners form a small club that barely exceeds twenty members.
Along with the World Cup at national team level, the Champions League is the club trophy dreamed of by any player or coach on the planet. And not everyone has the privilege of lifting it throughout their career. If only 22 clubs have the ‘orejona’ in their showcases, there are also very few footballers and coaches who can add it to their CV.
And even fewer those who managed to win it more than once.
In the field of the benches, only twenty conquered it on more than one occasion, and among them only three did it three times: Bob Paisley, Carlo Ancelotti and Zinedine Zidane. The first did it always defending the colors of Liverpool (1977, 1978 and 1981), the last the same, but with the colors of Real Madrid (2016, 2017 and 2018), while the current white coach added two wounds with AC Milan (2003 and 2007) and one in white (2014). If he wins in Paris this Saturday, ‘Carletto’ will become the coach with the most Champions in history. His rival, Jürgen Klopp, chooses to join, in case of victory, in the club of the repeaters.
Among these, the most normal thing was to reconquer the title with the same club, and on many occasions taking advantage of an exceptional generation of footballers. Real Madrid began, which won the first six consecutive European Cups, with three different coaches who shared them two by two: José Villalonga (1956 and 1957), Luis Carniglia (1958 and 1959) and Miguel Muñoz, that continued the streak in 1960 but had to wait until 1966 to add the second and sixth of the club.
In total there are 17 coaches who have repeated their victory, and in addition to these pioneering madridista examples, the Hungarian Béla Guttman with Benfica (1961 and 1962), Helenio Herrera with Inter (1964 and 1965), Ştefan Kovács with Ajax (1972 and 1973), Dettmar Cramer with Bayern Munich (1975 and 1976), Bob Paisley with Liverpool (1977 and 1978), Brian Clough with Nottingham Forest (1979 and 1980), Arrigo Sacchi with AC Milan ( 1989 and 1990) and Zinedine Zidane with Real Madrid (2016, 2017 and 2018). It was not always like this, as others had to wait to lift their second titles despite managing the same clubs, such as Nereo Rocco, Alex Ferguson or Vicente del Bosque, for example.
And among this group of 17 lucky ones who tasted the honeys of European success twice, only five repeated under different colors: Ernst Happel, with Feyenoord in 1970 and Hamburg in 1983; Ottmar Hitzfeld, with Borussia Dortmund in 1997 and Bayern Munich in 2001; José Mourinho, with Porto in 2004 and with Inter Milan in 2010; Jupp Heynckes, with Real Madrid in 1998 and Bayern Munich in 2013; and Ancelotti himself, with Milan and Real Madrid.
