Treble-winning managers ranked: Guardiola, Enrique above Ferguson; Arteta next? | OneFootball

Mikel Arteta could put himself above all these managerial icons if Arsenal win the Quadruple, but where would he rank among the Treble winners?

Arsenal – and Manchester City, of course – are still in the hunt in all four competitions, leading the Premier League while they await the Carabao Cup final, the FA Cup quarter-finals and the last 16 of the Champions League.

Arteta has had plenty of grief for the style in which his Arsenal side have got to this point, but will anyone give a sh*t if he delivers a title or four to the Emirates?

Below is the company Arteta would be keeping if he guides the Gunners to their first European Cup on the back of the domestic Double.

Where would the Spaniard come in on this Champions League-era ranking of managers based on their Treble-winning success?

6) Hansi Flick – Bayern Munich 2019/20

Bayern started the season under Niko Kovac before Flick took over in November with the Bavarians fourth in the table. He lost two of his first four games in charge while he got his feet under the table, the last being on December 7. From that juncture, Bayern dropped only two points from the last 60 available to win the Bundesliga by 13 points.

But celebrations were muted as their eighth consecutive title was sealed behind closed doors amid the outbreak of Covid. The DFB Pokal was also retained with no fans present, Leverkusen the beaten finalists in Berlin.

The Covid conditions suited Bayern, evidently, since they won every single game after the break – 15 in total. Five months separated their Champions League last-16 clash with Chelsea, the Blues no match for Flick’s men, before the novelty of an eight-team, one-game knockout tournament in Lisbon.

Bayern began by pulling Barca’s pants down 8-2 before making light work of Lyon in the semi. The final against PSG was a tighter affair, settled in Bayern’s favour by Kingsley Coman’s header. It made Bayern the first team to win every single Champions League game in a single season en route to their second Treble.

5) Jupp Heynckes – Bayern Munich 2012/13

Heynckes, knowing he was to be replaced by Pep Guardiola in the summer of 2013, went out with a bang by becoming the first Bayern coach to win the Treble.

It is difficult for Bayern to find new ways to win the Bundesliga, but the German giants achieved new levels of efficiency, claiming the title with six games to spare on April 6, a fortnight earlier than anyone else, eventually by a record-breaking 25-point margin.

The calendar was somewhat arse about face, making the Champions League the second instalment of a potential Treble. The Bavarians faced familiar foes Borussia Dortmund at Wembley, where they were pushed harder than they were domestically. But Arjen Robben’s 89th minute winner set Heynckes up for a final flourish in the DFB Pokal a week later.

In Berlin, Stuttgart threatened a fightback from 3-0 down by Bayern held on for a 3-2 win, with Heynckes walking off into the sunset as the first manager to coach a German side to the Treble – an achievement all the more sweet after their runners-up finish in all three competitions the previous season.

4) Jose Mourinho – Inter Milan 2009/10

Jose won the Serie A title in both seasons as Inter coach. Big whoop. At the time, domestic success was expected at Inter. But Mourinho really made his mark in his second summer in charge, assembling a squad full of proven experience yet with enough stars still with a point to prove.

In came the likes of Samuel Eto’o, Diego Milito, Thiago Motta, Lucio and Wesley Sneijder. Eto’s arrival came as a consequence of Barca’s offer for Zlatan Ibrahimovic that Inter could not refuse. It gave Mourinho a world-class attacker nursing a grudge and enough money to make the other necessary changes to improve on a group-stage exit in Europe in his first campaign.

Mourinho made it us against them – ‘them’ being the whole of Italy, seemingly. Opponents, referees, the establishment. It was blatant, but everyone, most importantly his players, swallowed it all whole.

Much of which distracted from the fact that Inter weren’t much good for much of their greatest ever season. They scraped through the group stage by winning two of six games and, from January to April, won only five of 14 in the league.

Then it was Jose time. They won nine of their last 10 games of the season, the only defeat being a 1-0 loss to Barca in the Nou Camp that had Mourinho giving it the big one after a defensive masterclass gave Inter a 3-2 aggregate win.

By the time the final came around, against Bayern in Madrid, Mourinho was in his element. A 2-0 win, Milito scoring twice, seemed inevitable in Jose’s final game before moving to the Bernabeu permanently immediately after.

3) Sir Alex Ferguson – Manchester United 1998/99

Ferguson best summed up United’s season immediately after it’s crowning glory – the come-from-behind victory over Bayern Munich in the Champions League final, the Germans themselves chasing a Treble.

In contrast to Bayern, United had the Double in the bag, making the Nou Camp showpiece their final game of the season, one on which much of his legacy depended. Fergie had already won two Doubles, in 1994 and 1996. His third was perhaps the most creditable of all – argue among yourselves over whether winning it with kids or beating Wenger’s Arsenal was better – but the abiding memory of the season was going to be whatever happened in Barcelona.

Ferguson had to do without Roy Keane and Paul Scholes against Ottmar Hitzfeld’s Bayern and for much of the final, they were poor, seemingly caught in the glare on their biggest night. But Fergie had instilled a drive and determination in a team proved time and again that it never knew when it was beaten. Which Bayern should have known when they were celebrating victory prematurely.

‘They never give in – and that’s what won it,” added Fergie after his team triumphed in a manner never to be matched, added-time goals from his substitutes winning the first-ever Treble for an English side.

2) Luis Enrique – Barcelona 2014/15, PSG 2024/25

The top two could never not be the top two while both have two Trebles to their name.

Like Guardiola, Enrique’s first was won in his first season in charge of a swashbuckling Barca side. It was also the first season of the MSN – Messi, Suarez, Neymar, the trio combining for 122 goals, with scoring 58 on his own.

That’s not to say that Enrique stumbled on a completed project when he took over in 2014. It was a rocky start, this being Barca’s first season without Xavi, and much of the talk throughout the first half of the season surrounded doubts over Messi’s future.

Nor did they have it easy on the way to the Treble. In the Champions League knockout stages, they dispatched the reigning champions of the Premier League, Ligue 1, Bundesliga and in the final, Serie A.

Enrique’s second Treble was PSG’s first, featuring their maiden European Cup. Domestic success comes easy for the Parisians, and it might have been an Invincible season had they not suffered Ligue 1 defeats in April and May, the title already secure while having at least one eye on their Champions League semi-final clashes with Arsenal.

Such caution was understandable given PSG’s domestic dominance was not mirrored on the continent. They needed the qualification play-offs to get out of the group stage to face three Premier League sides – Liverpool, Villa, Arsenal – in the knockout stages. Once in the final, against Inter, fears of freezing again on the biggest stage were unfounded, with PSG winning their first European Cup by the biggest-ever margin of victory.

1) Pep Guardiola – Barcelona 2008/09, Man City 2022/23

Guardiola and Enrique won their first Trebles with brilliant Barca sides. And there were similarities in their second which delivered maiden Champions League successes for richer-than-God, Gulf-owned clubs.

“Pep in one year has really created a genius team,” said Joan Laporta immediately after Barca beat Manchester United in Rome to secure a Spanish club’s first Treble. “It has roots in Cruyff’s philosophy but at the same time he himself has created something.”

Guardiola put it down to bravery and taking risks: “If you attack and are daring you have more chances of winning. We have not been cowards, never. Without the ball we are a disastrous team, a horrible team, so we need the ball. We are not the best team in history but we have played the best season in history to win the three titles.”

With Messi, Eto’o, Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Thierry Henry, Carles Puyol, that Barca side had b*llocks as well as beauty, and many still dispute Guardiola’s modesty by proclaiming them the best ever.

Pep took a while longer to tease a Treble out of Manchester City. He won domestic Doubles and Trebles, but never did their trophy haul feature the Champions League until Inter were beaten 1-0 in Istanbul in season seven.

Given the similarities, why is Pep ranked above Enrique? Timing, mainly. He did it all first. But few would reasonably dispute that the domestic elements of the Treble are harder to achieve for anyone in England than PSG in France.