Five managers have been named on the shortlist for the 2026 Men\u2019s Coach of the Year award, also known as the Johan Cruyff Award. It is only the third year the honour has been presented, after Carlo Ancelotti and Luis Enrique collected the first two trophies.<\/p>\n
Enrique is on the list again, joined by three other Spanish managers, while the previous two winners both came from Champions League-winning campaigns. That pattern may not continue this time, with the field shaped by very different achievements across domestic and European football.<\/p>\n
Unai Emery stands out after steering Aston Villa to their first major trophy in 30 years. Villa won the Europa League, a competition Emery has now claimed for a record-extending fifth time in his career and with three different clubs. He had already taken Villa back into the Champions League for the first time since 1982 in the previous season, and he then added a fourth-place Premier League finish to go with the club\u2019s trophy breakthrough. It was enough to confirm his place among the most important managers in the club\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
Vincent Kompany also made a strong case in his second season at Bayern Munich. The German side won the Bundesliga, the German Cup and the German Super Cup, losing only once in a 34-game league campaign. Bayern scored 122 Bundesliga goals, averaging 3.5 per game, as Kompany\u2019s team combined power with control. Their Champions League run ended in a narrow semifinal defeat to Paris Saint-Germain, though they did end their long struggle against Real Madrid by beating them in the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n
Mikel Arteta\u2019s case is built on a long-awaited breakthrough for Arsenal. After 22 years, the club finally won the Premier League, with Arteta rewarded in his sixth full season in charge. Arsenal also went unbeaten throughout the Champions League until the final, where they lost on penalties to PSG. Even without the European crown, it was a season that showed clear progress, both at home and abroad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Emery, Kompany and Arteta headline a strong 2026 Coach of the Year shortlist after major seasons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19319,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,711,1062,1647,172],"tags":[1836,1047,59],"class_list":["post-19320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-aston-villa","category-bayern-munich","category-champions-league","category-epl","tag-2026-27-premier-league","tag-champions-league","tag-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}