5 Great Managers Who Faced Their Former Side in the Champions League

Football is full of unexpected surprises and great comebacks, our aim was to introduce some managers who had to face their former employers.

Managers are important members of the football teams. They are the ones who choose which players to sign in the summer, and they are the ones who decide who will be in the starting line-up, and who will sit on the bench.

• Guardiola’s men are underdogs against Barca
• Ancelotti faces Juventus again
• Heynckes won Champions League with 2 teams

They know their clubs perfectly as they are controlling every step of it every single day. However, managers switch clubs just as much as football players do, and as always, football does bring great surprises. We aimed to introduce 5 great managers who faced their former clubs in recent times.

Pep Guardiola will face FC Barcelona as manager of Bayern Munich

Pep Guardiola has been team boss of the Catalan side from 2008 until 2012, according to Spanish gambling news. He is admired by fans of the Spanish giant club as his team played incredibly and dominated both Spanish and European football. They won the Champions League in 2009 and 2011 in addition to the 3 La Liga victories.

However, he left Barcelona in 2012 and joined the Champions League winner at the time FC Bayern Munich, who sacked Jupp Heynckess to find room for the Catalan manager. Pep Guardiola will face his former side tonight in the semi-finals of the Champions League. Online betting sites believe they are underdogs as their odds are 5.00 (4/1) by Bet365.

Carlo Ancelotti faces Juventus once again

Carlo Ancelotti has joined the Turin-based side in 1999 and left them 2 years later, in 2001 for the great rival, AC Milan. He did not gain great successes with the Zebras, he only won the UEFA Intertoto Cup in 1999. But in 2003 he faced The Old Lady in the Champions League final.

Ancelotti’s AC Milan won that clash on penalties after a goalless clash of 120 minutes. Ancelotti faced Juventus in last season at the group stage as well, this time as manager of Real Madrid. They won 2-1 in Bernabeu and tied by 2-2 in Stadio Delle Alpi. In addition, Ancelotti faces his former side once again in the Champions League semi-finals. Juventus won the first leg at home field by 2-1.

Jupp Heynckes won the Champions League with both Bayern and Real

Jupp Heynckes took over control at the Royal Club between 1997 and 1998. He started his career at Los Blancos by winning the Spanish Supercup and continued by winning the Champions League in 1998, but he was not allowed to continue at the Whites due to his poor performance in the domestic tournaments.

14 years later, in 2012, Jupp Heynckes faced José Mourinho’s Real Madrid as manager of FC Bayern Munich in the semi-finals of the Champions League. Mobile betting sites reported that his team was favourite to qualify upon defeating his former side by 2-1 in the Allianz Arena. After losing 2-1 at Estadio Santiago Bernabéu, Jupp’s men were far superior in the penalties which put them in the final which they lost against Chelsea. However, they won the tournament in the next season in a domestic clash against Borussia Dortmund in the final.

Roberto Di Matteo was sacked after winning Chelsea’s only Champions League

Roberto Di Matteo was assistant manager of André Villas-Boas from 2011, but the young Portuguese was fired in the March of 2012, and the Italian was named as his replacement until the end of the season. Di Matteo has lead Chelsea to the Champions League final and won the tournament with a series of great luck.

However, his next season did not start that well at the London-based club. He was sacked in 2013 after losing 3-0 against Juventus and getting knocked out of the Champions’ League group stage. He joined Schalke 04 and faced Chelsea in the group phase in 2014/15. After a 1-1 draw at Stamford Bridge, his former team defeated him 5-0 on home field, however they went on to the round of 16 where Real Madrid eliminated them.

Arsene Wenger got defeated by his previous club, AS Monaco

Arsene Wenger has started his managerial career at Nancy-Lorraine, and joined AS Monaco in 1987. He has been team boss of the French side for 7 years and won the Ligue 1 in 1988 and the Coupe de France in 1991 for his side. However, he was dismissed in 1994 due to his team’s poor performance in the beginning of the season.

He joined Arsenal in 1996 and has been manager of the London-based club ever since. He has gathered great successes at the English club and in the season 2014/15, he had to face AS Monaco. Online gambling sites in the EU believed that Arsenal were far superior to the Ligue 1 member side, however, Leonardo Jardim’s men proved them wrong. Monaco won the first leg 1-3 on away field, and the 2-0 loss at home still meant qualification for them. However, they also got eliminated in the next round against Juventus.