8 managers with the most Champions League titles
The UEFA Champions League is the blue riband event of European club football. Formerly called the European Champions Club Cup, the competition was rebranded as the Champions League in the 1992-93 season.
Many accomplished and legendary managers have graced the competition in its latest avatar. Five different managers have managed over 100 games in the UEFA Champions League, with all but one of them managing to win the competition.
8 managers with the most Champions League titles
Eighteen different managers have won the UEFA Champions League during the competition's near three-decade history, with a handful of them, eight to be exact, managing to win the competition on multiple occasions.
On that note, let us have a look at this most-successful managerial octet in the Champions League.
# 8. Ottmar Hitzfeld - 2 titles
Ottmar Hitzfeld became the first manager to win the Champions League with two different clubs when he delivered Bayern Munich's first title in the Champions League era in 2001, four years after doing the same with Borussia Dortmund.
During a long and storied managerial career, the 71-year-old tactician made his name as one of the most successful tacticians in German and international football.
A year after losing to Juventus in the 1996 Champions League final, Hitzfeld's men turned the tables on the Bianconeri when Borussia Dortmund locked horns with the defending champions in the title match the next year as well.
Two years later, Hitzfeld, now with Bayern Munich, stood on the cusp of another Champions League win, but Manchester United scored twice in injury time in the Barcelona final. However, in 2001, Bayern and Hitzfeld were not to be denied.
A penalty-shootout win over Valencia meant that the Bavarian giants ended their two-and-half-decade wait for another Champions League/European Club Cup title after winning it last in 1975/76.
#7. Jose Mourinho - 2 titles
It was in the Champions League where Jose Mourinho first announced himself on the European stage. The then 41-year-old Portuguese tactician's Porto downed English giants Manchester United en route to winning the 2004 edition of the competition, and there would be no looking back for Mourinho from there.
Mourinho, who is now the manager of Tottenham Hotspur, is not involved in the 2020-21 Champions League as Spurs did not qualify for the competition. However, the much-travelled Portuguese has managed over 150 games for six teams in 17 different seasons in the Champions League.
With Inter Milan in 2010, Mourinho won his second Champions League title to join a select group of managers to have achieved the feat. However, since then, the Portuguese tactician hasn't managed to reach another Champions League final.
#6. Sir Alex Ferguson - 2 titles
One of the most legendary managers in the history of the sport, Sir Alex Ferguson has won a plethora of titles during his illustrious near four-decade managerial career.
Nine years after winning the continental treble with Manchester United in 1999, the Scot won his second Champions League title after beating Chelsea in an all-English final in Moscow. Ferguson's triumph in the Russian capital made him the oldest manager to win the Champions League, before his record was broken five years later.
Nevertheless, Ferguson's 19 seasons and 194 matches in the Champions League are the most by any manager in the competition's history.