La Liga's Best: The Runners and Riders to Be Manager of the Year

If you are a mad Madridista or all balmy about Barcelona, without a single concern about the other 18 clubs in La Liga, then move along now. Nothing to see here. Don’t you have homes to go to? Your respective coaches are not on this list and never will be. Ever. Winning the league title is a given for the manager of Barcelona or Real Madrid, and everything else is a failure. 

What the selection below praises is those plucky Primera coaches who have done great things with very little. Managers who have overcome real challenges, rather than the misery of replacing a €50 million footballer with one worth a mere €35 million. These are the four coaches (in alphabetical order) who would all be deserving of a shiny medal and a pat on the back at the conclusion of another exhausting season in La Liga. 

Paco Jemez (Rayo Vallecano)

Rayo are on the brink of picking up 50 points this season, which is an insanely incredible achievement. This is a tiny club that lost the forward line of Michu and Diego Costa last summer, is still in administration, and only has three sides to its ground. The Madrid club from the city’s wrong side of the rails looked set for relegation this season. Instead, a tactical philosophy of all-out attack for Rayo under new boss, Paco Jemez, has seen the pride of Vallecas on the hunt for a European spot for much of the year.  

The 43-year-old former defender has achieved all this by looking to a veteran striker in Piti and a promising youngster in the form of Leo Baptistao for goals. This pair combined with barrels of guts, attitude, determination and a wonderfully rebellious spirit that has seen Rayo go above and beyond the call of duty in La Liga this season.

Philippe Montanier (Real Sociedad)

With two matches to go, La Real’s hopes for a fourth-placed finish are still in the balance. However, should the San Sebastian side be overhauled by Valencia at the finishing line, it should not take anything away from a brilliant campaign for the club, inspired by Montanier. 

Sadly, it will be the last season for the Frenchman at La Real, as the announcement has been made that Montanier will be heading up an exciting project at Rennes next year, after two campaigns with Real Sociedad.

The first year was one of consolidation in La Primera—and fighting off local critics—but this season has seen the club going great guns. La Real have few resources and rely almost entirely on a youth system, but this did not stop the northerners from going on a remarkable run of one defeat in 23 games, to park the club in Europe next season no matter what happens in La Primera’s end of days. 

Manuel Pellegrini (Malaga)

The Chilean is leaving Malaga after pulling off a minor miracle by keeping the team competitive in La Liga and almost squeezing the club through to the Champions League semi-finals. It’s a truly inspirational achievement.

All this was managed with calm, dignity and perseverance by the former Real Madrid man despite owners throwing everything into his path to derail Malaga’s campaign. Players went unpaid, key performers such as Nacho Monreal were sold at the last moment and there was almost zero communication on what the immediate plans were for the club. Pellegrini and his players battled through all these setbacks to win an awful lot of friends and admirers in the process.  

Diego Simeone (Atletico Madrid)

Admittedly, Atletico’s Argentinean coach has squeezed all the fun out of the Rojiblancos with an unhealthy obsession with discipline, passion, dedication and professionalism—attributes that used to be very much banned from the Vicente Calderón.

Simeone’s fairly small-sized squad kicked off the campaign by defeating Chelsea to lift the European Super Cup. Next up, Atletico put in the miles required to finish third in La Liga and achieve Champions League qualification. But the real cherry on an already tasty cake was overcoming a 14-year-old curse by beating Real Madrid in the Santiago Bernabeu in the Copa del Rey final. Not bad going at all for Simeone, a figure who has almost single-handedly changed the destiny of the football club.