The great coaching migration: how the World Cup dugout went global

More than half of the teams competing in the 2026 FIFA World Cup will be managed by foreign head coaches, despite the fact that no foreign manager has ever won football’s biggest prize.

At a glance, the managerial talent pool for the ongoing 2026 World Cup – the largest in history – is filled with star quality. However, on closer inspection it will also indicate that national federations are increasingly opting for a club football approach by looking outward to acquire the services of the best possible candidates.

With a bloated World Cup in which the number of teams has been expanded to 48, 26 teams will have a foreign head coach, or more than half the number of teams. In 2022, there were only nine of 32. Since 2025, ten teams have replaced their own coaches with foreign imports in the run-up to the World Cup, including England and Brazil.

However, the trend of importing foreign head coaches is not a new phenomenon. The first edition in 1930 saw four teams with foreign head coaches arrive in Uruguay. In fact, no World Cup has had a head coach roster complete with natives.

It’s a curious case because despite the lack of success for a foreign coach at World Cups, there remains a clamor among countries to turn to them in search of a quick fix.

Even a country like England, which has a rich football history, does not have a wide range of top quality head coaches. At the start of the 2025/26 Premier League season, only three of the twenty teams had English coaches or managers, but none remained in post at the end of the season.

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Although the Premier League is considered the greatest competition in the world, the English coaching system is unfortunately one of the victims of its success. No English coach or manager has won the Premier League, while the last Englishman to win the European Cup dates back to 1984.

When the top 22 teams broke away to form the league in 1992/93, 15 clubs had English managers or coaches. But due to the rampant commercialization of the sport in the country, there is an ongoing arms race between clubs to acquire the best coaching talent from around the world to facilitate immediate success.

Following the Football Association’s decision to hire Tuchel, chief executive Mark Bullingham said: «I think any federation in the world looking for a senior manager would clearly like to have five to 10 domestic candidates coaching clubs in the domestic league and challenging and winning trophies in domestic league and European football. We’re not quite at that place at the moment.»

Brazil, which previously produced five World Cup-winning head coaches, is also in reserve with its coaching talent pool. Filipe Luis, who coached Corinthians to the Copa Libertadores last year, is likely to be the next big bet, but at 40 the national team role may be too early for him in his relatively short managerial career.

The Selecao has tried eight head coaches without success since winning in 2002, leading to the hiring of Ancelotti as the first head coach who is not Brazilian. When Ancelotti was announced, the Brazilian federation labeled the Italian, who has won five Champions League titles in a decorated career, as the ‘greatest coach in history’.

However, Brazil’s arch-rival, Argentina, has not yet broken the tradition in its 105-year history. Although the 2026 edition will be the first time a Brazilian will not man the sidelines, there will be six Argentinians, including Lionel Scaloni, who will defend the title with his native country.

Besides Brazil, five of the other South American qualifiers for this World Cup will be led by an Argentinian. The co-host of the tournament, the United States, has also opted for a high-profile Argentinian in Mauricio Pochettino.

The other countries that will be widely represented in coaching roles at this World Cup are France (5), Spain and Italy (3). Since 2016, the winning managers of the Champions League – considered football’s biggest club competition – have been France, Spain, Germany and Italy. But among them, only Ancelotti and Tuchel will captain the teams at the World Cup, while Zinedine Zidane will take over from Didier Deschamps after this summer.

International tournament experience is also a highly sought-after attribute for teams considered in the mid-tier of World Cups. Ghana fired its new homegrown coach in March this year due to poor results and installed Carlos Queiroz, a veteran of four World Cups but with disappointing results.

After the opening match against Sweden, Tunisia threw away Sabri Lamouchi, who had only been appointed six months ago and replaced him with his compatriot Hervé Renard. Renard, who also managed Morocco at the 2018 World Cup, was the mastermind behind Saudi Arabia’s famous victory over Argentina in 2022.

The prevailing view behind the quadrennial World Cup is that it is a stage on which a country’s best available resources are pitted against each other. But as we approach the league’s centennial anniversary, the idea is quickly fading. Despite this trend, Spain and France remain the biggest favorites to win the title this year, followed by Argentina, teams with homegrown coaches.

But if a team with a foreign head coach wants to make history in North America, would that still mean victory or an admission of defeat for the powers that govern the sport in the country?

Published on June 16, 2026