Top 3 Coaches Who Struggled During Their Football Careers

• The experiences of playing at the highest levels of club and international football greatly aid in managing football teams
• However, not all top managers turn out to have had great playing careers
• Sports Brief takes a look at great managers who never really made it during their football careers

Theoretically, it is presumed that great football players will most naturally make good coaches.

However, this may not always be the case. Why? Because there are a good number of top footballers that have failed to replicate their career successes in the dugout.

A fore-knowledge of football is necessary to get a good grip on coaching and while there might be a handful of great players who went on to succeed as managers such as Pep Guardiola and Zinedine Zidane there are others who defied the odds.

Atletico Madrid manager Diego Simeone and ex-PSG boss Mauricio Pochettino enjoyed fairly respectable playing careers in football.

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But a few others played professional football but in the lower tiers yet reached the zenith of coaching success.

Sports Brief takes a look at the top three managers who did not have spectacular playing careers but have turned the tables around to become hugely successful coaches.

Jurgen Klopp

In no particular order, we begin our quest in unfurling managers who did not have glittering playing careers with Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp.

The 55-year-old spent most of his playing career at Mainz 05 in the lower tiers in Germany. He was initially deployed as a striker but was later moved to defence.

He once said that as a player he felt more suited to a managerial role, describing himself saying "I had fourth-division feet and a first-division head," via Wikipedia.

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Since hanging his boots in 2001, Klopp has risen to be one of the most respected football brains in the modern era.

The affable German tactician has won virtually every competition he has participated in - Champions League, Bundesliga and the Premier League just to mention a few.

He may be under fire currently at Anfield owing to their poor performances being churned out by his 'mentality monsters' but the proponent of the famous gegenpressing is held in high esteem by his peers.

Jose Mourinho

Unquestionably, the biggest name on the list - Jose Mourinho, affectionately called the 'Special One'.

After a relatively lifeless playing career in Portugal, Mourinho delved into coaching initially as an interpreter and then as an assistant manager before growing into a fully-fledged tactician.

Spending brief stints with Benfica and União de Leiria, the 60-year-old took the world by storm when his FC Porto stunned Sir Alex Ferguson's Manchester United.

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His feat at Old Trafford proved the catalyst for what will be the beginning of a trophy-laden coaching career.

Noted for his pragmatic approach to games, excellent game management and supreme tactical acumen, Jose is one of the most successful managers in football.

Currently, at AS Roma, Mourinho is seeking to rediscover his once-feared status having already won the UEFA Europa Conference League with the Giallorossi.

Thomas Tuchel

The youngest on the list, Tuchel moved from a barman to a coach in the German top flight in just nine years, per Bundesliga.

A defender by trade, the former Chelsea manager was forced to call time on his playing career due to a serious knee injury at the age of 24 in 1998.

He then switched to academia before trying his hands at coaching via understudy roles before blossoming at Mainz, taking a leaf from Klopp's book.

The tactically astute German has since managed Dortmund, Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea with varied degrees of success.

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He is presently unattached but will certainly get a suitor owing to his tremendous and in-depth knowledge of the game.

Guardiola's prodigies turning heads

In a separate article, Sports Brief reported that Pep Guardiola has mastered the art of coaching in the same way Stephen Curry has mastered the art of hitting three-pointers from downtown, or how Novak Djokovic has mastered the art of 'return of serve.'

In the 14 seasons he has been in management, the Spanish manager has won 10 league titles in three different countries.

It is no surprise that he is regarded as one of the greatest coaches ever - the GOAT of coaches whose only undoing is not winning the Champions League without Lionel Messi.