Great Players Who Failed As Coaches: Rooney, Maradona, Lampard, and Others

Most football club coaches have been players during their youth days, and most people see coaching as one of the retirement plans for active players. However, being a good player will not necessarily make you a good coach when clubs come knocking. With this, this article examines some beautiful players to watch during their playing days but couldn’t give the fans joy in the dugout.

Wayne Rooney remains the all-time scorer for Manchester United with 253 goals. He was also the all-time goal scorer for England, scoring 53 goals in 120 international caps before Harry Kane broke the record. Nobody will argue that Rooney was a great player during his playing days. He won many trophies for Manchester United, including the Champions League, Premier League, and the FIFA Club World Cup. However, he has continually battled with life as a manager. He spent 152 days coaching Birmingham, D.C. United and Derby County.

Edgar Davids was a successful player in his playing days, earning both team and individual honors. He won the Champions League with Ajax, the UEFA Cup, and the Super Cup. He was also a three-time Italian champion, a one-time Italian Cup winner, an Italian Super Cup winner, a three-time Dutch champion, a two-time Dutch Cup winner, a Dutch Super Cup winner, and an Intercontinental Cup winner, among other lists of honors.

However, transitioning to management wasn’t as nice as expected. On 11 October 2012, Davids became player-manager of League 2 side Barnet but suffered a 4-1 loss on his debut. He had to resign from this position after his poor performance. In 2019, he coached Olhanense but had a bad spell with the team and was sacked.

Frank Lampard was a fantastic all-time scorer for Chelsea with 211 goals and is mostly considered the best Chelsea player ever. He is also one of the best players in the history of the Premier League. Lampard won the Premier League Player of the Year award three times, Premier League Player of the Month four times, and Premier League Player of the Season once. Frank won three Premier League titles, four FA Cups, two League Cups, the UEFA Champions League and the Europa League.

Before moving to Chelsea, he started his coaching career with Derby County in 2018-19. He performed below par with the Blues. Chelsea sacked him before he joined Everton, where he won only 12 matches out of 44 matches in all competitions before he was sacked again.

Bobby Charlton was a fantastic player and an unforgettable legend for England. He won the World Cup with England in 1966 and the Ballon d'Or in the same year. He has 249 goals and was England's all-time top scorer for 40 years before Wayne Rooney broke the record in 2017 but remained third on the list. He left the Red Devil to manage Preston North End as a player-coach in the 1973-74 season but relegated the club in his first season. He returned to playing after that.

Diego Maradona, an Argentine legend and 1986 World Cup winner, was a fantastic player who single-handedly won the World Cup for his country, scoring five goals in seven games. He also won a series of titles for clubs and country and many individual awards.

Many people thought his personality as one of the best players to have ever kicked the ball would influence his managerial career, but the reverse was the case. He started his managerial career alongside Carlos Fren in 1994 with Deportivo Mandiyú before moving to Racing Club the following year. He had a lot of breaks before returning to the dugout to manage the Argentine national team between 2008 and 2010, with nothing to show. After that, he managed several other clubs like Dubai club Al Wasl FC (May 11, 2011 – July 10, 2012), Argentine club Deportivo Riestra (2013-2017), UAE second division side Fujairah (2017), Mexican second division side Dorados (2018) and Gimnasia de La Plata (2019), in all these teams, he was sacked due to poor results and will go down in history that despite being one of the greatest footballers ever, Maradona couldn’t make a success as a coach.

The English media and ex-players opposed Thomas Tuchel's appointment. When Southgate stepped down, the likes of Rooney and Lampard were not even considered for the role of head coach of the England National Team. However, just after Thomas Tuchel took over, England was already the third favorite to win the 2026 World Cup with 9.00 odds.