What is the hardest coaching job in world sport? Our reader rankings revealed

Last week, we asked: what is the hardest coaching job in world sport?

The idea was to rank the most difficult jobs regardless of who is in charge — the ones where past glories, a temperamental owner, a demanding fanbase or other aspects make a manager’s role uniquely unforgiving.

More than 5,700 readers responded to our poll. Here, our writers go through the results for the top 10 and analyse what they make of them. We also touch on the jobs which did not make the cut first time round, but which many of you thought warranted a place.

Let us know what you think of the final ranking in the comments below — and remember, it is far from definitive.

The top 10

9= Tottenham Hotspur (3.8 per cent, 222 votes)

Finishing level with the India cricket team, whose supporter base is in the billions, tells you everything you need to know about the sizeable challenge of being Tottenham head coach.

Coaches of huge pedigree, including Premier League title winners Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte, have taken the role and fallen short. Even after winning the Europa League last season, ending a 17-year trophy drought, Ange Postecoglou was fired 16 days later, having failed to prevent their worst league finish since the 1970s. His successor Thomas Frank, who tried to overhaul the playing style and culture at the north London club, was sacked within eight months.

Many have tried; many have failed. Spurs and long-term success seem to be like oil and water.

What makes it hard: Expectations

What makes it easy: Location, stadium, money

Elias Burke

9= India cricket (3.8 per cent, 222 votes)

The jobs voted ahead of India cricket head coach are to do with two key problems: the expectations of global fanbases and structural weaknesses. Manchester United and Brazil, for instance, face both.

India, on the other hand, have enjoyed plenty of recent success, winning the most recent editions of the T20 World Cup and ICC Champions Trophy. Add in the fact that cricket does not enjoy the same overwhelming popularity in any other country and the ranking is about right — although the expectations are still ferocious from a cricket-loving population of more than 1.4billion.

What makes the job hard: Expectation from huge talent pool, players seen as stars from freakishly young age

What makes it easy: Consistent advantage in terms of ability

Anantaajith Raghuraman

8. New York Yankees (4.7 per cent, 272 votes)

This ranking seems fair, especially considering recent history.

Although the job of manager of the Yankees is the most intense in Major League Baseball, lately it has come with job security. Aaron Boone, the current manager, is going into his ninth year in charge and he still has not won a World Series — a testament to the patient temperament of owner Hal Steinbrenner, who is not at all like his fiery father George.

Still, it is a job that can grind away at anybody, especially when simply winning in the regular season is not even close to enough.

What makes the job hard: Media and fan scrutiny

What makes it easy: Star players

Brendan Kuty

7. Ferrari team principal (4.7 per cent, 273 votes)

The global reach of many of the sports above Formula 1 in this ranking means greater scrutiny in those roles. But to see Ferrari in the same realm as many football national teams feels fitting given it is the de facto national team for all of Italy — contributing to much of the pressure that makes the job such a challenge.

The expectation for Ferrari, as with most of the teams on this list, is to win every single time it goes out and competes. The nature of sport means that is unrealistic, but it makes any championship drought especially painful and feel like a failure — which is costly for whoever is in the top job.

What makes the job hard: National scrutiny

What makes it easy: Deep resources, appeal to top talent

Luke Smith

Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur must contend with the weight of a nation’s expectations (David Davies/PA Images via Getty Images)

6. Brazil men’s football (5.9 per cent, 338 votes)

Readers are being a touch generous when describing the Brazil role as only the fourth hardest role in men’s football. Football may have been invented in England, but the World Cup is said to belong to record five-time winners Brazil.

This is a country of more than 200million people, who treat football as their second religion and believe they should triumph in every World Cup. Win, and you become a legend. Lose, and you are often asked to perform public penance.

What makes the job hard: Trying to bridge the gap to European national teams

What makes it easy: Deep talent pool from football-loving population

Carl Anka

5. Toronto Maple Leafs (6 per cent, 346 votes)

I mostly agree with the ranking, but would have had the Maple Leafs head coach in fourth, certainly ahead of the New York Jets.

The Leafs coach has to manage five times the number of games the Jets coach does every season, has to address the media far more often and has to deal with the pressure of playing in the biggest market in the sport.

The Leafs have become synonymous with falling short when it matters for multiple generations, leaving a long line of men who have tried but failed to change the way the team is perceived.

What makes the job hard: Past failures

What makes it easy: Never-wavering fanbase, endless resources

Joshua Kloke

4. New York Jets (11.6 per cent, 668 votes)

The funniest part about the Jets’ placement is that the majority of this list is jobs that are hard because of the pressure to win while leading a franchise that has won at a very high level. The Jets are the opposite.

In that way, their ranking seems perfect to me — if not too low. So many coaches have failed in trying to turn this franchise around. They come to New Jersey with visions of being paraded around town as a hero, the coach who finally figured it out. Only none of them do.

They are called the “Same Old Jets” for a reason.

What makes the job hard: Lack of success, meddling owner, angry and impatient fanbase

What makes it easy: Low expectations for a successful coach

Zack Rosenblatt

3. Real Madrid (12.8 per cent, 742 votes)

It is no surprise to see the Real Madrid job so high, given the unique challenge it involves.

There are many similarities with the other positions on the list — especially the demands for success and the global spotlight that comes with being Madrid coach. But they have also won a lot more significant silverware than many of the other clubs which made the top 10 — especially Manchester United and England.

Maybe that is because of the unique advantages the record 15-time European Cup/Champions League winners boast, including resources, glamour, history and power.

Or perhaps it is just that their most successful recent coaches Zinedine Zidane and Carlo Ancelotti were better suited to the job than any Manchester United manager since Sir Alex Ferguson, or any England manager since Alf Ramsey in 1966.

What makes the job hard: Powerful president, ego-filled dressing-room

What makes it easy: Winning heritage, especially in the Champions League

Dermot Corrigan

2. Manchester United (12.9 per cent, 745 votes)

For Manchester United to be considered club football’s hardest job feels about right. Madrid ran them close in our survey, but at least there is a tried and tested formula for success at the Bernabeu: sign the best players in the world, then appoint a coach who will let them get on with it.

Michael Carrick was appointed as Manchester United interim coach in January (James Fearn/Getty Images)

United, on the other hand, have lurched between meticulous tacticians and laissez-faire ‘vibes guys’ since Ferguson’s retirement after 26 years in charge in 2013, without any of them enjoying real, sustained success.

What makes the job hard: Near-impossible standard set by Ferguson

What makes it easy: Enduring allure of signing for United

Mark Critchley

1. England men’s football (15.7 per cent, 907 votes)

Perhaps it is a sign we are in a World Cup year, or perhaps it is because of the power of the ‘Impossible Job’ nickname, but the England men’s team coaching role has finished top of this poll.

Within English football, it has often been considered the hardest job of all because of the pressure, the scrutiny and the sense that the manager is trying to drive the team on a historical quest to finally win another tournament after the 1966 World Cup on home soil.

All that tension has built up over the past 60 years, to the point that it becomes the biggest burden of all — perhaps even more so given how much better England have performed in recent years. Which is why current coach Thomas Tuchel now has such a profound task this summer in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

What makes the job hard: Imbalance between Premier League and number of English players

What makes it easy: Constant improvement from English players who do make it

Jack Pitt-Brooke

Thomas Tuchel recently renewed his England deal until 2028 (Eddie Keogh – The FA/The FA via Getty Images)

Honourable mentions

Teams that were not listed in the initial article but received multiple votes in the reader survey

New York Knicks (NBA)

The Knicks’ Madison Square Garden home is known as the Mecca of basketball, yet they have gone more than 50 years without an NBA championship.

The hunger to be at the top from millions of fans brings plenty of pressure. On top of that, the Knicks have an owner in James Dolan who is a bit of wild card — he sometimes attends meetings, sits courtside at every home game and is very involved.

The franchise has spent a lot of time near the bottom of the NBA since Dolan took over in 1999, making his pursuit to shake the “bad owner” label a journey that often puts everyone on edge.

At this point, no one in New York gets credit for almost winning a title with the Knicks. It has got to be done.

James L. Edwards III

Dallas Cowboys (NFL)

The Cowboys head coach has arguably the hardest coaching job in world sport for several reasons.

No 1: Jerry Jones, the team’s owner and general manager, is so hands-on that it causes distractions no other team has to deal with on a regular basis. After a big win or tough loss, owners and general managers almost never talk with reporters while the head coach is conducting his postgame news conference. Jones does that frequently, and with a larger crowd than the one at the coach’s news conference.

Jones also conducts local radio interviews twice a week per season. Not a big deal? Jones has spoken of his love of controversy and relevancy with the Cowboys, saying: “When it gets slow, I stir that s*** up.” Not exactly an ideal environment for a head coach.

No 2: the spotlight and pressure that comes with a 30-year Super Bowl drought. The expectations are to win big almost every year, but the roster is not at a championship level every year.

And No 3: if the Cowboys eventually win another championship, the head coach is probably never going to get the credit he deserves. That will likely go to Jones and the star players before the coach, so that coach has to be on board with taking a back seat.

Jon Machota

Cleveland Browns (NFL)

Cleveland have repeatedly failed in their attempts to find the right quarterback. Since the Browns returned to the NFL in 1999, they’ve had 42 starting quarterbacks — by far the most of any team in that time. The 2023 Browns had five starting quarterbacks, the 2024 Browns had four and last season’s team had three. There have been at least three different starters 12 times in the post-1999 era.

The 2002 Browns made the playoffs, and the team didn’t qualify for the postseason again until 2020. That 2020 team won its wildcard game before being bounced, and the Browns got back to the playoffs in 2023. They’re 8-26 over the two seasons that followed, which led to the most recent coaching change.

And, though the most recent ex-head coach, Kevin Stefanski, got six years on the job, he was ultimately ousted because their biggest gamble at quarterback — the ineffective and prohibitively expensive Deshaun Watson — failed miserably.

The constant carousel at quarterback and in the head coach’s office has not helped anyone. Add in an aggressive but meddling ownership group and a pile of immature draft picks and the Browns warrant a spot here.

The next head coach, Todd Monken, is vying to be the one to end all the mess. Good luck to him.

Zac Jackson 

Todd Monken is hoping to end the churn at the Cleveland Browns (Nick Cammett/Getty Images)

Montreal Canadiens (NHL)

The most storied professional hockey franchise in the world, the Canadiens won their first Stanley Cup in 1916, before the NHL even existed.

Their 24 Stanley Cup championships equal the amount won by the next two teams on the list, the Toronto Maple Leafs (13) and Detroit Red Wings (11). And yet, they have not won a Stanley Cup since 1993, and have only made the final once since then.

But what makes the Canadiens’ coaching job truly difficult and unique is that the No 1 prerequisite is not hockey acumen, but language. The Canadiens head coach must be able to communicate with fans in both French and English.

This does not make the Canadiens unique in the world, but they are the only NHL team with this bilingual dynamic. The coach must take criticism and be ripped to shreds in both of Canada’s official languages.

Arpon Basu

Notre Dame (college football)

At Notre Dame, every win (and definitely every loss) feels like a referendum on whether or not one of college football’s most historically successful programs has been passed by in the modern age.

That is what a 38-year wait (and counting) between national titles will do for a program that has already won 11 of them, to go with seven Heisman Trophy winners and the most consensus All-Americans in the sport’s history.

Did we mention that every Notre Dame coach in modern history who is worth his whistle has either won a national championship in his third season (Ara Parseghian, Dan Devine and Lou Holtz) or played for one (Marcus Freeman and Brian Kelly)? Judgement comes quickly at college football’s only Catholic powerhouse.

Marcus Freeman heads up one of the most historic programs in college football (Matthew Huang/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

There is also the matter of winning the right way, a weight that is heavier off the field than on it. Notre Dame coaches used to say the university wanted the football program to be Alabama or Georgia on Saturdays, but Harvard or Yale the rest of the time. Notre Dame is a place where graduation rate is a statistic that gets counted alongside rushing yardage and touchdown passes.

Finding a head coach who checks all those golden boxes is a tough ask.

Pete Sampson

New Zealand (rugby union)

In some ways, the All Blacks are any coach’s dream. The talent pipeline in the country is possibly only matched by South Africa, with the sky-high level of core skills giving the nation the highest floor in the world. With that base, coaching fluid, attacking rugby union is a relatively simple task.

On the flipside, given the resources, the expectations are simple — win the Rugby World Cup. Fall short of that? Your time left in the job can be counted in months.

Ian Foster, a longtime assistant responsible for much of New Zealand’s dominance of the 2010s, did not survive a defeat in the final by South Africa in 2023.

His replacement Scott Robertson did not even make it to the World Cup after players pushed for him to be ousted following a review — he had a 74 per cent international win rate, and was the dominant club coach of his generation. His replacement has not been named.

But it would be difficult to call the job more high-pressured than South Africa — a nation with an equally rabid rugby culture, who made their way through nine coaches in 20 years before hiring two-time World Cup winner Rassie Erasmus in 2018.

For both, the imperative is to win — but unlike other jobs on this list, they have the resources to make this a fair expectation.

Jacob Whitehead

Marseille (Ligue 1, France)

The last fortnight sums up the wild volatility at the ever-dramatic Marseille.

They were eliminated from the Champions League after a disastrous 3-0 defeat by Club Brugge, conceded a stoppage-time equaliser to draw 2-2 with Paris FC, comfortably beat Rennes 3-0 and were then humiliated 5-0 by Paris Saint-Germain in Le Classique, considered to be the fiercest rivalry in French football.

Marseille fans are notoriously passionate (Eric Verhoeven/Soccrates/Getty Images)

Head coach Roberto De Zerbi departed following that defeat, his announcement coming at 2.35am local time last Wednesday.

De Zerbi was Marseille’s 35th manager since the turn of the century — without counting a further six who took the job on a caretaker basis. The longest serving manager during that period was now-France coach Didier Deschamps, who lasted three years from 2009 to 2012.

Following De Zerbi’s exit, Marseille threw away another 2-0 lead against Strasbourg, again conceding an equaliser in stoppage time. Sporting director Medhi Benatia then announced his resignation on his social media channels. Two days later, Marseille said Benatia would in fact stay until the end of the season and, shortly afterwards, their former player and Senegal international Habib Beye was announced as De Zerbi’s successor.

That is how things seem to go at Marseille, where it is never dull but never easy either.

Tom Burrows