England and Brazil have broken their general trends of appointing home managers by bringing in Thomas Tuchel (left) and Carlo Ancelotti (right). | Photo Credit: Reuters, AP

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

At a quick glance, the managerial talent pool for the ongoing 2026 World Cup – the biggest in history – is stacked with star quality. Upon introspection, however, it will also point towards national federations increasingly opting for a club football approach in looking outwards to acquire the services of the best possible candidates.

With a bloated World Cup which saw the number of teams expand to 48, 26 will have foreign head coaches i.e. more than half the teams. In 2022, there were just nine out of 32. Since 2025, 10 teams replaced their native coaches with foreign imports, including the likes of England and Brazil, in the lead-up to the World Cup.

The trend of importing overseas head coaches, though, is not a new phenomenon. In the inaugural edition in 1930, four teams arrived in Uruguay with foreign head coaches. 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 in World Cups, there remains a clamour for nations to seek them out in search of a quick fix.

Even a country such as England, which has a rich history in football, does not have a big supply line of top quality head coaches. At the start of the 2025-26 Premier League season, only three out of 20 teams had English coaches or managers, but none of them remained in their jobs at the end of the season.

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While the Premier League is regarded as the biggest league in the world, the English coaching system, unfortunately, has been 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 way back to 1984.

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

After the Football Association’s decision to hire Tuchel, Chief Executive Mark Bullingham said, “I think any federation in the world that is looking to hire a senior manager, clearly you would love to have five to 10 domestic candidates who are coaching clubs in your domestic league, challenging and winning honours in your domestic league and European football. We are not quite in that place at the moment.”

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

The  Selecao have tried eight head coaches since its 2002 triumph without tasting success, leading to the hiring of Ancelotti as its first head coach, who is not Brazilian. When Ancelotti was announced, the Brazilian federation labelled the Italian, who has won five Champions League titles in a decorated career, the “greatest coach in history.”

Brazil’s archrival, Argentina, however, is yet to break the tradition in its 105-year history. While the 2026 edition will be the first time a Brazilian will not man the touchline, there will be six Argentinians, including Lionel Scaloni, who will set out to defend the title with his native side.

Apart from Brazil, five of the other South American qualifiers for this World Cup will be managed by an Argentine. The tournament co-host USA, too, has sprung for a high-profile Argentine in Mauricio Pochettino.

The other nations who will be widely represented in coaching roles in this World Cup are France (5), Spain and Italy (3). Since 2016, the nationalities of the Champions League – regarded as the biggest club competition in football – winning managers are France, Spain, Germany and Italy. But among them, only Ancelotti and Tuchel will be leading teams out at the World Cup, while Zinedine Zidane is set to take over from Didier Deschamps after this summer.

International tournament experience is also a highly sought-after attribute for teams regarded in the ‘mid table’ spectrum of World Cups. Ghana sacked its fresh-faced, home-grown coach in March this year owing to poor results and installed Carlos Queiroz, a veteran of four World Cups, but with underwhelming results.

Tunisia, after its opening game hammering against Sweden, discarded Sabri Lamouchi, who was appointed only six months ago and replaced him with his compatriot Herve Renard. Renard, who also managed Morocco in the 2018 World Cup, masterminded Saudi Arabia’s famous win over Argentina in 2022.

There’s a prevailing notion behind the quadrennial World Cup that it is a stage to pit a country’s best available resources against another. But as we approach the centenary year of the competition, the idea is rapidly dissolving. Despite this trend, the biggest favourites to win the title this year remain Spain and France, followed by Argentina, teams with home-grown coaches. 

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

Published on Jun 16, 2026