Carlo Ancelotti – 5 titles
Nobody has won the Champions League more times as a manager than Carlo Ancelotti. The Italian lifted the trophy with AC Milan in 2003 and 2007 before adding three more with Real Madrid in 2014, 2022 and 2024. Five titles across two clubs, six finals entered. He is in a category of his own.
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Zinedine Zidane – 3 titles
Zidane achieved something nobody else has managed in the Champions League era – three consecutive titles. Real Madrid won in 2016, 2017 and 2018 under the Frenchman, who also won the competition as a player with the same club. A manager who made history look effortless.
Pep Guardiola – 3 titles
Guardiola won his first two titles with Barcelona in 2009 and 2011 before waiting 12 years for a third, finally lifting it with Manchester City in 2023 as part of an historic treble. He is one of only seven managers to have won it with two different clubs.
Bob Paisley – 3 titles
Paisley’s three European Cup titles with Liverpool between 1977 and 1981 remain one of the most remarkable managerial achievements in the competition’s history. He is the only manager to win it three times in the pre-Champions League era – a record that stood for decades.
Luis Enrique – 2 titles
Enrique won his first with Barcelona in 2015 and his second a decade later with PSG in 2025, ending the French club’s long wait for continental glory with a 5-0 demolition of Inter Milan in Munich.
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Jose Mourinho – 2 titles
Two titles with two different clubs. Porto in 2004 as rank outsiders. Inter Milan in 2010 completing an Italian treble. Mourinho’s two Champions League wins remain among the greatest managerial achievements in the competition’s history.
Sir Alex Ferguson – 2 titles
Ferguson won it with Manchester United in 1999 – the famous comeback against Bayern Munich – and again in 2008 on penalties against Chelsea in Moscow. The greatest manager in English football history, surprisingly, won it only twice.
Jupp Heynckes, Ottmar Hitzfeld and Ernst Happel – 2 titles each
Three managers who won the competition with two different clubs. Heynckes with Real Madrid in 1998 and Bayern in 2013. Hitzfeld with Dortmund in 1997 and Bayern in 2001. Happel with Feyenoord in 1970 and Hamburg in 1983 – the only manager on this list to win it across two different decades.
Photo: REUTERS/Hannah Mckay
