To commemorate its 50-year anniversary, Paris Saint-Germain held a vote to decide on who is the club’s all-time greatest manager. The club has had several managers who orchestrated multiple trophy-winning seasons, including Laurent Blanc and Luis Fernandez. But in the end, current Everton manager Carlo Ancelotti won the honor with both Blanc and Fernandez placing second and third respectively.
The final vote was a shock to some as Ancelotti finished his PSG career with just one trophy win over two years. Even Ancelotti was relatively surprised to hear that he won the honor. While he was one influential figure in PSG’s success over the last decade, there were a couple of other managers in the club’s history that one could make the argument that they had a better case over Ancelotti for this vote.
Ancelotti recently spoke to France Football about the vote and his general feelings about winning the honor.
“First, I was surprised because I didn’t spend a lot of time in Paris,” Ancelotti said. “Then, it’s a great honor to know that I left this mark in people’s hearts. Quite honestly, it was a great time. The second season, we won the title and were eliminated by Barça in the quarterfinals of the Champions League without losing. But I was surprised to be chosen among others who brought a lot to the club such as Laurent Blanc, Thomas Tuchel, Artur Jorge, Luis Fernandez.”
Ancelotti certainly has won more illustrious trophies over his career than the names that he mentioned. But when it comes to the impact left on PSG, one could see that those names had more of a winning influence on the team than Ancelotti did.
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To me it’s absolutely Luis Fernandez
Yeah, definitely not PSG’s greatest manager in terms of what he’s done for the club, but I think definitely the best manager we’ve had in terms of how good he actually is. I wish he’d been with us longer.