FIFA’s coach of the year award needs better balance of nominees

Nominees for FIFA’s coach of the year award prove that there needs to be a better balance of candidates for it to truly mean anything.

The World Cup provided us with some valuable lessons. One was the drastic differences in style and priorities between clubs and national teams. The club versus country debate has raged on for decades. It continues to this day in the form of Tuesday’s FIFA coach of the year nominations.

Take a good look at the nominees. What do you notice?

This is a list with a healthy dose of national team managers. It’s only natural in a World Cup year. But the club-country debate also creates uneasy comparisons. This is a list where most who are on it deserve to be. There are some who don’t (more on that later) and a few who are missing.

Let’s start with the two who are most-deserving and probably the favorites for the prize: Pep Guardiola of Manchester City and Zinedine Zidane of Real Madrid. Both have changed the way the game is played (most of that credit goes to Guardiola) and both had record-setting seasons. Nonetheless, the edge goes to Guardiola for the stellar season he had at Manchester City during the 2017-18 campaign.

There’s also a lopsided love given to managers at this World Cup (of the 11 nominees, five featured at Russia 2018). While it’s natural to give these men some love when most ignore national team managers most years, it remains difficult to determine who’s most deserving of the award.

Based only on success on the field, the award should go to Didier Deschmaps. After all, France won the World Cup and Deschamps is now just the third person to win the trophy as both a player and a manager. Based on exceeding expectations, however, then one has to go with Zlatko Dalic of Croatia, Gareth Southgate of England or Stanislav Cherchesov of Russia.

Overall, the list could have been more creative. Why aren’t there any national team or club managers from South America on this list? It’s surprising FIFA managed to ignore the continent altogether and focus instead on the big-money clubs and the four World Cup semifinalists (and Russia).

Where is Gremio coach Renato Portaluppi, who led the team to the Copa Libertadores title last November and the FIFA World Club Cup final? What about former Napoli coach Maurizio Sarri (now at Chelsea), Diego Simeone (Atletico Madrid) or Tite (Brazil)?

Next: Sampaoli departure changes little for Argentina

The winner will be chosen from a combination of factors: captains of all national teams (25 percent), head coaches of all national teams (25 percent), a public fan ballot on FIFA.com where you can only vote once (25 percent) and from a panel of 200 journalists (25 percent). The winner of The Best FIFA Football Awards will be announced, along with best men’s and women’s player as well as women’s coach, on Sept. 24 at a ceremony in London.

Even The Guardian‘s Simon Burnton had some fun at the expense of these awards, writing: “The winner will be presented with a platinum-plated prize at a ceremony this September, ludicrously entitled The Best FIFA Football Awards, presumably to differentiate it from The Bang Average FIFA Football Awards, which attract slightly less hype.”

Unfortunately, there isn’t a write-in option for coach of the year. None of these candidates should be pitted against one another. Maybe break it into two categories: one featuring club managers, the other national team ones. That would be an apples-to-apples comparison despite what one might think of the nominees as a whole.

Instead, we’re left with a very flawed list and a convoluted process with no explanation of how the nominees were even chosen. No one will likely remember who won this award a decade from now. What they will remember are the managers who left their mark on the game. For that, you don’t need an award from FIFA.