Europe's ultimate 'go-to' national-team coaches
Tuesday, May 9, 2017
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Dick Advocaat is taking charge of the Netherlands for a third time, and Aleksandrs Starkovs has begun his third spell as Latvia boss. Which other coaches have not been able to get enough of their national teams?
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Dick Advocaat has taken the Netherlands reins for a third time, while Aleksandrs Starkovs and Fatih Terim are also hoping third time will be lucky with their national teams. UEFA.com meets the international bosses who had the most spells in charge of their teams.
10: Stoyan Ormandzhiev (Bulgaria: 1950–53, 1953, 1954–55, 1956–57, 1957–60, 1972, 1974, 1974–75, 1976, 1977)
7: Hristo Mladenov (Bulgaria: 1972–73, 1973, 1973–74, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1986–87)
The status of national-team coaches in Bulgarian football up until the 1980s was confusing; with fixtures infrequent, coaches often changed on a game-by-game basis, with the squad under the overall control of a national-team committee. Stoyan Ormandzhiev's ten stints, however, involved a national-record 77 games. Trained in the Soviet Union, he steered his side to Olympic bronze in Melbourne in 1956. He died, aged 86, in 2006.
5: Karl Gudmundsson (Iceland: 1954–56, 1959, 1961, 1963–65, 1966)
A sports teacher, Karl Gudmundsson had no access to specialist football training in Iceland so went abroad in search of knowledge in the late 1940s, his trip taking in Chelsea and Arsenal as well as a sojourn in Germany. The one-time Fram Rejkyavík defender put what he had learned into practice in five goes as Iceland coach, and he also led Lillestrøm and Sandefjord in Norway. He passed away in 2012.
4: Loro Boriçi (Albania: 1957–63, 1965–72, 1976, 1981)
4: Valeriy Lobanovskiy (Soviet Union: 1975–76, 1982–83, 1986–90, Ukraine: 2000–01)
4: Rinus Michels (Netherlands: 1974, 1984–85, 1986–88, 1990–92)
4: Angelo Niculescu (Romania: 1967, 1967–71, 1971–72, 1972–73)
4: Vittorio Pozzo (Italy: 1912, 1921, 1924, 1929–48)
4: Ivan Radoev (Bulgaria: 1939, 1942, 1947, 1950)
4: Nikita Simonyan (Soviet Union: 1963, 1964, 1977–79, 1988)
4: Valentin Stănescu (Romania: 1964, 1971, 1973–75, 1980–81)
4: Emerich Vogl (Romania: 1943–45, 1947, 1947–1948, 1950–52)
Current coaches who are in their third spells in charge
3: Dick Advocaat (Netherlands: 1992–94, 2002–04, 2017–)
3: Aleksandrs Starkovs (Latvia: 2001–04, 2007–13, 2017–)
3: Fatih Terim (Turkey: 1993–96, 2005–09, 2013–)