25 Terry Venables

Terry Venables or 'el Tel' began his club management career with Crystal Palace as a former England international footballer. He was an immediate success at Crystal Palace, guiding them from third division obscurity to the top flight in three years. The team he fashioned was labelled 'the team of the 80s' towards the end of his tenure as it appeared to have tremendous potential and was predicted it may dominate English football in the 80s due to its talent and relative youth. However, Venables left to manage QPR after guiding Palace to a mid-table finish in 1980. While Palace's fortunes went into decline without Venables, QPR won promotion to the top flight and managed to reach the FA cup final as a second tier team under Venables. He guided QPR to 5th in the top flight and managed to qualify for the UEFA cup. Having achieved such success with two small clubs, Venables secured a move to Barcelona and immediately shook things up by selling Maradona and purchasing Gary Lineker. He was successful in Spain, managing to win Barcelona their first league championship in over a decade, the Spanish cup and reaching the European cup final in the same year. The immediate progress under Venables wasn't maintained and he was sacked. A six year spell in charge of Tottenham Hotspur resulted in an FA cup win, the creation of a team full of flair in the form of Glenn Hoddle, Chris Waddle, Paul Gascoigne and Gary Lineker but also demonstrated a lack of strength in depth and defensive frailties. His Spurs side was, however, true to the Spurs tradition of playing passing, stylish football as embodied by Nicholson's push and run team and Venables was very popular with supporters. He managed to finish third in the top flight but was later sacked over alleged financial 'irregularities' and spent much of the rest of the 90s managing England (94-96), fighting the damage done to his reputation by allegations of financial impropriety and moving from club to club in a variety of roles without clear direction. His England tenure was widely considered a success, though England lost the 1996 European championship semi-finals on penalties to Germany - again. Highlights included a magnificent 4-1 victory against a demoralised Holland, a classic goal by Gascoigne against Scotland and a memorable penalty shoot-out victory against Spain in which Stuart 'psycho' Pearce scored from the spot and exorcised his personal demons relating to his infamous 1990 shoot-out miss against Germany, which had cost England a place in the world cup final. Tony Adams, who played for George Graham, Bobby Robson, Graham Taylor, Glenn Hoddle and Arsene Wenger described Venables as "the best coach I have ever played for." Despite a disasterous period at Leeds, Venables will be remembered as a fine coach and manager of immense promise and early success who never quite realised his potential as a winner of silverware, despite spells at clubs as large as Barcelona, Tottenham Hotspur and Leeds United.

British league champions: 0
Foreign league champions: 1
European cup: 0