Every Former Barcelona Player to Become Manager & How They Fared

Ronald Koeman is the 25th former Barcelona player to be named club coach, with the Catalan giants often turning to those who have pulled on the famous blue and red stripes to lead the team.

Koeman achieved plenty as a player at Camp Nou but has his work cut out if he is to turn around a club in disarray following a disappointing 2019/20 and in need of a complete reset.

Here’s a look at every former player Barcelona have hired as head coach and how each has fared.

Jack Greenwell

As Player: 1912 -1916

As Coach: 1913 - 1923, 1931 - 193

Englishman Jack Greenwell is recognised as the first full-time Barcelona coach in the club’s history, having first become a player-coach in 1913. He retired from playing in 1916 and remained in charge until 1923, before returning for a second spell from 1931 to 1933.

The club won two Copa del Rey trophies under Greenwell.

Roma Forns

As Player: 1903 -1913

As Coach: 1927 – 1929

Barcelona had always been managed by foreigners – an Austrian, a Hungarian and several Englishmen – until city native Roma Forns tooks the reins in the late 1920s.

Forns had been one of Barça’s earliest players, joining in 1903, while his two-year stint as coach, which had been a request from the squad, yielded the club’s first La Liga title. Between playing and coaching, he had also been on the board of directors.

Franz Platko

As Player: 1923 -1930

As Coach: 1934 - 1935, 1955 - 1956

Hungarian import Franz Platko played for Barcelona during Forns’ successful and was part of the side that won La Liga and three Copa del Rey trophies.

Platko, a goalkeeper as a player, returned as coach himself in the 1930s. He won a Catalan Championship in that spell, but his second in the 1950s ended when he was sacked.

Josep Planas

As Player: 1921 -1927

As Coach: 1939 - 1941

Barcelona turned to another former player from the 1920s when Josep Planas was chosen to lead the team in 1939. He was considered an innovator when it came to training and is credited as the first Barça coach to actively changing training methods.

Overall, Planas’ managerial career spanned over 30 years until the early 1960s.

Ramon Guzman

As Player: 1928 -1935

As Coach: 1941 - 1942

Ramon Guzman was a league champion with Barcelona as a player in the late 1920s and stayed until midway through the following decade, before getting the call to return as coach in 1941.

Guzman’s time in charge was less successful than his spell as a player and he was sacked after only half a season. He later tragically died in 1954 aged just 47 when he collapsed during a ‘legends’ game at Barça’s old Les Corts stadium.

Joan Josep Nogues

As Player: 1930 -1936, 1939 - 1941

As Coach: 1941 - 1944

Joan Josep Nogues played for Barcelona both before and after the Spanish Civil War and was initially asked to take over as player-manager when he was appointed head coach.

Under Nogues’ leadership, Barça won the Copa del Rey but were also almost relegated. He later had a long association with Gimnastic and also briefly managed Espanyol.

Josep Samitier

As Player: 1919 -1932

As Coach: 1944 - 1947

Josep Samitier was a key member of Barcelona’s first golden side of the 1920s, which the team’s 2020/21 home kit pays tribute to. He won Barça’s first La Liga as a player during that period and later delivered only the club’s second Spanish title when he returned as coach.

Samitier’s spell in charge kickstarted the club’s second golden era of success. In a later position as head scout he was responsible for bringing Hungarian forward Laszlo Kubala to the club.

Enrique Fernandez

As Player: 1935 -1936

As Coach: 1947 - 1950

Building on the foundations laid by predecessor Samitier, Enrique Fernandez won back-to-back La Liga titles as Barcelona coach in 1947/48 and 1948/49, the first Barça to win two league trophies.

A former Uruguay international who played for the club in mid-1930s, Fernandez was also the first South American coach in Barça’s history.

Ramon Llorens

As Player: 1928 -1936

As Coach: 1950

Despite a limited career as second choice goalkeeper behind the aforementioned Nogues and only a short stint as coach, Ramon Llorens is celebrated in Barcelona history.

Besides playing and managing, Llorens also served the club as a trainer and scout. He was also the sixth successive Barça boss between 1940 and 1950 to have previously played for the club.

Domenec Balmanya

As Player: 1935 -1937, 1941 - 1944

As Coach: 1956 - 1958

Domenec Balmanya was a Copa del Rey winner as a Barça player in the early 1940s, his second spell with the club, and was tasked with managing the team just over a decade later.

Balmanya repeated his achievement as a player and delivered the Copa del Rey as coach.

Luis Miro

As Player: 1939 -1943

As Coach: 1961 - 1962

After Balmanya left in 1958, former teammate Luis Miro was Barcelona’s fifth new coach in three years when he was appointed at Camp Nou in 1961.

Unfortunately for the retired goalkeeper, his spell as manager was a difficult one and he resigned the position after only 13 games in charge.

Laszlo Kubala

As Player: 1951 - 1961

As Coach: 1962 - 1963, 1980

Club legend Laszlo Kubala took over as Barcelona coach in 1962 fresh from retiring as a player the year before and initially being handed control of the youth team.

The naturalised Hungarian refugee was Barça’s second all-time top scorer at the time of his retirement, but he was sacked as coach after 14 months without a trophy. Kubala had a further five-month spell at the held in 1980.

Josep Gonzalvo

As Player: 1944 - 1950

As Coach: 1963

Josep Gonzalvo enjoyed great success as a Barcelona player in the late 1940s, winning three La Liga titles, during which time he played alongside his younger brother, Maria.

Gonzalvo replaced Kubala on a short-term basis in the second half of the 1962/63 season and won the Copa del Rey. He didn’t extend his stay beyond that.

Cesar Rodriguez

As Player: 1939 - 1955

As Coach: 1963 - 1964

Until Lionel Messi, Cesar Rodriguez was Barcelona’s all-time top goalscorer for 57 years. He was a Pichichi Trophy winner and a five-time La Liga champion, before turning his hand to coaching and making his name in charge of Real Zaragoza.

Cesar was hired by Barça in 1963 but was sacked only a few games into his second season.

Salvador Artigas

As Player: 1932 - 1933

As Coach: 1967 - 1969

Salvador Artigas only briefly played for Barcelona at the very start of his career and actually spent much of his time win France with the likes of Le Mans and Rennes.

The latter is where he started his managerial career, before returning home to Barcelona and taking charge in 1967. He won a Copa Del Rey by beating Real Madrid in the final.

Josep Seguer

As Player: 1942 - 1957

As Coach: 1969 - 1970

Joesep Seguer was only very briefly in charge as Barcelona coach for 11 games in the second half of the 1969/70 season, after which he became assistant to English manager Vic Buckingham.

A full-back, Seguer is more revered for his time as a Barça player, which spanned 15 years from 1942 when he made his debut for the first-team. He was a five-time La Liga champion.

Lucien Muller

As Player: 1962 - 1965

As Coach: 1978 - 1979

In the 1970s, Barcelona moved away from hiring former players as head coach and went for big foreign imports like the aforementioned Buckingham and Dutchman Rinus Michels.

Lucien Muller, a Barça midfielder in the 1960s, got the gig in 1978 after making an impression elsewhere in Spain. He lasted less than one season but remains the club’s only French boss.

Joaquim Rife

As Player: 1963 - 1976

As Coach: 1979 - 1980

When Muller was sacked late in the 1978/79 season, Barcelona-born Joaquim Rife was tasked with leading the club to Cup Winners’ Cup glory. He did exactly that but poor form the following season saw him replaced before the end of the following season.

The former captain was La Liga champion as a player and won two Copa del Rey titles.

Jose Luis Romero

As Player: 1970 - 1971

As Coach: 1983

With only a short time as a Barcelona player, Jose Luis Romero had an even shorter time as coach between high profile appointments of Udo Lattek and Cesar Menotti.

Romero’s spell in charge lasted all of a single game, before taking over Barcelona B.

Carles Rexach

As Player: 1965 - 1981

As Coach: 1988, 1991, 1996, 2001 - 2002

Carles Rexach has served Barcelona in various capacities over the last 60 years, winning La Liga as part of a legendary side in the early 1970s and later having four spells as head coach.

Three of those periods were as interim boss, immediately before and after former teammate Johan Cruyff’s tenure, but Rexach got the job full-time in 2001. He had already served as assistant to Luis Aragones and Cruyff and was later employed as technical director.

Johan Cruyff

As Player: 1973 - 1978

As Coach: 1988 – 1996

A superstar signing as a player in the 1970s when the first Dutch revolution swept Barcelona, Johan Cruyff was responsible for building the ‘Dream Team’ when he returned as coach in 1988. He pulled the club out of a difficult period and transformed them into European champions within four years

Cruyff was a central figure in the rise of La Masia and promoted youth. His influence and legacy is still felt at the club today and all players are taught to play in the style he preached.

Pep Guardiola

As Player: 1990 - 2001

As Coach: 2008 - 2012

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Barcelona once more found themselves lured to high-profile foreign imports. But that changed when they installed Pep Guardiola as coach following one year in charge of Barcelona B.

Guardiola oversaw the second explosion of La Masia talent, winning a treble in his first season and pushing Barça to become arguably the best club side of all time in the years that followed.

Luis Enrique

As Player: 1996 - 2004

As Coach: 2014 - 2017

Although signed from Real Madrid in the mid-1990s, Luis Enrique became ingrained in Barcelona history during his playing career and was chosen as manager in 2014.

Rather like former teammate Guardiola, Enrique won a La Liga, Copa del Rey and Champions League treble in his very first season. He resigned at the end of his three-year contract in 2017 and later took charge of the Spanish national team.

Ernesto Valverde

As Player: 1988 - 1990

As Coach: 2017 - 2020

Ernesto Valverde was a bit-part forward for Barcelona under the management of Johan Cruyff and was more famous as a player for Espanyol and Athletic Bilbao. He had spells in charge of both clubs, before Barcelona called upon him to replace Enrique in 2017.

Valverde oversaw continued domestic dominance but a lack of progress saw pressure build and he was sacked in January 2020 with Barça on course for a third straight league title.

Ronald Koeman

As Player: 1989 -1995

As Coach: 2020 - present

Ronald Koeman is arguably the greatest goalscoring defender of all time and holds a special place in Barcelona history as a member of the ‘Dream Team’ and scorer of the only goal in the 1992 European Cup final.

His success as a coach has been mixed, with a spell at Everton ending in disaster. His time in charge of the Dutch national team has somewhat restored his reputation, although there are already doubts over his long-term Barça future ahead of next year’s presidential election.

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