Ranking Every Bundesliga Manager From Worst To First In 2025/26

The Bundesliga is entering 2025/26 with one of its most unpredictable managerial lineups in years. Proven, elite coaches are rare. This is a league now led by cult heroes like Steffen Baumgart at Union Berlin and rising tacticians like Bo Henriksen at Mainz.

While clubs like Bayern Munich and, presumably, Bayer Leverkusen aim for titles, most teams are betting on energy, identity, and upside over big names.

In this ranking, we evaluate every Bundesliga manager from worst to first based on tactical quality, squad fit, and realistic expectations. It’s a season where reputations will be made—or broken—from the dugout.

18. Lukas Kwasniok, Koln

A decent enough coach for SC Paderborn, Lukas Kwasniok has no real successful track record as a manager. He’s never coached in the Bundesliga, and he could never quite bring Paderborn over the hump and into the top flight. He’s a real wild card.

17. Ole Werner, RB Leipzig

The Timo Werner jokes write themselves, but there’s really not much to say about Ole Werner. He surely can’t be anywhere near as bad as Jesse Marsch, but he takes the Leipzig job over with perhaps the most barren resume of any recent hire by a club that was once managed in succession by Ralf Rangnick and Julian Nagelsmann as they ascended to regular Champions League status.

Well, Leipzig missed out on the Champions League last season, so there’s really nowhere else for them to go but up under Werner. He produced some fine attacking moments at Werder Bremen with Marvin Ducksch and Niclas Fullkrug at his disposal, so it will be interesting to see what he does with the trio of Johan Bakayoko, Antonio Nusa, and the criminally underappreciated Lois Openda.

16. Horst Steffen, Werder Bremen

Of the myriad of new hires this summer, Horst Steffen is easily the most uninspiring. He hasn’t been a relevant manager at the Bundesliga level since the 90s, when he reached two DFB Pokal Finals, and although he did some nice work with Elvesberg at the lower levels and nearly brought them all the way up to the Bundesliga this season, he won’t bring anything new to the table for Werder Bremen.

15. Paul Simonis, Wolfsburg

If there’s one thing you can count on, it’s for Wolfsburg to continually mire in mediocrity. Ever since Kevin De Bruyne’s departure, Wolfsburg have been comfortably average, barring one Wout Weghorst-fueled season, and Paul Simonis is unlikely to change that.

At least he has silverware on his record, having just won the KNVB Cup in the Netherlands for the Go Ahead Eagles. While that was quite the coup, his side finished a mere seventh in the Dutch top flight, and he’s probably not the right guy to turn things around in Wolfsburg.

14. Christian Ilzer, Hoffenheim

Austrian manager Christian Ilzer was a revelation in his home country for powerhouse Sturm Graz, turning them into the most dominant side in the Austrian Bundesliga with a domestic double before moving to, technically, one of the Bundesliga’s richest clubs.

Ilzer has somehow kept his job despite an inordinate amount of turmoil and a rather disastrous 2024/25 campaign that nearly cost them their biggest club legend, Andrej Kramaric.

But Ilzer did keep Hoffenheim afloat, and he has achieved big things in the past at previous stops. He has a lot to prove this season and is on a short leash, but he is more proven than the names behind him on this list.

13. Merlin Polzin, Hamburg

Bounced around between assistant and caretaker manager during the 2024/25 season, Merlin Polzin eventually settled into the post permanently and fully earned it by the end of the season, as he’ll forever be the answer to the trivia question of which manager brought the Bundesliga’s Dinosaur back to the top flight. And for that reason alone, he escapes the bottom five despite having no real coaching resume otherwise.

12. Gerardo Seoane, Borussia Monchengladbach

Gerardo Seaone was honestly a disappointment at Bayer Leverkusen, as Die Werkself blossomed under Xabi Alonso after he left and eventually became the most dominant single-season side in Bundesliga history.

He’s honestly not done anything to change the narrative at Borussia Monchengladbach, and if they don’t come closer to challenging for European football next season, the Foals will probably move on.

11. Alexander Blessin, St. Pauli

Alexander Blessin somehow skated St. Pauli to safety as they finally returned to the Bundesliga for the 2024/25 season. He’s one of many unknown commodities in the Bundesliga these days, but he was once one of the best managers in the Belgian top flight, including winning a trophy for Union SG for the first time in literally more than a century, before successfully guiding St. Pauli to safety.

10. Vincent Kompany, Bayern Munich

Vincent Kompany can yell at reporters all he wants about how he’s a former champion, but you won’t see any 2. Bundesliga winners calling their first-place finish a title victory and believing that automatically merits coaching one of the three most respected clubs on the planet.

While Bayern Munich won the Bundesliga again in Kompany’s first season, they faced a very weak Bundesliga and were outclassed in several important games. Kompany has done little to show that he has the tactical acumen of a Bayern manager, and he may end up being a Niko Kovac 2.0.

9. Sandro Wagner, Augsburg

It may seem bizarre to have Sandro Wagner ranked so highly, but there’s a reason why Augsburg hired him and became the first team in the Bundesliga to give Wagner a shot at coaching in the big leagues.

He was an excellent assistant for the German national team and has a knack for working with young players. As a footballer, he was known for his high IQ and ability to relate to anyone, and you can just tell from his press conferences that he is both very personable and knowledgeable about the game.

A higher-upside hire than Vincent Kompany, Wagner getting Unterhaching promoted to the 3. Bundesliga is arguably a more impressive feat than winning the Championship with Burnley before getting embarrassed in the Premier League.

8. Erik ten Hag, Bayer Leverkusen

There’s a lot that can be said about Erik ten Hag that is far from flattering, as his reign as manager of Manchester United was a historically bad run. But it’s not like his players were performing at a high level, nor did the pressure of the media help him or his footballers.

Furthermore, Manchester United have been even worse under Ruben Amorim than Ten Hag, even if few want to admit that fact. Ten Hag was a darling manager at Ajax, and had he arrived at Bayer Leverkusen instead of Manchester United as a pit stop in between, maybe we’d still be talking about Ten Hag with admiration since his exploits with that fairytale Ajax side would be fresher in everyone’s minds.

7. Niko Kovac, Borussia Dortmund

Niko Kovac did well to turn Borussia Dortmund around, and his more defensive approach was exactly what the ill-disciplined Schwarzgelben needed to return to a top-four place and secure Champions League football.

But as with his other recent stops since coaching Bayern Munich, Kovac probably won’t last long in Dortmund. His style becomes grating, and while he’s actually a good coach, he’s not personable nor innovative enough to be more than a great stopgap.

He should be appreciated for getting Dortmund back to where they need to be, but it’s difficult envisioning a club that focuses on exciting football and developing young talents keeping him for long, especially since Dortmund have already strayed too far from their identity in recent years.

6. Julian Schuster, Freiburg

Christian Streich’s successors, Julian Schuster brought Freiburg back into fifth from 10th and was agonizingly close to securing an even less likely Champions League bid than the one Streich flirted with in back-to-back seasons a few years ago.

Schuster has to be considered one of the best young managers in the Bundesliga, and while he’ll need more than one great season to truly cement his status as a top coach in a top-five European league, he represents the next generation of German coaches that the country is crying out for.

5. Frank Schmidt, FC Heidenheim

There’s nothing quite like the cult heroes in German football, and Frank Schmidt is definitely one of them. In a Bundesliga filled with coaching turnover, Schdmit is a breath of fresh air and is by far the longest tenured manager in the country, as he’s been with Heidenheim in 2007, which is a rarity not just in modern times in Germany but in any country historically.

Schmidt never backs down from anyone, and that’s why Heidenheim were able to compete in the Conference League against clubs with bigger budgets – and why they were able to escape relegation with a clutch victory in the playoff.

4. Steffen Baumgart, Union Berlin

Steffen Baumgart is the definition of a cult hero, and the former FC Koln manager now has the task of keeping the Bundesliga’s biggest cult team, Union Berlin, in the top flight. You wouldn’t bet against him doing just that, because he’s crafted a unique legacy based around overachieving, scrapping, and clawing.

3. Dino Toppmoller, Eintracht Frankfurt

Eintracht Frankfurt pushed eventual Europa League winners Tottenham Hotspur to their limit in the quarterfinal, and while they sold their two best players in the last two transfer windows, the Eagles still reloaded with Mainz star Jonathan Burkardt joining a squad with a good mix of young talents and Bundesliga veterans (like Mario Gotze).

Dino Toppmoller is a fantastic coach to lead the way and has to be considered one of the strongest in Germay both for his sharpness tactically and his ability to work with young players.

Frankfurt are finally getting their due for being one of the best-run clubs in European football, and Toppmoller has already shown with back-to-back third-place finishes – outplaying the likes of Dortmund and RB Leipzig – that he’s the best man to run this ship.

2. Sebastian Hoeness, Stuttgart

Bayern Munich probably regret not hiring Uli Hoeness’s nephew, as Sebastian Hoeness has built on the success that saw him upset Bayern in a blowout while Hoffenheim’s manager.

After leading Stuttgart to the Champions League in the 2023/24 season and helping the likes of Deniz Undav, Chris Fuhrich, and Serhou Guirassy stand out as the most productive players in European football, Hoeness faced a more difficult challenge in the 2024/25 season with a myriad of injuries and the departures of his key players in the preceding summer transfer window.

Still, Hoeness and Stuttgart finished the season pretty well, as they were ninth, won the DFB Pokal, and developed some more serious talents in Nick Woltemade, Enzo Millot, and Angelo Stiller.

No matter what he’s dealt with, Hoeness manages to get his team to get results and, most importantly from Stuttgart’s perspective, he gets his individual players to keeping improving their own levels – and, by extension, their transfer values.

1. Bo Henriksen, Mainz

Sebastian Hoeness is the biggest up-and-coming coaching gem in the Bundesliga, yet he is just edged out by Bo Henriksen, whose achievements over the past two seasons for Mainz, a club whose goal is generally to avoid relegation, cannot be ignored.

Armed with far less talent than Stuttgart, Henriksen finished sixth last season, as Mainz were actually favored to make it to the Champions League before a late-season collapse that gave Dortmund the opening to come in behind them and secure the fourth and final Champions League slot.

It’s amazing to think that Mainz are now in European football again when, before Henriksen’s hire during the 2023/24 season, they were literally in the relegation zone. Henriksen immediately pulled them out and into 13th in his first partial season at the helm, and, now, he halved their ranking into sixth.