A coach coaches and a manager manages…duh

Long story short, the difference is the role within the club. The coach trains the team, picks the line-up, defines the tactics, etc, all things related to the actual football. The manager does that and on top of that has a broader role within the club, which can vary: finances, relation to the owners/sporting director, etc.

Honestly, 90% of seasoned fans use both terms interchangeably and have no idea of a difference between the 2.

I wouldn’t worry about it too much outside of the answers previously given to you.

oh, the manager and coach roles can vary a lot depending on the club and league. some clubs have strong presidents or sporting directors who are also influential. it’s not always clear-cut, and some coaches may also handle transfers. it’s a complex dynamic!

It’s very rare that there are any true ‘managers’ in football these days. Almost all are head coaches (even if not in name), so they, with the help of their team, handle training focuses, tactics and pick the team. They handle the football side of it.

They will generally have a say in transfers, as much as they work with the recruitment team to identify weak areas and may ask for specific players to be signed, but it’s very rare that they’d have anything to do with the actual financial side of it. It’s not like the Football Manager games where it’s your choice to bid a certain amount or get into contract details.

Most of the time “head coach” and “manager” are used interchangeably. Occasionally you might come across a “director of football” which is a role more similar to a “general manager” in US sport.

The differences depend on the role that the coach/manager has in their respective club.

A head coach is normally responsible for the tactics, lineup selection and preparation of their squad. Decisions such as player transfers and contract negotiations would be handled by a sporting director/ director of football or someone else in their respective clubs hierarchy.

A manager traditionally has the same responsibility as the head coach while also having a larger role in player transfers, contract negotiations and the clubs academy. The most notable example of a manager is that of Sir Alex Furgeson.

These are not consistent across all clubs and their respective roles vary depending on the structure of a club, some managers will still work under/along side a sporting director (David Moyes at West ham and Russel Martin at Southampton) and some head coaches will have a greater say in transfers. The two terms are normally interchangeable and often have very little differences on a club to club basis.

There are a many tasks in managing a football team, normally divided into the operational, tactical and strategic.

1.Operational: Man motivation, training regimes, morale management, picking the starting 11, managing substitutions during the game, planning around injuries etc. Clearly coach work, in big clubs there are several coaches.

2. Tactical: Picking the preferred general playing identity (pressing, possesion, agressive through the middle, tikitaka etc), managing transfers, scouting new talent, attracting talent to the academy, running the academy etc.

3. Strategic: Managing the finances, investors, partners, stadium ownership, selecting manager/coach etc.

The Coach will focus on 1 mostly while having an opinion on 2 and staying clear of 3 unless asked.

A Manager will be responsible for 1. but have assistants doing the day-to-day and have a strong influence and focus on 2, while perhaps even having influence on 3. in some regards.

Sports Directors will generally focus on 2 and have a strong say if there is a clear Coach type in the club, and less if there is clear Manager.

It’s a vague distinction. The only clear thing is that the people who aren’t the head guy are called coaches. By that I mean Mourinho or Pep will have people to do coaching tasks, who are never called the manager. They still tell the players what to do and that type of stuff, they are just not the guy you think of when you ask who is deciding how the team plays.

The head guy you can call manager or coach, it somewhat depends on his power within the hierarchy of the club. Some clubs have one guy deciding on all the transfers, some clubs separate the person who decides on tactics from the money decisions. Depends a lot on what level of club we’re talking about.

A coach is someone who will be doing most if not all training sessions and be more of a “technical” manager, focusing on drills, tactics and finer details. A manager is someone who manages not only the team, but the staff around him and had a much wider grasp on how the club is ran. It’s not as common anymore, but a manager years ago would be running the club from top to bottom. Including what food the players are, where they went for pre season, player transfers etc.

Most fans just use coach and manager interchangeably. You can say Klopp is Liverpool’s manager and you can also call him the coach.

A coach can also simply by a coach that helps with trainings. It doesn’t have to be the “head”. Every team has many normal coaches. But this isn’t the same as a manager/coach

Genuine managers barely exist anymore.

A manager is someone who is hands on with almost all aspects of the club. Transfers, youth teams, etc. At the top level, that’s almost impossible nowadays. Ferguson would be an obvious example of a manager. It appears to be a mostly British concept. On the continent, it has long been standard to have division of labour between a specific football exec (Director or Football, Technical Director or whatever title you want to give them) and the 1st team head coach.

Some managers (Like Martin O’Neil at Leicester and Celtic)wouldn’t even be involved much on the training ground and would maintain a bit of distance from the players with the assistance manager being more involved and friendly with the players.

A coach is responsible for the 1st team. That would be tactics, training, matchday etc. They will usually have the final say on transfers but won’t be actively involved in the whole business.

Simple. A manager is the person at the football club that creates the strategy for a match and then picks the players for their positions and gives them instructions on how to play. He is usually also involved in planning and leading the training sessions and buying and selling of players. And finally is he also the manager of his support staff.

The coach is a very big car that the players sit in to transport to matches or other outings.

I know you’re a bit new to football but I don’t see how you could confuse the two?