Dyche, Conte, Ten Hag, Pep: The top 10 bald football managers in the world today

“These bald guys are complicated,” was Arturo Vidal’s succinct if baffling assessment of the Erik Ten Hag-Cristiano Ronaldo stand off last year.

But with bald managers once again in the news thanks to Guardiola’s City being unstoppable and Ten Hag’s United being shit, not to mention Luciano Spalletti becoming manager of Italy, we decided to rank the top 10 bald managers in the world today because why not?

10) Bob Bradley
One of the worst Premier League managers ever because he said things like “PK” and “road game” but also it should be noted lost most of his very small number of matches. But it would be wrong to focus all attention on that brief three-month chapter of a coaching career that has now been going for more than 40 years, including stints in charge of both the USMNT and Egypt as well as Swansea and Le Havre and a whole load of MLS clubs and now sees him enjoying a second stint with Stabaek in Norway.

9) Vincenzo Italiano
Scores bonus points before you even get to his baldness or coaching prowess due to being an Italian called Italiano who was born in Germany. Fully embraced that baldness long before the end of a journeyman playing career, and a man whose schtick as a coach appears to be leading Fiorentina impressively to finals which they then lose, in some cases understandably to Simone Inzaghi’s Inter and in others unforgivably to David Moyes’ West Ham.

8) Stefano Pioli
Another in a long and proud line of bald Italian managers, Pioli won the Serie A title and manager of the year with Milan in 2022 but loses marks here for looking if anything, Clive, just a little bit too much exactly like Ten Hag.

7) Sean Dyche
Sometimes the sheer geometric perfection of the disc beard can detract what is by any standards a tremendously if self-determinedly bald head. And sometimes both those things and the sore throat he’s had for now several decades can detract from his achievements as a football manager which include making Burnley a tough place to go, walking around in shirt sleeves during a snow storm and trying to get Everton to make some kind of sense.

6) Luciano Spalletti
A wily veteran of Serie A who finally landed his first title to go with assorted cups and some pots and pans from Russia with Napoli’s thrillingly magnificent march to the title last season. Has now parlayed that success into snaffling the national team job and seeing if he can get plucky little Italy all the way to the World Cup. Lots of people very sniffy about the 48-team format – mainly because it’s absolutely shite – but it does allow these smaller footballing nations a chance to dream and that can only be a good thing, surely? Also possessed of a gloriously shiny dome that has definitely been polished up in the Shine-O-Ball-O at Barney’s Bowlarama.

5) Massimiliano Allegri
Would be higher on sheer weight of silverware garnered during a managerial career that has brought six Serie A titles – one with Milan, five with Juventus – as well as a whole mess of Coppa Italias. Crucially, though, that Champions League crown still eludes him after two defeats in the finals of 2015 and 2017. Just as crucially, that crown were it to be won would be sat on a head that has never quite fully embraced its obvious and regal baldness.

There’s no Conte-style denialism at play here, more just a constant layer of tennis-ball fuzz atop what we suspect that could with the right care regimen be a truly spectacular polished dome.

4) Erik Ten Hag
At a low ebb currently, with a year of hard and apparently successful work turning Manchester United back from farce to football club in danger of being swept away by the sheer inherent ridiculousness of the whole place. It’s not entirely on Ten Hag, of course. Many have tried since Sir Ferg and all have failed, with Ten Hag making a better stab of it than most. Your Moyeses and Solskjaers didn’t even try to make it sensible at all, just leaned into the mythology of the place in Solskjaer’s case and got overwhelmed by it all in Moyes’. You know what else is wrong with those two? They have hair. And say what you like about Ten Hag’s current struggles, you cannot say he isn’t a bald man. A bald man who massively overachieved with Ajax, who have themselves become a right old mess without him.

3) Antonio Conte
Would he be higher or lower if he embraced and acknowledged who and what he is? Even we’re not sure, but he’s won multiple titles in top leagues and not always with the most straightforward clubs. We do think he should probably be in prison for thinking Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg is better than Yves Bissouma, but Conte is not the first and won’t be the last man to have the Spurs job thorougly melt his brain. And it surely can’t help having said melting brain overheating constantly beneath that massive hairhat.

2) Zinedine Zidane
Gave off powerful bald energy in his playing days even when still sporting a distinctive Shearer’s island but has fully embraced and leaned into his baldness in a managerial career that has contained quite staggering and near unrepeatable success on a pound-for-pound basis via the clever trick of quite simply refusing to manage any team that isn’t Real Madrid.

1) Pep Guardiola
I mean, we love to do banters here as you know, but he’s definitely number one, isn’t he? He’s the best football manager in the world even if we ignore the crucial element of follicle count. Brilliant manager, enormously bald. A clear winner here.