Ranking the best European trophy-winning managers

There is nothing Unai Emery loves more than a Europa League final.

The Basque coach already holds the record for winning the competition more than any other manager, notching three on the bounce with Sevilla between 2014 and 2016, before adding another with Villarreal in 2021.

On Wednesday, the 54-year-old has the chance to extend that record to five, when Aston Villa face Freiburg in the final in Istanbul (20:00 BST).

But how does he stack up against the best European trophy-winning bosses of all time? I've attempted to rank the top 10 below - you can have your say, too.

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A quick nod to some of those who do not make the list. Udo Lattek won all three European trophies with different clubs - a European Cup at Bayern Munich, Uefa Cup with Borussia Monchengladbach and Cup Winners' Cup with Barcelona.

Sven-Goran Eriksson led Gothenburg to a Uefa Cup, won a Cup Winners' Cup with Lazio and lost European and Uefa Cup finals with Benfica.

Raymond Goethals lifted the Champions League with Marseille in 1993, having lost the final two years earlier, and led Anderlecht to Cup Winners' Cup success in 1978 a year after finishing runners-up to Hamburg. He also lost a final with Standard Liege.

Then there's Jurgen Klopp, Champions League winner in 2019 and three-time runner-up. And, of course, heavy-hitting omissions in Brian Clough, who clinched successive European Cups with Nottingham Forest, and Celtic great Jock Stein, the first British manager to win the continent's top trophy and beaten finalist in 1970.

Of course, European Cup and Champions League titles carry more weight here than second-tier European competitions, but that is not to diminish those achievements.

Emery thrives in the Europa League environment. The only other trophies of his managerial career have come at Paris St-Germain where, despite domestic dominance, the iconic moment of his tenure was a dramatic collapse at Barcelona in the Champions League last 16.

Wednesday will be his sixth final, losing the 2019 edition as Arsenal boss, and that is enough to sneak him in at number 10.

It is hard to quantify Johan Cruyff's achievements as a manager through trophies - his real legacy is in the foundations laid at Ajax and Barcelona and the crop of managers who have followed the Dutchman's innovative ideas and philosophies.

But in his fairly short managerial career, Cruyff pioneered success. He guided a young and exciting Ajax side to Cup Winners' Cup glory in 1987, Marco van Basten scoring the winner against Lokomotive Leipzig in Athens, and then turned a turbulent Barcelona era into another Cup Winners' Cup crown.

The culmination of Cruyff's work, though, came in 1992 when Barcelona's 'Dream Team' won the European Cup for the first time in the club's history.

Ronald Koeman's extra-time winner carried huge significance, not just in making Barcelona European champions for the first time, but in marking the start of the Catalan giants' unprecedented success since.

Giovanni Trapattoni won two European Cups as a player with AC Milan before hanging up his boots and guiding the Rossoneri to the brink of more continental success as caretaker boss.

Milan were beaten in the 1974 Cup Winners' Cup final by Magdeburg but that would by no means be the end of Trapattoni's European destiny - albeit in rival colours.

The Italian won every European trophy going during two spells at Juventus - a European Cup, Cup Winners' Cup and two Uefa Cups, plus another during a sabbatical at Inter.

His subsequent journeying around Europe yielded domestic trophies, but no more on the continent for a man who finished his varied career as Vatican City boss.

Trapattoni was part of the first AC Milan side to win the European Cup in 1963 under the guidance of boss Nereo Rocco, a purveyor of Catenaccio - a system built around a type of sweeper, known as a libero and, in Rocco's case, swift attacking breaks.

A physical and pragmatic Milan stopped the great Benfica side of Eusebio clinching three in a row to win their first continental crown, before adding another in 1969 by thrashing Cruyff's Ajax 4-1 in Madrid.

It may have been more had Rocco and Milan not been competing with Helenio Herrera's Inter, who won successive European titles after their rivals' first.

But Milan's longest-serving and most successful coach, known for being charismatic and socialising with players and journalists, added to their continental glory with Cup Winners' Cups in 1968 and 1973.