Changing Coach Attire. Side B: UCL

European football coach fashion is 10-15 years ahead of NBA coach fashion. Here, a new style has emerged as an alternative to the two main ones, the suit and tracksuit: the casual style. Since the early 2010s, it slowly grew and eventually was embraced by everybody: the best managers in the world, young coaches, old experienced coaches. They all equally appreciate and contribute to it.

Unlike in the NBA, where head coach fashion was enshrined by the official league dress code, European football coaches were always allowed to choose their attire themselves. This means the former were completely unprotected from the wave of athleisure when the pandemic hit and dress code regulations were loosened. NBA coaches were too vulnerable to withstand this change—much like Native Americans who didn’t have immunity to oppose diseases brought by Europeans in the Columbian exchange. So, like smallpox through Central Mexico, athleisure swept through the NBA.

European coach fashion, however, was less affected by the pandemic, as tracksuits were naturally introduced to it many decades prior. Thus, even before COVID, athleisure was an ordinary part of the coach wardrobe, regularly—but not constantly—worn on the sidelines. However, it does not mean that European football managers did not go through the same tracksuit phase as their American basketball colleagues are experiencing right now. In the 1980s and 90s, football sidelines were flooded with tracksuits, polos, and baseball caps. They came as a sharp contrast to what was considered usual coach attire prior to that period, as football coaches were predominantly wearing suits.

Bob Paisley (Mirrorpix/Alamy/1982), Jock Stein (SI/2019), Matt Busby (Man Utd/Getty Images/1969), Bela Guttmann (SI, 2019)

From the 1940s to 1980s, all coaches were wearing more or less the same attire. Bob Paisley, Jock Stein, Matt Busby, Bela Guttmann were all loyal to a formal fashion style. Paisley was wearing tailored suits, sometimes with a wool vest or a gray (or beige) coat. Stein and Busby were always in tailored jackets and trousers as well. Guttmann, however, sometimes wore a sort of tracksuit, but a prehistoric one—a black cotton costume, that seemed very baggy on him, and had a big Benfica logo on the chest. Although, Guttmann only wore it for training—not for official games. Normally, he wore a suit.

In the 1980s, however, tracksuits rose to prominence. Adidas, Admiral, Umbro, etc., started sponsoring top players, so athleisure soon became common among coaches as well. It swept through Europe at first, then the fashion for it died down, and eventually, slowly, tracksuits became a part of the football coach attire establishment. Today, they are one of many fashion options, not the option.

Among those who embraced athleisure in the '80s were both coaches who were starting out at the time, as well as those who already spent decades running along the sidelines in a suit. Brian Clough and Valeriy Lobanovskyi are in the latter group. Both started out way back in the 1960s, and were both dressing in suits (in the case of Lobanovskyi—expensive tailored suits), yet when athleisure became available, both decided to switch. Clough went from suits and ties to tracksuits, polos, and his favored green sweatshirts.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi was regarded as a football fashion icon in 1970s-80s Ukraine, always in tailored suits, shades, and coats. He even wore white sneakers with a suit (in 1988!). However, in the late 1980s-1990s, he started wearing tracksuits more and more, and the latter period of Lobanovskyi’s career is firmly associated with him in a black-and-blue Dynamo Kyiv training jacket.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi (Dynamo Kyiv; UAinfo/1988; UNIAN)

Many other managers, even those who later in their careers wore only suits, have dabbled in athleisure in the 1990s. Sir Alex Ferguson, who cannot now be imagined in anything but a suit with a Man United crest, has worn a puffy branded jacket. Giovanni Trapattoni, Johan Cruyff, Arrigo Sacchi all embraced tracksuits, even if it happened for a small period of time. The latter was especially frequently wearing athleisure of wild color combinations and patterns.

There are managers who started out in the early 1980s and keep working to this day, who witnessed the rise and fall, and eventual acceptance of tracksuits in coach fashion. Roy Hodgson, Mircea Lucescu, and Arsene Wenger have all seen the waves of athleisure and casual style sweep through Europe. Some of them adapted to these changes, some didn't. After briefly wearing tracksuits as a coach of Monaco, Wenger has joined Arsenal and never betrayed his tailored suit and tie ever again (okay, he sometimes wore a club-branded puffer coat over the suit, but this doesn’t count).

The same fashion trajectory applies to Roy Hodgson too: he wore athleisure while coaching Swiss national teams in the early 1990s, then moved to Inter Milan and never touched a tracksuit again. Mircea Lucescu, in contrast to the previous two, has embraced changes in coach fashion throughout his career. He went from Galatasaray tracksuits in 2000 to suits with an orange Shakhtar tie in 2008 to jeans and sweaters in Kyiv in 2020. While coaching Dynamo Kyiv between 2020 and 2023, Lucescu has shifted between different styles and outfits depending on the tournament, tactics, opponent, etc. This approach is characteristic of young managers of the late 2010s-early 2020s period, less of somebody who started coaching before their players’ parents were born. Lucescu deserves praise for that.

Mircea Lucescu (Imago/2000; Europa League/2008; Dynamo.kiev.ua/2023)

In modern European football, it is absolutely normal for a coach to change attire depending on the circumstances of the game, most of them do it this way. However, there still are nonconformists, those who choose one style and stick with it. Ancelotti, Inzaghi, Southgate, and Simeone with suits; Klopp, Pulis, and Spalletti with tracksuits. Diego Simeone and Tony Pulis are probably the most alike in these two groups. Don Diego never, under any circumstance, irrespective of the opponent and weather, takes off his full black suit with a black shirt and tie. He does it to instill fear into opponents. Pulis is similarly loyal to his tracksuits and baseball caps.

Jurgen Klopp seemed to be equally devoted to his athleisure wear before joining Liverpool in 2015 from Borussia Dortmund. He was famous for his sorry-I-just-woke-up appearance and wearing of tracksuits in the late 2000s-early 2010s. At first, he continued this habit at Liverpool, but with time his style matured and evolved; he started wearing more business-casual outfits. He adapted to the change in coach fashion that was led by his biggest Premier League rival—Pep Guardiola.

Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola (The Independent/PA/2021)

Pep has a history with fashion in general, he is one of the few modern coaches that are considered football fashion icons. During his playing days, he worked as a model, when coaching at Barcelona he wore tailored suits, at Bayern—jeans, t-shirts, round neck sweaters. At Man City, a club he worked at since 2016, he added sporting cardigans, jumpers, baseball jackets, cargo trousers, chinos, trainers, chinos, turtlenecks, and sneakers to his attire. He is constantly experimenting with his fashion choices, and never stopping at one specific style.

Many coaches of Guardiola’s generation have followed his example—similar casual style looks are now worn by Erik ten Hag, Stefano Pioli, Unai Emery, Zinedine Zidane, etc. Of course, each of them brings something of their own to the style, but the general trend is noticeable. Younger coaches are even bolder in their experiments with fashion and blending of the styles. Julian Nagelsmann, Mikel Arteta, and Domenico Tedesco all wear an ever-changing mix of smart, casual, and athleisure. They challenge traditional divisions and styles in coach fashion—Nagelsmann’s suit for the Champions League semifinal between his RB Leipzig and PSG is the perfect example of this tendency.

Julian Nagelsmann (Getty Images/2020)

However, while this change and mixing of styles is interesting to observe, it brings up some questions. Firstly, does it signify—the same way change in NBA fashion does—the shift of power and authority at football clubs away from coaches? In the past, especially in the Premier League, people on the sidelines used to be called managers, and they would have control not only over tactics and training, but also selection, academy, facilities, etc. With time, the breadth of their responsibilities and authority has shrunk. This was perfectly signified by Arsenal’s change of managerial fashion in 2018: long-time manager Arsene Wenger used to wear exclusively suits, but the new head coach Unai Emery was shifting between different styles, including athleisure and casual.

Tracksuit used to be for coaches, for training and game tactics. Suit was for managers (oooh!), for authority, big plans, and bright lights. Now, not only were the meanings of the two styles diluted, a third one was added to the mix. So what does casual style even stand for? What are the managers that are wearing it trying to communicate? Perhaps, that meaning has not been fully formulated yet—and we have to wait and see.