If you’ve ever argued that coaching doesn’t matter, that it’s just “luck” when a team goes on a run, wins trophies, or punches above its weight. Now might be the time to quietly take those words back.

Yes, football belongs to the players. But the best teams show us it also belongs to the people who shape them, those who drill the patterns, find the tactical margins, and make 11 players look like more than the sum of their parts. Coaches need players to carry out ideas, but players just as desperately need coaches to give their talent structure. It works both ways.

A case in point is Claudio Ranieri at AS Roma.

Few would’ve expected Roma to be in the conversation for a Champions League place after 14 games this season. They were in the bottom half of the table, unconvincing, uncertain, drifting. But with three matches left to play, they’re level on points with Juventus, sitting just outside the top four on goal difference.

And that’s largely down to the 73-year-old man they pulled out of retirement in November. After sacking Ivan Juric, Roma turned to Ranieri, a move that raised more than a few eyebrows. What could a septuagenarian with nothing left to prove possibly bring to a team that looked out of ideas?

Quite a lot, as it turns out.

Ranieri was brought in to steady the ship. Instead, he’s turned Roma into one of the most resilient and organized sides in Serie A. More than that, he’s reminded everyone, perhaps not for the first time that coaching is still very much a thing. And no matter how talented your squad is, dismissing its impact is a fundamental misunderstanding of how elite football really works.

This leads to my question, is there still space for the older generation of coaches in this modern era?

It’s hard to say yes, it’s hard to say no, It’s hard to give a straightforward answer honestly.

There’s a familiar stereotype that older coaches are stuck in their ways, too emotional, too slow to adapt, not quite plugged into the modern game. They don’t obsess so much over GPS data or preach about rest defence. They’d rather have a quiet word than a tactical powerpoint. Once upon a time, that was enough.

In this time? Probably Not.

Today’s dugout is a chessboard. The likes of Guardiola, Flick, Arteta, Alonso, Slot, Naggelsman and the likes choreograph every move. Training is mapped to the minute. Matches follow scripts. It’s systems over spontaneity, structure over instinct, so many analysts.

And it works. Often spectacularly.

But the rise of that hyper-detailed approach has quietly pushed a generation of managers to the fringes. The ones who don’t need a philosophy deck or a laptop to get their message across. The ones, like Claudio Ranieri as case study, who still believe the job is about people first.

Still, it’s funny. When a club is in trouble, really in trouble, it’s not always the young tacticians they call. It’s the steady hands. The ones who’ve lived it all before. The ones who don’t flinch.

Because when the system cracks, and the numbers don’t help, you need someone who sees past the data—someone who understands the humans trying to hold it all together.

Ranieri doesn’t shout. He doesn’t flap his arms or bark his way through 90 minutes. He doesn’t crouch, and doesn’t pretend to conduct invisible triangles on the pitch.

What he does is walk. Slowly. Quietly. Through training sessions, through moments that might shake less experienced managers.

That’s the point. That’s the whole thing. Ranieri manages through feel. He doesn’t try to dominate every detail. He gives space. Trust players to handle it. Treats them like grown-ups.

It sounds basic. Almost too simple. But it’s not. It takes timing. Restraint. A real understanding of people and of yourself. It’s not outdated. It’s not soft. It’s just harder.

Footballers today are cut from a different cloth. Raised in the era of social media, relentless video analysis, and hyper-branding, they demand structure, clarity, and inclusion. They want information on tap. They want to be heard. And they want to be part of the process.

But with that evolution has come a noticeable shiftcall it entitlement, call it fragility. There are more players today who shy away from discipline, who bristle at being challenged. It’s a cultural shift that’s hard to ignore.

That tension between old and new runs deep, particularly in the way we view managers. There’s a growing belief that the game has passed the older generation by tactically—that they’re relics of a bygone era. On The Gliders podcast, Nigerian journalist Michael Adegbile (known as Micolo) weighed in: “As much as discipline may still matter to the older coaches, the tactical side of things—the analysis, the systems, the structure—belongs to this new era.”

It’s a valid point. The modern coach is often backed by a small army of analysts, specialists, and assistants, each bringing granular detail to every phase of play. But does that mean the older heads have been tactically left behind?

Not necessarily.

There’s a danger in overstating the novelty of modern tactics or underestimating the intelligence of managers who’ve spent decades adapting to change. It’s become almost fashionable to dismiss figures like Carlo Ancelotti as tactically outdated, riding the coattails of elite squads and a bit of luck. But that’s a surface reading. His man-management, his ability to adapt systems without losing the dressing room, that’s its own kind of genius.

This idea that the older generation of coaches has no place in today’s game doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. Sure, they won’t be around forever. But to suggest they can’t cope with the modern game would be a lazy argument. The landscape may have shifted, but the truly great ones have always found a way to evolve. And many still are.