Coach meets first class in the sport's top jobs

By GRAHAME L. JONES

April 19, 2009 12 AM PT

It is the ultimate fantasy league, made up of the 10 richest and most successful soccer clubs in history.

Money is no object, or at least not much of one. The world’s finest players gravitate to these clubs in a seemingly endless flow.

All of which leaves the poor wretch in charge of the team dangling from a noose as soon as he sets pen to paper and signs his contract as coach.

Think you could take Arsenal or Chelsea to the European Champions League title? Think again. No one has done it yet.

Think it’s a breeze winning back-to-back Champions League honors? Think again. Only eight teams have done it in 53 years.

If being hired by one of the 10 clubs is a supreme accomplishment for a coach, getting fired by one of the 10 can be soul-destroying.

Yet, in the coming weeks or months, at least one and possibly as many as four of the 10 most desirable coaching jobs on the planet will become vacant.

Who will fill them is already a matter of considerable and enjoyable speculation.

Guus Hiddink is definitely leaving Chelsea, where he is just helping out team owner and friend Roman Abramovitch while also coaching Russia’s national team. Chelsea would like to lure Carlo Ancelotti away from AC Milan to replace Hiddink.

Juande Ramos might well be shown the door at Real Madrid. If Bernd Schuster and Real parted company after Schuster had coached the team to the Spanish title in 2008, how can Ramos expect to last if, as expected, he finishes second to arch-rival Barcelona this season?

And then there’s Real’s recent and humiliating drubbing by Liverpool in the Champions League to consider. Madrid’s presidential election on June 14 could very well signal a change of coaches.

Jurgen Klinsmann is on shaky ground at Bayern Munich. One of his players, striker Luca Toni, already has said he would like to see fellow Italian Roberto Mancini take charge of the German team.

Mancini, of course, was the man that Inter Milan let go after he had coached the team to three consecutive Italian Serie A titles in 2006, 2007 and 2008.

That was done just so that Inter could land the more charismatic Jose Mourinho, who had parted company with Chelsea after winning the English Premier League in 2005 and 2006.

Frank Rijkaard, who coached Barcelona to its 2006 Champions League title, is another big name who is available, and former Brazil, Portugal and Chelsea coach Luis Felipe Scolari also has said he will be with a new club by the summer.

So, do the world’s top coaches simply rotate among the world’s top clubs? Yes and no.

Mourinho, for example, has coached Chelsea, is coaching Inter Milan, wants to coach in Spain (Real Madrid, anyone?) and is supposedly the heir apparent to Alex Ferguson as coach of Manchester United.

On the other hand, Ferguson has been at United for 23 years and Arsene Wenger has been at Arsenal for 13. Neither has been tempted to move on.

It is the spoken or unspoken dream of every coach worth his salt to have charge of one of the 10 teams at some point in his career.

Klinsmann leaped at the chance when offered the Bayern Munich job in 2008. “I feel honored,” he said at the time of his surprise appointment.

“You get very few chances to work at this level. . . . The level of expectation only makes the job more fun.”

Expectations at the 10 clubs are massive -- from the owners and especially from the fans.

The 10 teams include nine of the 10 richest clubs on the planet in terms of revenue, the only omission being that of AS Roma, the world’s ninth-richest club with 2008 income of $224.9 million.

Between them, the 10 teams have won 13 of 48 world championships, 34 of 53 European championships, and 181 national championships.

Any coach who says yes to any one of them is immediately on the knife edge between adulation and ridicule.

The funny thing is, there’s nowhere else they would rather be.

grahame.jones@latimes.com

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Top 10 Soccer Clubs in the World

The following list of clubs has been compiled based on a combination of annual income, roster strength and number of world, continental and national championships won. The ranking is by total titles.

Real Madrid

Spain

$450 million (1st)

Juande Ramos (Spanish)

2009

Juventus

Italy

$214.7 million (11th)

Claudio Ranieri (Italian)

2007

AC Milan

Italy