Who manages whom in 2026/27: every dugout in Europe's big five leagues

In Europe's five biggest leagues, the summer of 2026 changed the dugouts far more than it changed the squads. Changing the manager stopped being a club's last resort in a crisis and became the most common move of that summer, to the point where the simplest question in football, who manages my side, no longer had an automatic answer in almost half the dressing rooms on the continent at the start of 2026/27.

The numbers are not the same everywhere, and none of them is fixed. Each is a snapshot of the start of 2026/27, taken on a particular date, and each moves with every sacking. That is why every figure here carries its source and the date of the measurement in the sentence itself.

In the Premier League, nine of the twenty clubs began the season with a manager taking charge of the side for the first time on the opening matchday. According to Opta, in a study published on 5 August 2026, that was the highest number of managers taking charge of a first league fixture for their club on an opening matchday in the English top flight since 1946/47.

In Ligue 1, twelve of the eighteen clubs changed manager over the close season. The league's official site called that a record for the 21st century on 18 August 2026. According to Media365, on 20 August 2026, the count rises to fourteen if the two relegated clubs, Nantes and Metz, are included. Of the twelve new arrivals, 58% are foreign.

In LaLiga, El Desmarque counted nine new managers in the division on 18 June 2026. That figure needs unpacking, because nine new managers is not nine changes: it is six dugouts that genuinely changed, at Real Madrid, Villarreal, Athletic Club, Rayo Vallecano, Elche and Osasuna, plus the three promoted clubs, and at least two of those came up with the manager who had won them promotion, José Alberto López at Racing and Antonio Hidalgo at Deportivo.

In the Bundesliga, the league itself presented five new managers on 13 August 2026. In Serie A, four dugouts changed before a ball was kicked. Added together, the five leagues went into 2026/27 with dozens of dressing rooms under a manager taking charge for the first time, and that is the practical problem this piece sets out to solve: one place to check who manages whom, with a date against every name.

Five numbers that do not measure the same thing

Before adding those five numbers together, it is worth saying that none of them counts the same thing, and none is comparable with another without that caveat. The English count is Opta's, and it counts managers who took charge of the club for the first time on the opening matchday. The French one is the league's own, and it counts clubs that changed manager over the close season, out of the eighteen in the division. The Spanish one is El Desmarque's, and it counts new managers in the division, which mixes dugouts that changed with clubs that have just come up. The German one is a list of the dugouts that changed, published by the league, rather than a survey of all eighteen clubs. The Italian one is our own, built from the official Lega Serie A list and cross-checked against each club's announcement date.

The detail that makes the English number look wrong

The count of nine in England leaves out two managers who were also recent appointments. Roberto De Zerbi, who took over at Tottenham in March 2026, and Michael Carrick, who took over at Manchester United on 13 January 2026, do not belong in it because they were already in charge of their clubs the previous season, and the Opta count is of managers making their debut for the club on the opening matchday of 2026/27. Both appear in the tables below as managers in post at the start of 2026/27.

Carrick's case shows on its own how deep the turnover runs. According to Opta, on 5 August 2026, a manager with a little over half a season behind him was already the tenth longest-serving in the Premier League at the start of 2026/27. This is not a tally of days that shifts every morning: it is his place in a queue that starts short.

The test of the new dugouts on matchday 1 of the Champions League

Matchday 1 of the Champions League league phase was scheduled for Tuesday 8, Wednesday 9 and Thursday 10 September 2026, with a good number of these managers due to make their debut in the competition with their new club. It was the first point of 2026/27 at which the five leagues' merry-go-rounds met on the same pitch.

On 8 September, Real Madrid against Inter was scheduled to open José Mourinho's European campaign with Real, thirteen years after his first spell at the club, and to set him against the side he won the 2010 Champions League with. On the same day, Porto against Manchester City was scheduled as Enzo Maresca's first European fixture as Pep Guardiola's successor, and Borussia Dortmund against Villarreal as Íñigo Pérez's first with his new club.

On 9 September, Napoli against Arsenal was scheduled to mark Massimiliano Allegri's first league-phase fixture with Napoli, and Liverpool against Atlético Madrid to do the same for Andoni Iraola with Liverpool. On 10 September, Como against Leipzig was scheduled to set Cesc Fàbregas against Martín Demichelis, and Manchester United against Sabah to bring Michael Carrick into the competition.

The same matchday had several more new dugouts on the fixture list. On the 8th, Lille against Real Betis was scheduled as the European opener of Davide Ancelotti, who joined the French club from Botafogo. On the 9th, Barcelona against Feyenoord and PSG against Slovan Bratislava completed the programme, the latter with Luis Enrique, one of the six Ligue 1 managers who stayed in post. On the 10th, Slavia Praha against Lens was scheduled to put Dino Toppmöller into the competition with his new French club, and Bayern against Bodø/Glimt and Fenerbahçe against Roma to close the opening round.

The rule behind this table

The table that follows is the heart of this piece, and it obeys a single rule: a name goes in only if it has a source, whether a club, a league or a major outlet. Where we did not have confirmation in hand when this piece was checked, on 10 September 2026, the cell says so in plain words rather than filling the gap with a guess, and in the French and German tables there is no date column because we did not open the appointment announcements club by club. The table is smaller for that rule, and that is exactly why it is worth using.

England: the nine dugouts that changed

The nine departures are not all of the same kind, and the difference matters more than it might seem. Arne Slot was sacked by Liverpool on 30 May 2026, a year after winning the Premier League, having finished the season fifth. Vítor Pereira was sacked by Nottingham Forest before the club appointed Oliver Glasner.

Eddie Howe was not sacked by Newcastle. The club confirmed in a statement on its own website, on 31 July 2026, that he had left the post of his own accord, with a declaration in which the manager said it was in his interest and the club's for him to step away. Kieran McKenna also left Ipswich by choice, and Oliver Glasner left Crystal Palace at the end of his contract rather than being sacked.

Newcastle announced Matthias Jaissle, a 38-year-old German, on 5 August 2026, a date carried on the official Premier League page, on a four-year contract and with £9.5m in compensation paid to Al Ahli. Liverpool announced Iraola on 4 June, on a two-year deal, and he was the only candidate they interviewed.

Enzo Maresca's case closes a loop that has gone largely unremarked. He arrived at Manchester City on 29 June 2026, aged 46 and on a three-year contract, to replace Guardiola, who left the Etihad at the end of 2025/26 after ten years and 17 trophies. Maresca came from Chelsea, and Chelsea's own statement, quoted by Sky Sports on 29 June 2026, said he had resigned suddenly and unexpectedly in December 2025, with his exit effective on 1 January. In May 2026, Chelsea announced Xabi Alonso.

The eleven names above appear on the official list of the twenty managers published by the Premier League on 5 August 2026. Added to the nine in the previous table, they account for the whole division.

Spain: the club that had three managers in a year

Real Madrid's sequence circulated in a garbled form and is worth setting straight. Xabi Alonso did not leave the Santiago Bernabéu straight for Chelsea. He was dismissed in January 2026, after a defeat by Barcelona, and Álvaro Arbeloa was promoted to head coach and saw out the season. Chelsea announced Alonso in May 2026, on a four-year contract starting on 1 July.

It was only on 11 June 2026 that Real Madrid announced José Mourinho, on a three-year contract, thirteen years after his first spell at the club, between 2010/11 and 2012/13. According to ESPN, Benfica confirmed that Real were willing to pay €15m in compensation to free him.

At Athletic Club, Edin Terzić succeeded Ernesto Valverde, who left after ten seasons. The exact announcement date and the length of Terzić's contract appear in Spanish outlets that we did not open and cannot link to, so they stay out of this piece. At Villarreal, Íñigo Pérez signed on 1 June 2026 for three seasons, until June 2029. The 38-year-old arrived from Rayo Vallecano, the club he took to the Conference League final in 2025/26 and to eighth in LaLiga in 2024/25, Rayo's best finish in the division up to then.

Rayo Vallecano, Elche and Osasuna complete the six Spanish changes: Beñat San José came in for Íñigo Pérez at Rayo, Martín Anselmi for Éder Sarabia at Elche and Luis Miguel Ramis for Lisci at Osasuna. All three names come from a single source, El Desmarque of 18 June 2026, with no official club statement opened by us, and for that reason they stay out of the table. The same report does not establish which club was the third promoted side, citing Almería and Málaga as possibilities, and nor can we.

Italy: four dugouts before a ball was kicked, and the first after

Four Serie A dugouts changed before the season started: Rúben Amorim arrived at Milan on 16 June 2026, Maurizio Sarri at Atalanta on 15 June, Gennaro Gattuso at Lazio on 23 June and Massimiliano Allegri at Napoli on 3 July. Luciano Spalletti does not belong in that count. He arrived at Juventus in 2025, when he replaced the sacked Igor Tudor, and signed an extension until 2028 in April 2026.

At the remaining clubs, the official Lega Serie A list carried, on 7 September 2026, Cristian Chivu at Inter, Gasperini at Roma, Ignazio Abate at Torino, Alberto Aquilani at Sassuolo, Cesc Fàbregas at Como, De Rossi at Genoa, Tedesco at Bologna, Jurić at Monza, Carlos Cuesta at Parma, Runjaić at Udinese, Pisacane at Cagliari, Di Francesco at Lecce, Alvini at Frosinone and Stroppa at Venezia.

That same page had a flaw that has to be declared: it carried no publication date and, consulted on 7 September 2026, still listed Fabio Grosso at Fiorentina, which is to say it had been out of date since 6 September. It worked as a league source for the other clubs; it did not work for Fiorentina.

France: the number the league called a record for the 21st century

The list of the eighteen Ligue 1 managers comes from the league's official site, dated 18 August 2026, cross-checked against an AFP report published on Flashscore. We did not open the appointment announcements club by club, so the French table comes without a date column: the names go in, the exact appointment dates do not.

Among the six clubs that kept their dugout, the league list names Luis Enrique at PSG, Franck Haise at Rennes, Paulo Fonseca at Lyon and Didier Digard at Le Havre; we did not check the other two. Of the twelve new managers, 58% are foreign, according to the count published by Ligue 1 itself on 18 August 2026.

Germany: five dugouts, and only five

What follows is not the full picture of the eighteen Bundesliga clubs. It is the list of the five dugouts that changed, published by the league itself on 13 August 2026, and we did not check the managers at the other German clubs. The spelling Carles Martínez is the one carried on the league's official site, and we did not open a source confirming the full surname.

The movement that no league publishes

The official pages of the Premier League, Ligue 1, the Bundesliga and the Lega Serie A already answer the question of who manages whom, each in its own language and each better than any outside newsroom could. What none of them does is cross the border, because no league publishes what happens in the league next door. That is precisely where the 2026 merry-go-round becomes interesting, because the summer's noisiest moves did not fit inside a single competition.

The first loop is written into the official statements and links three countries. On 7 July 2026, Fulham presented Álvaro Arbeloa as head coach, on a three-year contract until 2029, and named the man he was succeeding: Marco Silva, who left for Benfica at the end of his contract. It was from Benfica, in turn, that Real Madrid took José Mourinho, announced on 11 June 2026, for the dugout Arbeloa had just left. According to ESPN, Benfica confirmed that Real were willing to pay €15m in compensation to free Mourinho. Three clubs, three dugouts and a closed loop: the manager let go by Real ended up in exactly the vacancy opened by Marco Silva, the manager Benfica signed to replace the one it lost to Real. The timing of Benfica's statement on Mourinho's exit circulated in the Portuguese press, and it stays out of this piece because we have no link for it in this list of sources.

The second loop is Italian and shorter. Maurizio Sarri left Lazio to take over Atalanta on 15 June 2026, replacing Palladino. Eight days later, on 23 June, Lazio announced Gennaro Gattuso for the dugout Sarri had just vacated.

Then there is the case that reverses the natural order of things. Bournemouth announced Marco Rose on 20 April 2026, on a three-year contract, to take over once Andoni Iraola left the club at the end of 2025/26. Liverpool appointed Iraola only on 4 June, six weeks later. The replacement was signed before the man he was replacing had anywhere to go.

One chain that looks like a loop but is not sits in England. Oliver Glasner left Crystal Palace at the end of his contract, and Palace announced Pierre Sage, a Coupe de France winner and Ligue 1 runner-up with Lens, on 15 June 2026. Glasner was announced by Nottingham Forest only on 6 July, after Vítor Pereira had been sacked. The order of the dates says that is a queue, not a loop.

In France the chain is a sequence too, and it never comes back to its starting point: Bruno Génésio left Lille for Marseille, replacing Habib Beye, and Lille appointed Davide Ancelotti, who was at Botafogo. There is also a short thread linking Strasbourg to Ipswich: Gary O'Neil left Strasbourg for the Premier League, and Hugo Oliveira took over the French club.

In Spain the queue is internal and just as short. Íñigo Pérez left Rayo Vallecano for Villarreal, announced on 1 June 2026, and Rayo took Beñat San José, according to El Desmarque of 18 June 2026. It is the same shape as the Italian case, with one link fewer confirmed by an official statement.

The first Serie A dugout to fall with the season under way, as of 7 September 2026

Fiorentina sacked Fabio Grosso on the evening of Sunday 6 September 2026, after three matchdays and three defeats: 0-4 away to Roma, 0-3 at home to Frosinone and 1-2 at home to Torino. Grosso had come from Sassuolo, with whom he had won Serie B.

Fiorentina announced the successor at 3.50pm on 7 September 2026, Rome time: Paolo Vanoli, who had already taken charge of the club in November 2025 in place of Stefano Pioli, kept the side up and was not retained at the end of the season. The club statement gives no contract length, which is why none appears in the table: until the announcement the Italian press was split between two years and one year with an option, and the statement did not settle it. The club's own site records that Vanoli was due to take his first training session that same afternoon.

How this table ages

This table was checked on 10 September 2026, and the last row to close was Fiorentina's, at 3.50pm on 7 September 2026. The totals for each league are snapshots of the start of the season, not fixed figures: nine of twenty in the Premier League and twelve of eighteen in Ligue 1 hold for the opening matchday and hold a little less with every sacking. Fiorentina showed how that works three matchdays after the first whistle.

That is why the column that matters most here is not the name but the in post since. A name without a date ages in silence and goes on looking true. A name with a date tells the reader, on its own, how long that was true and when it is worth checking again.