Veteran Real Betis coach Manuel Pellegrini has regularly produced impressive results at the highest level but his failure to win the Champions League means some hesitate to place him among the managerial elite. The 73-year-old’s team boast three wins from three in the league phase ahead of Wednesday’s visit to face Borussia Dortmund, the scene of one of the most agonising defeats in his long career. In 2013 Pellegrini’s Malaga conceded twice in injury time against Jurgen Klopp’s Dortmund, to miss out on a Champions League semi-final berth.
Veteran Real Betis coach Manuel Pellegrini has regularly produced impressive results at the highest level but his failure to win the Champions League means some hesitate to place him among the managerial elite.
Last season he steered the Andalusians back to Champions League qualification after two decades away from the elite. Madrid chief Florentino Perez was desperate for the club’s 10th Champions League trophy and thought the Portuguese would deliver it. That summer Pellegrini moved to Manchester City, winning the Premier League and two League Cups before departing in 2016, without a Champions League trophy. The coach turned Villarreal into a Champions League semi-finalist in 2006, with his team knocked out by Arsenal. Pellegrini’s side have qualified for European football for six straight seasons and in 2025, reached their first ever European final, in the Conference League, where they were defeated by Chelsea.
“We started the first match of the season… and at the end of the team talk we wrote in green letters — ‘today we begin our journey to the Champions League’,” explained Pellegrini in May.
