Loew May Have Won The Award, But Jose Mourinho Is My Coach Of The Year.

German national team coach Joachim Loew has been awarded the Coach of the Year award by L’Equipe magazine in France. Joachim Loew guided a German side without many of their star players to the World Cup semi-final, and pulled off incredible results against both England and Argentina along the way.

While Loew certainly did an impressive job, especially after all of the injury problems the German national team had heading into the World Cup – not to mention the shocking death of Robert Enke – it’s still maybe a bit contentious that he won because of the incredible trophy haul Jose Mourinho managed at Inter last season.

The Portuguese tactician won everything there was to win at Inter last season. He lifted the Champions League against Bayern Munich, he won the Coppa Italia, he won the Serie A, and he won the Supercoppa early on in the season. That same Inter side had failed to impress for so long in Europe, but with Jose Mourinho’s arrival things quickly changed. The side was incredibly disciplined and determined, and there’s no greater testament to how well Jose Mourinho did there than how poorly that same side is doing now under Rafa Benitez. Jose Mourinho placed third in the running for the award.

Still, Joachim Loew took one of the youngest sides ever to feature in the World Cup all the way to the semi-final, and made household names out of Thomas Mueller and Sami Khedira especially. Congratulations to Loew, but I still think there’s more to come from the German tactician. If he had gotten his hands on the World Cup, I’d have no argument against him winning this award. I mean, Vicente Del Bosque took Spain to an historic World Cup win, and he finished well behind Loew in the running for the Coach of the Year award.

It means little in the great scheme of things, but it’s good to see that Loew and the German national team are getting the recognition and praise they deserve for being one of the only exciting teams to watch at what was a pretty dull World Cup by most standards. Sir Alex Ferguson labelled the 2010 World Cup ‘like a trip to the dentist,’ so there you go!