The roles of a national coach and a club coach are very different and their interests often contrary. For this reason the IFFHS has carried out separate annual world votings from the start. The experience of about a decade has shown that this is the most appropriate approach. However, it is not unusual for the best club coaches to become national coaches. And not rare a coach takes over after his job as national coach again the function of a club coach. So it is logically, for the purposes of a world ranking it is sensible to unite the two categories of coaches; this also allows for an examination over a longer period [the equivalent of coach in Great Britain is the manager].

The question of who is The World‘s best Coach of all time can not be answered precisely and only hypothetically for the period up to 1996. The introduction of the IFFHS annual vote for the The World‘s best National Coach and The World‘s best Club Coach offered a more objective basis from 1996. This gives a more precise way of determining the World‘s best coach for a longer period but only from 1996, and similar to the system for establishing of The World‘s best Coach of the 1st Decade of the 21st Century.

From the annual world ranking of the coaches (as a result of the world vote) the IFFHS will take into consideration the "Top 20" for each year and allocate points to each place. So the first-placed receives 20 points, the second-placed 19 points, the third-placed 18 points ... and a point for twentieth place. If the annual world ranking comprises more than 20 coaches, then the coaches from 21st place onwards receive no points. If the annual world ranking comprises fewer than 20 coaches (based on the fixed rules), no points will be awarded for the unoccupied palces.

The performances of the coaches for the period 1871-1996 will acknowledge by the IFFHS by means of different world rankings: looking at coaches in the various categories at full "A" internationals, Olympic matches, national cup finals, national championships and continental club competitions. These rankings for the coaches will be drawn up in chronological order and published step-by-step on the IFFHS website, including text and photos. The first of these world rankings has already been published in the chapter I, II, III, IV and V.

The addition of the points awarded for the first 15 years in the two categories has produced the world ranking for the period 1996-2010. The first-placed coach in this ranking is the world‘s best coach since 1996. From the "Top 10" was only one coach in the 20th Century still no chief coach and following could be still not voted before 2001 - the Portuguese José Mourinho. The Scot Sir Alexander Ferguson leads the rankings ahead of the Frenchman Arsène Wenger