Pellegrini, a long career full of success

He Real
Betis just made the signing of Manuel
Pellegrini for the next three seasons. The Chilean is a renowned coach who has been on the bench for more than three decades, where he has triumphed in almost all the teams he has managed. He was the first non-European coach in history to win the Premier with City in 2014, he managed to get Villarreal and Malaga to sign several of his best campaigns of all time and the year he was at Real Madrid he was runner-up in the League with points record, 96, three less than Pep Guardiola's FC Barcelona, ​​who years later would relieve him at City.

Manuel Luis Pellegrini Ripamonti, born in Santiago de Chile on September 16, 1953, is the fifth of eight brothers. He studied at the Saint George school and at the Sacred Hearts of Manquehue, and began to play soccer in the cadets of Audax Italiano. Then he went to Universidad de Chile until he debuted at First at age 19. Being a professional soccer player, in 1979 he graduated as a Civil Engineer, specializing in Construction at the Catholic University, where he played for the university team. He was an absolute international once with Chile, in a friendly played against the Brazil of Zico, Socrates, Falçao and Junior on May 7, 1986, close to turning 33 and one before starting his career as a coach at the University of Chile, his club of all life.

With the Catholic University of Chile, he won two Pre-Liberation Liguillas (1994 and 1995) and one Chile Cup. In 1999 he managed to win the Ecuadorian league with Liga de Quito. On his way through Argentina he won the Clausura and the Mercosur Cup in 2001 with San Lorenzo and the Clausura 2003 with River Plate.

Then he made the leap to Europe, reaching Villarreal in the 2004/05 season -the previous campaign had been 8th, with Benito Floro and Paquito-. The first thing he did was win the Intertoto Cup -at Atlético Madrid in the final- in the summer – and then managed to classify him 3rd, ahead of Real Betis, and for the first time for the Champìons, where the following season he would reach the semifinals, falling by the minimum against Wenger's Arsenal. That year, his worst classification of the five campaigns that led the ‘submarine’ finished 7th in the League, which, apart from third place in his first year, left him runner-up (in 2008) and twice fifth.

Record of points in Madrid, but blank

From Villarreal, Pellegrini went to Real Madrid by Florentino Pérez, with whom he achieved the record of 96 points in 2009/10 – later beaten by Mourinho, with 100 – which he did not give him to win the League against the intractable Barça of Guardiola. In the Cup he lost to Alcorcón with a crash (4-0) and in the Champions League he was discharged in the second round by Olympique de Lyon, so his stage as a Merengue coach ended at the end of the season, in which he had options to win the League until the penultimate day.

The 2010/11 campaign was started by Pellegrini without a team, but in November sheikh Al Thani recruited him for Málaga, after removing Josualdo Ferreira. The malacitanos were bottom when it arrived and finished the 11th League, although only three points above the descent. The following campaign, with the reinforcements of Cazorla, Isco, Joaquín, Toulalan, Monreal, Van Nistelrooy and Mathijsen, among others, he managed to classify Málaga 4th and in 2013 he left 6th after touching the semi-finals of the Champions, which were deprived of a malicious refereeing by Craig Thompson against Dürmund by Jürgen Klopp in the quarterfinals (0-0 in the first leg at La Rosaleda), by validating a decisive goal by Santana in the discount (3-2) for the Germans in clear offside. A couple of minutes before, also in the discount, Reus had made the 2-2 that was not worth the Germans. Joaquín scored the first goal of the match that day and Málaga reached 90 'with 1-2 on the scoreboard.

After that campaign, Pellegrini made the leap to the British Isles to take charge of Manchester City, becoming the first non-European coach to obtain the English league (he won the 2013/14 Premier), in a team where he had his orders players like Yaya Touré, Dzeko, Negredo, David Silva, Nasri, Jesús Navas, Demichelis or Javi García, now at Betis. Pellegrini was not only the first non-European champion in 125 years of Premier history, but he was also the fifth non-British to achieve consecration in England, after the French Arsené Wegner, the Portuguese José Mourinho and the Italians Carlo Ancelotti and Roberto Mancini , who after his departure were joined by Pep Guardiola and now Jurgen Klopp. With City he also won two League Cups.

In 2016, he traded to the Hebei Fortune belonging to the Chinese Super League, where in his second year in command of the team he achieved the best historical position in the club, finishing fourth in the 2017 season. In 2018 he left the Chinese team, to lead West Ham United of the English Premier League, which he leaves 10th his first year, until December 2019, when he was dismissed when the team was 17th, one point above the descent, Now, with David Moyes, he is 16th and is four over the descent in the absence of five days. Surely, the only blur of an impeccable career on the bench that is now trying to flourish at Real Betis, which for many years had not had a coach of his charisma and honors on the bench.

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