The 6 Men to Play for & Manage the Same Team in a Champions League Final - Ranked

Great players do not necessarily make great managers. While the two roles are closely associated with one another, they require contrasting areas of expertise.

Being able to complete a pass few others can see is an entirely different skill to explaining how to do it. To paraphrase Arrigo Sacchi, a horse would make a rather cumbersome jockey.

However, there are (rare) exceptions to every rule. In the 65-year history of the European Cup - the continent's most prestigious club crown - only six people have reached the final as both a player and manager of the same club.

6. Hansi Flick (Bayern Munich)

Hansi Flick's remarkable and ridiculous impact at the helm of Bayern Munich this season has culminated in the club's first Champions League final for seven years. Many of that treble-winning squad from 2013 are still part of the current side but their manager also has experience of the biggest stage in club football.

In 1987, a 22-year-old Flick started in midfield for Bayern against Porto. The Bavarians were clear favourites - club president Fritz Scherer devoted several days to writing a victory speech before the game.

However, Scherer's efforts proved futile as Bayern lost 2-1 to their Portuguese opponents.

Flick spent five successful years in Bavaria as a reliable midfielder, but hardly the star of a side boasting the burgeoning talent of Lothar Matthäus.

5. Vicente del Bosque (Real Madrid)

The tall, elegant, perennially moustachioed Vicente del Bosque racked up more than 400 games as a Real Madrid player, calmly stroking the ball around in midfield, rarely flustered despite a lack of pace.

Despite winning five league titles and the Copa del Rey four times, Del Bosque's career as a Real Madrid player was haunted by the inability to win the club's seventh European Cup.

The closest he came was in 1981, when Madrid fell victim to Bob Paisley's all-conquering Liverpool side.

However, Del Bosque was able to succeed as a manager where he had failed on the field, steering the club to not one, but two Champions League titles in 2000 and 2002.

4. Zinedine Zidane (Real Madrid)

Zinedine Zidane's only European triumph as a player came under the stewardship of Del Bosque in 2002 - the final of which was marked by one of the tournament's greatest goals from the Frenchman.

Zidane's strike-rate as a manager, on the other hand, has been untouchable. After winning three consecutive Champions League titles, the 48-year-old wrapped up his second La Liga crown this season - after three-and-a-half years of management, Zidane has won a trophy for every 19 games played.

3. Carlo Ancelotti (AC Milan)

Few coaches have become as synonymous with Europe's premier competition as Carlo Ancelotti. He is one of only three managers to have triumphed in the tournament on three separate occasions but he also won the big-eared trophy twice as a player.

At the heart of Arrigo Sacchi's revolutionary Milan side, Ancelotti - alongside Frank Rijkaard - dominated the midfield as the Rossoneri claimed consecutive European titles in 1989 and 1990.

Unlike Sacchi - who was zealously bonded to a 4-4-2 formation - Ancelotti guided Milan to continental glory by virtue of his supreme flexibility, picking the system which best suited the players made available to him.

2. Miguel Muñoz (Real Madrid)

Real Madrid is a club defined by its star players - and the president - more so than the poor person prowling around the technical area. Yet, at a club as trigger-happy as Madrid, Miguel Muñoz remained at the helm for 14 glorious years.

Madrid's love affair with the European Cup began in 1955 against Swiss side Servette in the first round - Muñoz scored the opening goal of game, the club's first ever strike in the competition's history.

Club captain Muñoz would go on to win the first three iterations of the tournament on the pitch before retiring in 1958.

Two years later and Muñoz was back in the capital, taking over from Manuel Fleitas Solich towards the end of the 1959/60 season as Barcelona claimed a second-straight La Liga title.

Muñoz navigated Madrid past their eternal rivals in the European Cup semi-finals just weeks after his appointment and oversaw the club's historic 7-3 victory over Eintracht Frankfurt in the final.

Yet, perhaps more impressive was Muñoz's achievement of steering Madrid to a sixth European Cup in 1966 without the talismanic figure of Alfredo Di Stéfano.

1. Pep Guardiola (Barcelona)

No one person is more intrinsically linked to the 'Barcelona way' than Pep Guardiola.

As a player, the Catalan was plucked from the academy and flung straight into the heart of Johan Cruyff's side. The 'Dream Team', as the side would come to be known, ended Barcelona's wait for a first European Cup in 1992, with Guardiola at the base of midfield but also acting as a defender in tandem with Ronald Koeman.

In 2008, Guardiola returned as head coach while the club was in a state of relative chaos. The former ballboy reinstated Cruyff's playing ideals and proved that a team doesn't have to sacrifice aesthetics for success, winning three league titles and two Champions Leagues in four seasons with some of the most scintillating football in recent times.