Sir Alex Ferguson may not be particularly keen to see the Engineer in England, as Pellegrini's Villarreal proved to be something of a bogey team for Manchester United. In their debut season in the Champions League, the Yellow submarine helped to eliminate the Red Devils from the group stage of the 2005/06 competition with two 0-0 draws against the English giants. The Spanish team topped the group, which also featured Benfica and Lille, while United finished last. In 2008/09, the two sides again met in the group stage, and both games were played out with the exact same outcome of two 0-0 draws.
7) Pellegrini is one of the few managers to split Barcelona and Real Madrid in recent years. His Villarreal team put together a string of six wins in a row at the end of the 2007/08 La Liga season to leapfrog Frank Rijkaard's struggling Barcelona. The Yellow Submarine finished second, behind Real Madrid, with Barcelona placing third. It was the final nail in Rijkaard's coffin in Catalonia, and he was replaced by Pep Guardiola the following season.
8) The coach finally had his shot at the big time with Real Madrid, who he joined in the summer of 2009. Though Madrid spent a fortune that summer in bringing in Xabi Alonso, Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo to name a few, Pellegrini's authority was undermined within weeks, with the club selling Wesley Sneijder and Arjen Robben against his will. "They signed the best players, but not the best players needed in a certain position. It's no good having an orchestra with the 10 best guitarists if I don't have a pianist", he later commented. “Real Madrid have the best guitarists, but if I ask them to play the piano they won't do so well”. Notably, both Robben and Sneijder went on to play major roles in leading Bayern Munich and Inter Milan respectively to the Champions League final in 2010.
9) After only a few months in charge at Madrid, Spanish sports daily Marca began a campaign against Pellegrini, and it is widely believed that president Florentino Perez played some part in the affair in order to path the way for Jose Mourinho's arrival at the Bernabeu. Despite problems off the field, Pellegrini's Madrid were a deadly attacking side, and the 96 points they chalked up in La Liga would have been a new record in Spain, were it not for Pep Guardiola's Barcelona, who achieved a phenomenal 99. "I'm a big admirer of Pellegrini, he's an extraordinary coach," Guardiola later commented, "His Real Madrid team deserved to be league champions."
10) The Chilean's time at Malaga has been equally turbulent, but again he has managed to produce the best from his players in a challenging environment. After finishing fourth in La Liga during his first full season in charge at La Rosaleda, the club looked set to begin the process of strengthening ahead of their debut Champions League campaign. Instead, they soon found their most important player, Santi Cazorla, being sold to Arsenal for €20m in order to pay off debts incurred by their absentee owner. Pellegrini managed to steer the crisis-hit club into steadier waters however, dissuading senior players like Jeremy Toulalan and Martin Demichelis from leaving, and keeping the core of the team together. Subsequently, he guided the club to within minutes of a place in the Champions League semi-final, after already becoming the only coach to take two different teams to the Champions League quarter-finals in their debut seasons in the competition.
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