Some of the best coaches, both from the past and present, were brilliant footballers in their day. Take Johan Cruyff, Pep Guardiola, Diego Simeone, Didier Deschamps, Carlo Ancelotti or Zinedine Zidane. Yet from Diego Maradona and John Barnes through to Thierry Henry, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard or Andrea Pirlo, there is also a wealth of evidence to show that top footballers do not always make top coaches.
Owners and directors, however, continue to trust former greats with masterminding their teams despite having scarce or unconvincing track records in the dugout. Birmingham City are the latest club to put their eggs in the basket of one of the best players of the modern era after hiring Wayne Rooney.
Rooney's predecessor, John Eustace, had made a strong start to the season and taken the Blues to sixth position in the Championship, with realistic hopes of qualifying for the play-offs. In his last two outings as manager, he had overseen big wins over Huddersfield Town and local rivals West Brom.
Eustace's reward was to be booted out of his job and replaced by Rooney, whose D.C. United had just finished ninth in their MLS Eastern Conference and failed to make the play-offs. His two-year stint in charge of Derby County, meanwhile, ultimately ended in relegation, albeit in very challenging circumstances.
Rooney's appointment will undoubtedly further raise the global profile of Birmingham, whose new American owners, which include NFL legend Tom Brady, have huge ambitions. But hiring him is also a huge gamble. Rooney has so far built his coaching reputation on fighting fires and damage limitation. Now his task is to lead Birmingham back to the Premier League for the first time in 13 years. Falling below the sixth place Eustace had achieved and missing out on the play-offs would be seen as a huge failure.
So how good a coach is Rooney and is he likely to fall into the category of Cruyff and Zidane, or Henry and Lampard?