Do managerial skills matter? An analysis of the impact of managerial features on performance for the Italian football

This paper studies the impact of a set of managerial features on performance in the top division of the Italian football league during seasons 2000/01-2009/10. Our set of coach characteristics includes indicators of skill, experience, innate features as well as empathy with the team. We find that some managerial features matter even when we control by club power and past results. Indeed, performance is positively correlated with the fact that the manager has experience abroad or has been a previous player of the team but negatively correlated with lack of previous managerial experience. Other features affect only some particular aspects of performance. In particular, Italian managers play a more defensive game in home matches while old managers are more defensive in away games. Also, changing a coach within the season has a negative impact on the defensive skill of the team in away matches.