This is a tale of two highly rated managers, born 18 months apart. Both are married. Both have a son and a daughter, both took non-traditional paths to the coaching big-time and, in many ways, both are outsiders in the football fraternity. The parallels end there.

One was blessed with exceptional footballing skills, winning league titles and European silverware at club level, collecting 108 caps for his country and winning the World Cup and the European Championship. The other was never good enough to make a living as a player, so he went to university instead before taking the humblest of assistant coaching jobs.

One has never managed a club side and was simply handed the reins of one of the world’s biggest footballing nations with zero experience on his CV. The other has been involved in some coaching capacity from the age of 16.

One seems to have almost a love-hate relationship with the sport. At 27 he announced he was bored and would retire “within a year”, only to stick around until he was 34. Then, when he was given his managerial job, he continued living more than 5,000 miles away, scouting his players on television and commuting back and forth. The other seems to be obsessed with the game – “I live, breathe and sleep football,” he once told me.

One cultivates an almost New Age, free-spirit image, trundles around in a VW Beetle, practises yoga and talks about “positive energy” and “avoiding confrontation”. The other dresses like he was Gordon Gecko’s business partner in the film Wall Street, instils a permanent siege mentality in his sides and happily takes on allcomers.

One loves to surround himself with armies of experts, delegating as much as possible and going out of his way to please his bosses and coworkers. The other is part human lightning rod, part micro-manager, a man who bristles at sharing responsibility with anyone (like, say, a director of football).

One is self-effacing: “Sometimes I feel like I don’t really know what I’m doing.” The other is self-anointing: “I am the Special One.” Nobody can accuse Bayern Munich of not searching “far and wide” for a man to succeed Ottmar Hitzfeld this summer. Indeed, the fact that their choice came down to Jürgen Klinsmann and his managerial opposite, José Mourinho, shows just how open the job search was. It also illustrates how, at least as far as Bayern are concerned, nonfootballing factors come into play.

The first is simply image and personality. Klinsmann, having led Germany to third place at the 2006 World Cup in improbable circumstances, was lionised. He freed his countrymen from a psychological block, finally allowing them proudly and patriotically to celebrate in a sea of German flags, something that, for historical reasons, many had felt uncomfortable doing. He was a unifier and a gentleman. When Torsten Frings was involved in the postmatch scuffle against Argentina he did not lose his composure, railing against the authorities, but rather distanced himself from his player’s actions. Mourinho, on the other hand, defends his players to the hilt, fostering an “us versus them” mentality. Every day is about gaining an edge, every public statement is about defending your team and gaining leverage on your opponents.

Klinsmann loves surrounding himself with other high-profile personalities, people in whom he places his trust and to whom he is not afraid to defer. With Germany it was Oliver Bierhoff, Joachim Löw and Matthias Sammer. At Bayern, he’ll be sharing the stage with a triumvirate of local legends – Franz Beckenbauer, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and Uli Hoeness.

Mourinho has a staff, too, of course, but one gets the sense that his hand-picked advisers are simply projections of himself and his way of doing things. When Chelsea brought in outsiders – from Avram Grant to Frank Arnesen – inevitably there was friction. Mourinho functions best when he is the sole decision-maker, Klinsmann is most comfortable when power is spread around. Trite as it sounds, Mourinho and Klinsmann prove that there is no “right” way in management. One might have thought that Klinsmann would have grown up to be an individualistic, hyperconfident and autocratic manager. And one might have thought that Mourinho would have developed into a man of compromise and pragmatism. Instead, it’s been quite the opposite.

Surely overexposed

Éver Banega is hailed by many as the next big thing to come out of Argentine football. The 19-year-old playmaker, arguably the best player at the Under-20 World Cup last summer, recently moved from Boca Juniors to Valencia for around £13 million.

His talent is not in question, his behaviour may be an issue. A popular video doing the rounds on the web, entitled “Banega has always been big”, shows the midfield player exposing his manhood to the camera. I’ll leave you to write your own punchline.

Woolly joke misfires

Barcelona have their own “secret Santa” tradition, with Frank Rijkaard, the coach, pairing players up. The gifts are supposed to be funny or somehow meaningful. For example, Presas Oleguer, the fierce Catalan separatist, was given a Spain shirt with his name on the back and a biography of Francisco Franco.

Very amusing. But someone overstepped the mark with Edmilson. The Brazilian commented last month that there were a few “black sheep” in the Barcelona dressing-room. His gift was a live, bleating black sheep. Surely an inflatable one would have done the trick (and maybe provided Edmilson with some private amusement), without endangering the welfare of an animal?

gabriele.marcotti@thetimes.co.uk