Ricardo Ferretti - Career

Career

After retiring as a player, Ferretti started to work as a football coach in 1991 with Pumas UNAM. In 1996 he moved to Chivas, where he had his greatest success, including a championship in 1997, and a runner-up position in 1998. With Chivas he failed to qualify for the play-offs only once in eight seasons.

In 2000 he moved to UANL Tigres, a team that constantly failed to qualify for the play-offs, despite having a squad with many star players, including many from the Mexican national team, such as Jorge Campos and Luis Hernández, and from other national teams as well. In his first year, Ferretti qualified the team for the play-offs, and a season later he made them runners-up.

He stayed in Tigres until 2003, where his constant success and the good economic standing of the team combined to make Ferretti one of the best paid coaches of the time. However, that year's Clausura saw the first ever semi-final Clásico Regiomontano, in which Tigres played their arch-rival Rayados. Both teams were favorites for the championship, and the first game started well for Tigres, but the players' mistakes combined to give Rayados a 4–1 victory on the first leg, and the second leg was made insignificant. Because of the team's failure to defeat their arch-rival in the semi-finals, the team decided not to renew the coach's contract. Ferretti then moved on to coach Toluca for the Apertura 2003.

However, in that season, Tigres signed Nery Pumpido as coach, but because of the similiraty in the style of play and the almost insignificant change to the squad's roster, local media in Monterrey always rumored that Ferretti coached Tigres behind Pumpido. Tigres became runner-up again that season, and won a semi-final against Ferretti's Toluca.

In 2004, due to personal differences with the player José Cardozo, and despite qualifying for the play-offs in all his seasons in Toluca, Ferretti was separated from the team. He then moved on to coach Morelia, with mixed success.

In 2006, Tigres asked him to return to coach the team. Under his guidance, Tigres won the InterLiga, qualifying the team to the Copa Libertadores de América, and then to the play-offs of that tournament. However, Tigres failed to qualify for the Clausura 2006 playoffs, and to advance in the Libertadores. Because of this failure, Tigres decided to cease the relationship.

On May 23, 2006 he signed again with Pumas, where he is currently the coach. Last season, he took Pumas to another final. This time against Atlante, a team which had endured a difficult yet brilliant season. Pumas came in as underdogs due to the fact they didn't have a great season but they shined in the playoffs using home-field advantage to the full extent. They became a nightmare for other teams inside Ciudad Universitaria. So much that on the first leg of the semi-finals against No.1 seed Santos, they beat them to the rhythm of 3-0. No team during the season had scored so much on Santos. But in the first leg of the final, Pumas couldn't deliver on Atlante. On the final's second leg, Pumas fell to them with a score of 2-1. The game ended with the game winner shot from outside the box.

In the 09 season he took the Pumas back to the finals after a lot of comebacks in the playoffs and were the underdogs yet again and beat Pachuca who had beat them in the regular season 2-1 but Pumas beat Pachuca in extra time 3-2

After Pumas was eliminated in the 2010 playoffs, Ferretti quit as manager due to a huge disappointment. He was quickly signed as coach to Tigres. The third time around was the charm for Ferretti, as he lead Tigres to win Apertura 2011 over Santos Laguna, the third title for Tigres and first in 29 years.