Real Madrid usually get what they want; Be it signing the best players in the world, or winning the biggest trophies. But as their disappointing season threatens to end in this week’s UEFA Champions League quarter-final second leg against Bayern Munich, it is likely to trigger a manager search that will satisfy no one at the world’s biggest club.
Madrid are nine points behind leaders Barcelona in LaLiga and crashed out of the Copa del Rey in the round of 16 after losing to second-tier Albacete. If they fail to overcome Wednesday’s 2-1 defeat at Bayern, they face a second consecutive season without a major trophy, and Alvaro Arbeloa, who replaced Xabi Alonso as coach in January, can forget about staying in the post beyond the summer.
But finding a new manager capable of meeting Madrid’s unique demands – an A-list coach with a winning track record, who will impress a demanding dressing room and fanbase with his personality, and also deliver immediate success – will be more difficult than ever for president Florentino Pérez.
With Perez’s usual options in times of crisis – Carlo Ancelotti and Zinedine Zidane – off the table due to commitments elsewhere, Ancelotti is expected to extend his contract with the Brazilian and Zidane will replace Didier Deschamps as France coach.
Ancelotti won three Champions League and two LaLiga titles during two stints as Madrid coach, while Zidane secured the same number of Champions League and LaLiga trophies as Ancelotti, also in two different periods as coach. And, crucially, both were able to walk into the dressing room and gain the full respect of an ego-filled team – something that Alonso was unable to do during his six months in charge earlier this season.
Alonso came to the job at Madrid with renowned status as a player, having won the Champions League and LaLiga; His exploits at Bayer Leverkusen as a manager, where he won the German Bundesliga title without suffering a defeat to end Bayern’s decade-long domestic stranglehold, enhanced his reputation. But it all went in vain when Madrid’s high-profile players decided he was not for them.
Madrid believed they were appointing football’s next young superstar coach, but Pérez misjudged the strength of the dressing room, and that is why the search for the next manager will be so difficult.
The club needs to appoint a winner, but also someone who doesn’t suffer the same problems with players that they had with Alonso. So where do they turn? If Perez is considering potential options, he will see a field that lacks a single outstanding candidate.
With no rising star with the same track record as Alonso and the best coaches – Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola and Paris Saint-Germain’s Luis Enrique, who could win a second consecutive Champions League title this season – Madrid will be impossible to attract… and not just because both managed Barcelona.
Thomas Tuchel would have appealed, simply because he is a previous Champions League winner with Chelsea, but the former Borussia Dortmund, PSG and Bayern coach has recently committed himself to a new contract as England manager.
The five names leading the bookmakers’ chances to become Madrid’s next permanent manager reflect the lack of real options open to Pérez.
Arbeloa is the favorite, but after five defeats in 19 games, there is almost no chance of the 43-year-old continuing next season.
Former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp is the second favorite and given that he now works as head of global football for Red Bull Group, his appointment would be an attractive appointment. He ticks every box in terms of both track record and appearances, but the 58-year-old last month dismissed reports linking him to Madrid as “nonsense”, despite having previously ignored appeals to work for the club.
Apart from Klopp, the next two names on the list are AC Milan coach Massimiliano Allegri and United States men’s national team coach Mauricio Pochettino.
Allegri, 58, is a widely respected tactician who has won domestic titles with Milan and Juventus, but he has never won a European trophy and his last league title came at Juventus in 2019, so he is hardly the hottest name in coaching at the moment.
The same can be said of Pochettino, whose only domestic title was his 2021-22 Ligue 1 success with PSG. The former Tottenham and Chelsea coach has spent almost two years in charge of the United States, but his reputation has been no boost during a turbulent period that has seen them lose nine of 24 games.
Benfica’s Jose Mourinho, Germany’s Julian Nagelsmann and Bournemouth’s Andoni Ierola are some of the other names in the frame, while Aston Villa’s Unai Emery and former Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca (unemployed) have also been linked with a move to the Bernabeu. But there are more negatives than positives with each name.
Madrid therefore have limited options for the coming summer, but it is a situation they have created for themselves. He left Ancelotti a year ago as the serial winner went a season without a trophy, while Alonso was sacrificed in favor of sparing the feelings of some key players rather than doing the job he was appointed to do.
Madrid left an ideal coach like Ancelotti and failed to support his successor, so they are left with a weak field of candidates. Unless they pull off a major coup by hiring Luis Enrique or Klopp, they won’t get what they really want or need this summer.
