The Coaching Conundrum: Why Top Clubs Are Struggling to Find the Next Big Thing

The problem for clubs desperate for a new head coach is that there is no young Ancelotti, Klopp, or Guardiola on the market. The checklist for a top coach includes progressive football, adaptability to different cultures, previous elite experience with silverware favored, HR expertise within an organisational structure where managing upwards is key, and a charismatic carnival-barker act with the media.

The veteran coach is still going strong

In English football at least, a charismatic carnival-barker act with the media is still favored while the increasingly powerful sporting director class remain publicly silent. That Arne Slot will carry the title of head coach at Anfield is pertinent; Jürgen Klopp was definitively Liverpool’s manager. But now the club’s football operations are headed by Michael Edwards, assisted by Julian Ward, successive former sporting directors who both returned once the German’s departure was announced.

Klopp’s departure has left a void at Liverpool

If Pep Guardiola is Manchester City’s maestro, the club structure bespoke to the genius’s aristo-technocratic specifications, Klopp, though diplomatic in public, occasionally strained against Fenway Sports Group’s hierarchy. He turned out to be so irreplaceable his job title was retired and he may well be among the last of the giants.

Guardiola’s Manchester City is a well-oiled machine

January’s announcement of Klopp’s departure, and Slot being selected, preceded a glut of vacancies becoming available across Europe. As it stands, six of this season’s Premier League clubs will kick off next season under new management. That is not including Manchester United, where Erik ten Hag’s future is uncertain at very best.

Ten Hag’s future at Manchester United is uncertain

On Friday, Xavi was removed by Barcelona, while Stefano Pioli was signing off after Milan’s game against Salernitana on Saturday. That came the week after Juventus sacked Massimiliano Allegri. So there are plenty of opportunities but who are the candidates in what looks a seller’s market?

Xavi’s time at Barcelona has come to an end

It turns out there aren’t many to fit the aforementioned criteria. There was a point when Xabi Alonso had the choice of Liverpool, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, and perhaps even Real Madrid. He then decided to remain at Bayer Leverkusen. Were he suddenly to re-enter the market, Barcelona and Bayern remain possibilities and that impending vacancy at United joins Chelsea and three Italian clubs.

Alonso is a highly sought-after coach

Alonso fits the above checklist to a tee, even if Bayer’s pressing game, with its collective of talented youngsters and refreshed journeymen, was picked apart by the 66-year-old Gian Piero Gasperini’s Atalanta in Wednesday’s Europa League final. That Dublin success is a reminder that eccentric yet clear-minded greybeards still have their place in the game. Carlo Ancelotti, who has negotiated the egos and power structures in all five of Europe’s top leagues over the past three decades, can collect his fifth Champions League winner’s medal as a coach next Saturday at Wembley.

Ancelotti is a serial winner

The problem for those clubs increasingly desperate for a new manager/head coach is there is no young Ancelotti, Klopp, or Guardiola on the market. The corporate and financial element that now subsumes elite football makes finding top coaches more challenging.

Olise is a highly sought-after player

It has led to a curious set of equations, including the strange cases of Kieran McKenna and Enzo Maresca, who have never overseen a top-division game between them but are linked with some of the continent’s biggest clubs. McKenna’s Ipswich heroics may well have given him a decision between Brighton, Chelsea, and United.

Mckenna is a rising star in the coaching world

Vincent Kompany, meanwhile, after Burnley won five Premier League matches, while collecting 24 points and always looking unlikely to avoid relegation, seems to be headed for Bayern Munich. That checklist again: Kompany has charisma, in Belgium he is known as “Le President”; Burnley did at least play attacking football; with an MBA and as a German speaker from his time at Hamburg, he speaks the local language and the business lingua franca of the suits. All he lacks is any evidence – from either Anderlecht or Turf Moor – that he is anything like an elite coach.

Kompany is a highly respected figure in the football world