With four major managerial posts up for grabs at the end of this season; Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Barcelona and Germany, European football is heading for a massive off season. Is it a good thing?
It is not unusual for, at the end of any given season, three European clubs to be simultaneously on the hunt for a new manager. In fact, typically that number is far higher. What is unusual is that three of the biggest football clubs in Europe will all be searching for new managers at the same time.
Add to this the likely managerial hunt the German FA will be on once the Euros, which they host, concludes and Julian Nagelsmann’s contract expires, and we are set for a European managerial summer circus unlike any we’ve seen in modern history, as well as England’s imminent search for Gareth Southgate’s replacement.
We have to rewind the clocks back over a decade, to the off season between the 2012-13 and 2013-14 football seasons, when Chelsea hired Jose Mourinho, who was replaced at Real Madrid by Carlo Ancelotti and Pep Guardiola’s anticipated post-sabbatical managerial return was confirmed to be at Bayern Munich.
But, the 2023-24 footballing off season is massively different; here’s why.
Summing up the European football off season madness
At the time of writing, the count of managerial positions needing to be filled come the end of the 2023-24 season is five; Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Germany and England. Add to this multiple clubs likely to be on the hunt; Roma, Napoli, PSG, West Ham and Dortmund, as well as Chelsea and Manchester United, who never seem far from a managerial sacking, and that tally rises to 12.
This is before we include the clubs who are likely to lose their manager as a result of this circus; Brighton, Bayer Leverkusen, Girona, Sporting CP, Las Palmas and Bologna, to name a few. In case you’re not still following, this takes our tally up to approximately 18 clubs, many of them significant in stature, some not, likely to be searching for a new manager this off season.
It is simply a remarkable state of play, one which is unprecedented in modern football history. It has the potential to completely alter the European football landscape before the beginning of the 2024-25 campaign.
But it all starts at the top. Each of Bayern, Liverpool and Barcelona can stake a claim as the biggest club in European football, particularly with the backing of their historical achievements. And each, in their own right, lay claim to the most coveted footballing managerial post at the end of this season.
Each, however, has its flaws.
Barcelona’s are screaming in the face of any candidate daring to throw their name in the ring to lead the post-Xavi era. “We are not financially solvent!” these flaws sing from rooftops rising above Las Ramblas; “we have no money to sign and need to sell!” they add from a nearby tapas bar, before angrily whispering that La Liga have once again reduced their salary limits.
To say Barcelona are in transition would be putting it lightly. In fact, it might even be complimentary to the Catalonian outfit, who are closer to crisis than they are stability.
For this reason, whoever replaces Xavi, himself not far removed from leading Barcelona to a La Liga title as manager, needs instant success, not only to appease the fans, players and hierarchy but also the club’s accountants, who need the financial rewards of winning to paper over the financial cracks of losing.
Financial ruin isn’t prevalent at Bayern Munich, yet the Bavarian club aren’t free of controversy and friction as they enter a post-Thomas Tuchel world. As far as managerial stocks go, only Graham Potter, Tuchel’s Chelsea replacement, has seen his plummet more than the German in the past 12 months.
He ends a rather draining Bayern Munich spell as potentially the first man since Jupp Heynckes in 2011-12 not to lift the Bundesliga title at the end of the season. In Munich, coming second is a crime punishable by sacking. Above him, the club’s perennially politically unstable as many voices want to air their opinion, with a lack of cohesion as common as winter snow in the Bavarian Alps.
On the pitch, Tuchel constantly moaned about the team’s required refresh, a reality that has become glaringly obvious this season and a problem for whoever the name manager is. Any new manager will also need to toe the line between the club’s expectations and its reality.
Of the three major European clubs facing an imminent managerial changeover, Liverpool is undoubtedly the most stable and probably desired. Jurgen Klopp, perhaps with half a mind he was departing at the end of the 2023-24 campaign, refreshed his squad, replacing several ageing stars with newer, fresher versions, long-term success was evidently in mind.
However, this isn’t to suggest whoever replaces Klopp is walking into an oasis. As we’ve previously seen with Manchester United and Barcelona’s struggles to replace Sir Alex Ferguson and Pep Guardiola, walking into a club after a highly popular, and successful, manager vacates their post, is tricky at best, difficult at worst.
Add to this the contract situations of Mohamed Salah, Virgil Van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold, which at this stage remain up in the air, and any new Liverpool manager must hit the ground running, especially with the added pressure any success the club has in 2022-23 brings.
As for the German and England national team jobs, they exist within their own world far removed from the norms of club football. Germany wants to be what they were without knowing how to get there, while England’s young core is one of international football’s best but can’t seem to get over the final tournament hurdle and secure victory.
All these jobs have their problems and issues new managers must imminently face but their allure lies in their untold potential.
How can any manager resist the temptation to become the man to return Barcelona to football’s summit? Or continue Klopp’s legacy at Liverpool? Or deliver England its first piece of international silverware in a generation?
With great pain comes great potential, that much is true. For this reason, a large majority of Europe’s top managers are on watch for a large majority of these jobs, with one exception.
In a world of stricter enforcement of financial fair play (FFP) regulations, evidenced by La Liga and, more recently, the Premier League, and managerial release clauses, it’s hard to imagine a world where Barcelona can afford to stretch their spending limits toward bringing in a world class managerial talent, like Xabi Alonso.
It’s why the Catalan club has been linked with Rafa Marquez, who manages their ‘B’ team, Girona’s Michel and Las Palmas Garcia Pimenta. Aside from Marquez, any of these appointments would extend the momentous period of change about to be inflicted upon European football to the bottom end of the ladder.
Say Barcelona appoints Garca Pimenta, it would send Las Palmas on their own managerial hunt, which could see the club search for managers in and around their level. In turn, the club who lose their manager to Las Palmas would be forced into their own search.
Similarly, the same can happen to Girona, who has the backing of the City Football Group, and likely European football, which will facilitate their ability to hire managers of a higher calibre than Las Palmas, or clubs lower down the ladder of Europe’s respective leagues.
At the top of the tree, Liverpool and Bayern Munich are bracing for a tussle to acquire their primary managerial target: Xabi Alonso. The Spaniard, a former player at both clubs, has Bayer Leverkusen firing as not only Germany’s best team but arguably Europe’s as well.
Whether his tactical approach suits either club is a concern. Great managers and teams seemingly find a way to make these things work.
Regardless of the approach of any of the clubs and nations in the managerial hunt, the chain reaction they’re bound to set off would make J. Robert Oppenheimer shake in his boots and make no mistake, it will reverberate right through the European footballing pyramid.
How have we got here?
You may be asking yourself, where exactly is here?
Here, modern football, and sport more broadly, where success is demanded so intensely, celebrated so intensely and failures are chastised so intensely that managers, who wear the brunt of everything modern sport involves more than any other stakeholder, leave or are forced to leave
All three of the major managers leaving their positions at the end of this season – Klopp, Tuchel and Xavi – have alluded to this reality since announcing their departures.
Xavi cited a feeling his achievements at Barcelona, which included a first league title in the post-Lionel Messi era, weren’t celebrated enough. This, he stated, ‘generated a wear and tear that [makes] you think, you do what you do [and] it’s not valued.’
In his video announcing his departure, Jurgen Klopp explained:
“It is that I am, how can I say it, running out of energy. I have no problem now, obviously, I knew it already for longer that I will have to announce it at one point, but I am absolutely fine now. I know that I cannot do the job again and again and again and again.”
While sources close to Bayern Munich and Thomas Tuchel confirmed to various outlets, notably The Athletic, that the German manager knew the writing was on the wall.
These three aren’t the first; Pep Guardiola notably took a sabbatical after his Barcelona spell for this season, and with the way sport is going, where greed, for success and money, trump all, means they won’t be the last.
