After last year’s great success, Real Madrid have not been as good as people expected despite adding arguably the best player in the world to their attack in Kylian Mbappe. They are second in the league to Barcelona and have flirted with not qualifying for the next round of the Champions League.
As this misfortune does not seem to be coming to an end any time soon, the Real Madrid board are slowly looking to find a replacement for Carlo Ancelotti both long and short-term. This page is going to look through all the potential candidates who could take the hot seat at the biggest club in the world.
Xabi Alonso
As a former Real Madrid player, Xabi Alonso would be a good choice as he understands the club as a whole and the passion that comes with playing for Madrid. However, his career as a manager makes him the best candidate as he has been one of the best managers in the world since taking over at Bayer Leverkusen.
In his first full season at Leverkusen, they lost one game all season, won the league unbeaten and won the DFB Pokal. Their only loss came in the Europa League final and this was a shock to many as they were obvious favourites when people looked at the best football odds today, but, Atalanta outplayed them in every sense of the word.
Despite the loss, Leverkusen still went from a team that was struggling in the relegation zone to one of the best teams in the world and as a young manager who has connections to the club, Alonso is the ideal replacement.
Raul Gonzalez
Raul is a Real Madrid legend and is newer to the management than some Madrid fans may like. However, if we think of Alonso or Mikel Arteta (who we will mention later) are the long-term replacements, Raul is the ideal short-term replacement.
Currently, Raul is managing the Real Madrid Castilla, the reserves team, and we aren’t going to pretend like they are the best team in the league. Or that Raul is like Pep Guardiola, and he came into the reserves and made them the best team in the league. However, they are still good enough and Raul is showing some signs of being a manager that could be really good one day.
Zinedine Zidane
Although this may seem like a crazy statement to make, if Madrid are looking for a long-term replacement overall, Zidane could be a great short-term replacement until the season ends. He knows how to get the best out of players, he knows the club and has had experience with Madrid before in one of their most successful periods. Since leaving Madrid, Zidane has been without a job and the short-term job at Madrid could help him get his love for management back.
Mikel Arteta
As the current Arsenal manager, Mikel Arteta has put the club through a huge rebuild and with good financial backing, has shown what he can do as a manager of a big team. Despite his lack of trophy success so far, Arteta has turned Arsenal around in a lot of ways and he has done it by implementing a style that is fun to watch.
As Real Madrid manager, Arteta would get a lot of backing in all the ways he could want and he could fire up a Madrid team that are clearly lacking motivation under Ancelotti.
Of the four we have mentioned, we think Arteta is the least likely as we don’t think he would leave Arsenal after just signing a contract and before winning another trophy. However, if he was the Madrid manager at some point in his career, we wouldn’t be too shocked.
