Real Madrid's five-man shortlist to replace Ancelotti

Stuart Telford

• 26 Mar 2023 20:07 BST
• 4 min read

Real Madrid have reportedly drawn up a five-man shortlist of managers who could replace Carlo Ancelotti at the Santiago Bernabeu.

Real may be defending Spanish and European champions, but they are 12 points behind Barcelona at the top of La Liga this season and the pressure on Ancelotti is mounting.

It is almost an open secret that the Italian won't be at the Santiago Bernabeu next season, with Madrid winger Rodrygo publicly courting him for the vacant Brazil manager's job recently.

READ: Ederson drops Ancelotti bombshell with 'big possibility' comment

Confidencial information

And according to Spanish news outlet El Confidencial, los Blancos have drawn up a five-man short-list of Raul, Julian Nagelsmann, Xabi Alonso, Mauricio Pochettino and Zinedine Zidane.

Raul is a club legend who scored 323 goals in 741 appearances for Real between 1994 and 2010. He has been in charge of the club's Castilla reserve side since 2019 and led them to UEFA Youth League glory in 2020.

Real enjoyed unprecedented success after promoting from within with Zidane in 2016 - an experience that might fill them with confidence regarding Raul.

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Nagelsmann has unexpectedly appeared on the market, though. The youngest manager in Bundesliga history when he took charge of Hoffenheim at 28, Bayern Munich left world football stunned when they fired him on Friday, replacing him with former Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel.

Real have also been in for Nagelsmann before. "It's normal if Real Madrid call you, you think about it," he told The Independent in 2020. "I was surprised at first, I weighed it up and I didn’t feel comfortable with a decision to go there."

Nagelsmann wanted time to grow as a manager. Subsequent spells at RB Leipzig and Bayern suggest he has done, and Madrid could now get their man - provided Tottenham Hotspur don't beat them to the punch.

Alonso is in a similar boat to Raul in that he represented the club as a player and is now a highly-regarded young coach, but the chances are he will have to cut his teeth with Bayer Leverkusen a bit longer before Real given him a role.

That leaves Pochettino and Zidane - two of the best available managers in the game who are currently out of work. Pochettino got Tottenham to a Champions League final in 2019, so he has some European credentials - but they are nothing compared to Zidane's.

'Zizou' steered Real to three consecutive Champions League triumphs between 2016 and 2018, and many of his former players are still on the books. He was also waiting for the France job which never arrived with Didier Deschamps steering les Bleus to the World Cup final in December.