Liverpool, Bayern or Real Madrid in 2026? Assessing Xabi Alonso's options

Xabi Alonso is the hottest name in top level management right now with his Bayer Leverkusen side eight points clear at the top of the Bundesliga and seemingly on the verge of a first-ever German league title.

Last weekend, Leverkusen delivered a stunning performance in battering Bayern Munich 3-0 at the BayArena, leaving the German record champions stranded in second place, floundering, and facing their first trophyless season in 12 years.

Bundesliga champions for 11 seasons in a row, Bayern’s dominance is about to be upended by Alonso and Leverkusen, a side who have won the plaudits not only for their league displays this term but also in the Europa League and DFB-Pokal to boot.

Alonso, 42, has assembled a dedicated, committed, adaptable group of players, who play front-foot football and are not overawed by the scale of the achievement lying in front of them.

Alonso’s incredible Leverkusen rise

The manager has extracted the maximum from otherwise modest names like Jeremie Frimpong and Alex Grimaldo. The former Arsenal captain Granit Xhaka was a shrewd acquisition while Leverkusen have even covered the loss of €20 million striker Victor Boniface, who was in terrific form prior to being injured in the lead-up to Nigeria’s Africa Cup of Nations campaign.

Incredibly, Leverkusen have only dropped points on four occasions in the German league this season, in draws against Bayern, Borussia Dortmund, Stuttgart and Borussia Monchengladbach, and are yet to taste defeat.

At the weekend they equalled a German-record 32-game unbeaten streak, set by Pep Guardiola’s Bayern, and also boast the league’s meanest defence.

It's getting difficult to come up with new ways to describe Alonso’s achievements to date and, as such, he is the name in the frame for some of the biggest jobs in European football.

Having signed for Leverkusen in October 2022, Alonso has since gone on to renew his contract and is currently tied to the club until the summer of 2026. As such, they remain confident that the Spain World Cup winner will see out his deal and are not concerned about reports of interest from the likes of Bayern, Liverpool and Real Madrid.

But what would Alonso’s ideal pathway look like? We assess the options in front of the former midfielder, a Champions League winner with Liverpool and Real.

A risk to replace Klopp at Liverpool?

When Jurgen Klopp announced that he would step down from his position as Liverpool manager at the end of the season, speculation immediately turned to the identity of his successor.

While there are still plenty of prizes for Liverpool to dispute this term, there will be a focus from the club to get the next appointment right.

They are not only appointing a manager but a full, new backroom team with Klopp’s lieutenants set to depart and sporting director Jorg Schmadtke having already left his post.

There could well be a strong emotional lure for Alonso to return to Anfield, where he starred as a midfield player from 2004 to 2009, winning the European Cup and FA Cup among other honours.

He is also the current fan favourite; the Reds have a clear kinship with their former player and are impressed by his Leverkusen record.

And, unusually, he has been anointed as the “standout” manager of his generation by no less a figure than Klopp.

"Xabi is doing an incredible job,” a forthright Klopp said at a press conference last week. "How quick his team is that well tuned, for the time it's taken, he's put his proper stamp on it.

"The next generation is already there and I would say Xabi is a standout in that department.”

Replacing the main man is rarely a straightforward task, however, particularly if Klopp signs off with another league title.

Arsene Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson were insufficiently replaced at Arsenal and Manchester United respectively, with each club having to blow up their succession plans shortly after first deciding on them. Arguably, United are still to recover over a decade later.

Even Pep Guardiola, when he moved to Bayern, was trying to live up to the achievements of Jupp Heynckes, who had just won a treble. He never quite managed it.

“These kinds of managers are extremely hard to replace, especially for someone with so little experience,” former Red Glen Johnson recently told Squawka.

"Of course, in football timing is everything and this kind of dream job may not open up for them again so they’ll be tempted to take it, it will just be very hard to have the kind of success Klopp did.”

Also, Liverpool will be at a crossroads. Key players including Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk, two high earners on the wrong side of 30, will only have one year each left on their deals.

Liverpool hit the jackpot with those two signings but it remains to be seen if it would be possible to get two more world-class players to replace them.

There were two key factors driving Liverpool’s successes in recent years; Klopp himself and the incredible sequence of recruitment that saw them pick up not only Van Dijk and Salah but also Sadio Mane, Fabinho, Alisson and more. Are either easily replicable by Alonso?

Picking up the pieces at Bayern

Intriguingly, Bayern have moved into the frame for Alonso’s signature in recent weeks with their season under Thomas Tuchel imploding.

The former Chelsea manager only just got over the line in the Bundesliga race last season and this term has failed to convince the naysayers of his credentials.

Bayern are eight points off Leverkusen’s lead, despite lavishing the squad with signings like Harry Kane and Kim Min-jae last summer, and it looks as though Tuchel will be departing sooner rather than later.

There have been reports in the German media in recent weeks that FC Hollywood would seek to steal a march on Liverpool by signing Alonso quickly and having him installed as Tuchel’s replacement in summer.

He is well-known to Bayern’s board - as well as some of their players - having starred under Guardiola from 2014 to 2017 for the German giants.

Although not quite the hero at the Allianz Arena as he is at Anfield, there is still a clear sense of identification between Alonso, the club and the fans. Moreover, big Bayern voices such as former president Uli Hoeness have praised Alonso as a “strategist”.

Replacing a busted flush like Tuchel might well appeal to a prospective Bayern manager simply because the only way is up.

However, they too will have contract problems to resolve before the end of the 2024-25 season. Leroy Sane, Joshua Kimmich and Alphonso Davies are all out of contract in summer 2025 with Bayern refusing to be held to ransom over renewals.

Veterans - and former Alonso team-mates, Manuel Neuer and Thomas Muller are also out of terms in 2025 to boot.

Bayern bosses could make the decision to offload Sane, Kimmich and Alonso in an effort to recoup some transfer cash, meaning Alonso would have a depleted squad to work with from the off.

A summer reset awaits either way.

Stay at Leverkusen, wait for Real Madrid?

Leverkusen sporting director Simon Rolfes is believed to be confident that Alonso will stay at the BayArena. The club plucked Alonso from relative obscurity when he signed from Real Sociedad’s B team back in 2022 to replace Gerardo Seoane.

The Werkself were among the Bundesliga relegation places and appointing a novice coach was seen as a risky move. However, it has proven to be a remarkable piece of foresight.

Leverkusen have also recruited well for Alonso, with players like Grimaldo, Boniface, Xhaka and Nathan Tella coming in to help improve the squad’s prospects. Alonso has got the absolute best out of the players at his disposal.

He might well be tempted to give it another year at least, have a crack at the Champions League and see what a bigger budget and newly burnished reputation do for his managerial stock in the long term. And that could well bring another team into the fray.

Real Madrid complete the trio of former clubs that would love to have Alonso back. He was a favourite at Santiago Bernabeu having moved there from Liverpool and is being openly spoken about in the Spanish capital as a Madrid manager-in-waiting.

“I think his job at Leverkusen is not finished,” former Bayern and Germany star Lothar Matthaus recently told Gazzetta dello Sport. “He was a coach before he sat on the bench and that helps him.

“It would be difficult to repeat Klopp’s results immediately, while in the Bundesliga he is more protected to grow and win. Then there will be time to go to a big team, maybe Real Madrid.”

Carlo Ancelotti, the beloved Blancos boss, has recently signed a contract extension to 2026, the same year that Alonso’s Leverkusen contract runs out.

It promises to be an exciting era for Madrid with world-class talents such as Jude Bellingham and Vinicius Junior on the books and the inevitable signing of Kylian Mbappe to come. Maybe even Erling Haaland will finally be a merengue by 2026.

Opportunities to coach players like that only come around every so often.