[Football] Guess the managerial merry go round

Mancgull said:

Won’t Sebastian Hoeness be high on Bayern’s wish list?

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Hoeneß renewed with Stuttgart until 2027 last month. You never know in football but I doubt he plans to leave. With his ties to Bayern he would surely be aware if they would seriously consider him. Could be Bayern rate Hoeneß but don't see him ready yet.

Latest reports are their board is divided between RDZ and return of Nagelsmann.

OTOH Laporta is still hoping Xavi will change his mind and stay (has a year left on his contract so would be no problem in that regard) while other directors in his board think it's time for a change. I think if we'll go past PSG and maybe win El Clasico (although that won't be enough to win La Liga unless Madrid would totally bottle it) then they will probably all be on board with him staying so it will ultimately depend on what Xavi wants.


As for some of the other names mentioned in post above.

Slot I coud see try to prove himself in a better league.

As said above I believe Michel will stay in Girona who have all but guaranteed a CL spot.

I see Motta staying in Italy with big jobs like Napoli and AC Milan likely available. And as a former Inter player he would surely prefer going there if some club would manage to lure Inzaghi away. Don't see it happen this summer but in a year or two Inzaghi will probably want a new challenge too.

Not that familiar with other managers. I know who they are but don't know enough about them to guess what they will do.


Also, someone should give a chance to Oscar Klopp.

Barcelona - Xavi to U-turn and stay or Hansi Flick
Bayern Munich - Julian Nagelsmann from the German national team
Liverpool - Ruben Amorim from Sporting Lisbon
Man United - Graham Potter from the Falkland Islands
England - Gareth Southgate to continue until the end of World Cup 2026 (or Eddie Howe from Newcastle)
Chelsea - Mauricio Pochettino to continue until November.

Surprise move - Moyes to retire at the end of the season, Thomas Frank to take over. Brentford to hire Knutsen.

FCB said:

I see Motta staying in Italy with big jobs like Napoli and AC Milan likely available. And as a former Inter player he would surely prefer going there if some club would manage to lure Inzaghi away. Don't see it happen this summer but in a year or two Inzaghi will probably want a new challenge too

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Motta favourite to take over from Allegri in the summer at Juventus. Allegri has a long history of being chased by Bayern so that's a name to add in if he'd want an immediate retunr.

Sarina Wiegman to replace Rdz...

Beanstalk said:

Barcelona - Xavi to U-turn and stay or Hansi Flick
Bayern Munich - Julian Nagelsmann from the German national team
Liverpool - Ruben Amorim from Sporting Lisbon
Man United - Graham Potter from the Falkland Islands
England - Gareth Southgate to continue until the end of World Cup 2026 (or Eddie Howe from Newcastle)
Chelsea - Mauricio Pochettino to continue until November.

Surprise move - Moyes to retire at the end of the season, Thomas Frank to take over. Brentford to hire Knutsen.

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Nagelsmann will go to Liverpool after the Euros according to one German football expert.

Justice said:

Nagelsmann will go to Liverpool after the Euros according to one German football expert.

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Very interesting. It would open up Amorim to go elsewhere. With Alonso off the table, he's going to be the number one choice at most clubs (including us according to some leaky reports earlier in the season).

Nagelsmann would be a great coup for Liverpool but is he really going to leave the German national team if they do well this summer (lots of talk about extending his contract)? And is Klopp really going to immediately jump back into another role (even if it is international level)? All his comments seem to imply otherwise.

Barcelona - Hansi Flick
Bayern Munich - De Zerbi
Liverpool - Nagelsmann
Man United - Potter
England - Mourinho
Chelsea - Zidane (after trying/failing to get RDZ)
Brighton - Mckenna

Barcelona- Amorim
Bayern- Flick
Liverpool- Nagelsmann
United- Tuchel
England- Potter
Chelsea- Barry the steward (from Brighton)

anyone think Xavi could end up here?

7dialssouthpaw said:

anyone think Xavi could end up here?

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Can you sign Bernardo Silva and Joshua Kimmich? Then you maybe have a chance. j/k

I think he would be a good fit. He could develop your young talents (although they are a few years older than some he's working with now) and at the same time evolve as a coach. Because coaching is where I think he should improve the most, especially his tactics. At times he was outcoached by average lower table La Liga managers and would be even more exposed going against likes of Pep, Emery, Arteta on a regular basis.

I think Xavi could do something to improve/add more experience to his backroom staff and not rely so much on his brother but ofc managers will always choose people they know and trust to work with every day. In the end it's still him making important decisions. Fans probably don't care who Pep's or Klopp's assistants are (that doesn't mean they are not important to them though) but for someone still relatively inexperienced like Xavi I think there is a room for improvement in that aspect. Does he think the same? Probably not.

Inconsistency (not as much between different games but during the same game) is also problematic. We could play well, good and sometimes even great for 30-60 minutes and then just somehow fall apart, letting opponents back and struggle to win when we should probably be comfortable up by 2-3 goals. Not sure how much that is on Xavi and how much on playing as many youngsters who will obviously make mistakes, especially when they get tired. Although tbf more experienced players were often more prone to errors.

Conceding first and often early goals was a problem most of the season, especially at start of 2024 but we've improved since then. Ter Stegen returning from injury played a big role (Inaki Pena is nowhere near good enough to be even a backup and we had to use him for three months) but number of individual mistakes have decreased. And Cubarsi (despite only being 17) also brought that calming presence to defense.

I think Balde's season ending injury that made us going back to last year's formation using Kounde as a more defensive RB to pair with offensive Cancelo on the left this time is also a factor. It's almost impossible to keep defensive balance playing in a 4-3-3 with two offensive wingbacks (Cancelo, Balde) especially if you also don't have a "destroyer" at DM. Oriol Romeu was supposed to be that but he doesn't have quality and Xavi has given up on him after 2-3 months. Lately we've used Christensen as DM and he's done his best to improve defensive structure but obviously we struggle in the buildup because he's not used playing there (FDJ and Pedri both being out last month don't help him either). But still think it's positive Xavi has looked for internal solutions there after we couldn't bring a DM in January (it's difficult we could find someone of required quality on loan anyway).

I think our overall fitness level has improved under Xavi although we still have lot of injuries but that's sadly a new norm in modern day football where all players are over played/worked and also often rushed back from injuries. You can get more or less "lucky" with injuries but it's just something managers these days have to live with.

And I would say improvement in fitness is also down to having an overall younger team than we had 3-4 years ago when we were still playing former greats/legends like Busquets, Alba, Pique and even including Messi on their last legs. It was one of the concerns most fans had how Xavi will handle his "amigos" before he took over. And he did well overall in that aspect. Stopped playing Pique when we've signed Kounde and Christensen which eventually led to his retirement before World Cup. And benched Alba for Balde last season so Jordi decided to join Messi in Miami. Busquets was really the one who played until last day and Xavi wanted to keep him but mainly because we had no replacement for him and still don't have one after he left.

Reports from a few weeks ago said veteran players like Lewandowski asked Xavi to increase intensity of trainings. Probably during that January/February period we struggled in. And Lewa actually looks like a different player since then and overall form of the team has improved. So whatever they've changed must have worked. On first sight it's not really a good sign if Xavi was "too soft" on his players in trainings (although level of trainings has been questioned for years at Barca and we've gone through multiple coaching changes) but OTOH I think it's a quality of a good manager to communicate with and listen to feedback of his players and change some things according to that if needed.

I think man management is Xavi's strongest point so far. Yes, we played bad at times but never seen the players give up on him. We've scored the most goals in La Liga in last 10-15 minutes and most of those goals were important to bring us points. But ofc most of comebacks were against teams we should be beating comfortable at home so it's a good question why we didn't do that. I often thought we showed more passion and character than playing organized. In other words, we played hard rather than smart. And that's not something I would expect from Xavi's coached team based on the player he was (clearly one of the most intelligent players I've seen).

That said I still believe Xavi is levels above former great players turned into manager flops (who I've seen him being compared to) like Lampard, OGS, Pirlo,.. but he'll need to prove that in his next club. I think he should command respect in whichever locker room he'll walk into even without having a cult status in that club from his days as a player. Tbh I think some people's initial expectations he could become a Pep v. 2.0. put additional pressure on him especially during the tough times the club is going through outside of the pitch (but something Barca coach has to deal with that won't be the case in most other clubs). Those expectations were always unrealistic. As much as I like and am optimistic about this young core Yamal is no next Messi (always hated comparing young talents to legendary players, it's much more likely to harm the kids long term than help them) and we don't have Xavi and Iniesta entering their prime years. De Jong is our only midfielder in prime years and he's not close to their level (also a different profile), Gundo is getting old (still very good though) and despite being around for so long Pedri and Gavi are still youngsters and with injury concerns too.

Last thing I would point out is Laporta gave Xavi got too much power too soon. He was our de facto SD and handpicked Ferran, Lewa, Raphinha, Kounde,... Not bad players and they all played important roles in winning La Liga last season but could do better than hedging longterm future of the club with those famous levers in 2022 on these players while still having a glaring hole at DM for example. So his talent evaluation is probably not the best but that shouldn't be a problem if he'll join a club with a great Sporting department like you have for example.

OTOH I think he's better at judging talent of players coming through youth ranks (have to give some credit to Rafa Marquez who is doing great job with our B team too despite Xavi "stealing" most of his best players away from him) so not surprised when I've read yesterday Ajax has shown interest in him. For all connections and similarities between the clubs would probably be the best possible destination for Xavi if he'll actually leave us. Which at this point I'm still not sure will happen. We'll probably know more by the end of this month.