26 January 2024 , 19:46
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The surprise news of Jurgen Klopp’s pending departure from Liverpool is bound to send the rumour mill into overdrive as the identity of his successor is pondered far and wide.
Klopp is stepping down from his role at the end of the 2023/24 season and Liverpool owners Fenway Sports Group are already considering their options. While former Reds midfielder and current Bayer Leverkusen manager Xabi Alonso is the bookies’ favourite, there are plenty of other options.
Many, like Alonso or Brighton head coach Roberto De Zerbi, would have to be hired from another club. But Zinedine Zidane is one of the options open to FSG who is currently without a job and therefore free to speak immediately about succeeding Klopp.
Zidane has been without a club since May 2021, when he resigned for the second time as Real Madrid manager after being beaten to the La Liga title by rivals Atletico Madrid on the final day of the season. He has been linked with lots of jobs since, rejecting approaches from the United States and Brazil, and remains on the outside.
L’Equipe reports that he has just rejected another potential job from Algeria – the country of his parents’ birth. Zidane was reportedly approached by Walid Sadi, the director of Algerian football, following Djamel Belmadi's sacking after the team finished bottom of their Africa Cup of Nations group due to draws with Burkina Faso and Angola and a defeat by Mauritania.
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Zidane is understood to have politely declined the offer and the report states that he would not want to take an international job that is not of his own country, France. Whether he would be interested in succeeding Klopp at Liverpool is another question.
Zinedine Zidane remains without a job as Jurgen Klopp leaves Liverpool (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)HAVE YOUR SAY! Would Zinedine Zidane make a good replacement for Jurgen Klopp? Comment below.
Liverpool chief executive Billy Hogan was alongside Klopp in his press conference on Friday afternoon and outlined how the club would go about replacing the German. “The way we operate as a football club is to make sure we look at all the information and all the data, we've done our proper due diligence and then make a decision and have an announcement at that time,” he said.
"I can't commit to a timeline on it. It will go on in the background and we will ensure we are doing everything possible to make sure we make the right decision for the future of this football club.
"That is the way we have always operated and we will through this process and at the same time it is not to be a distraction. This is about making sure this campaign continues and the team continues to perform, And as I said, when we have something to say, we will have something to say at that point.
"So we will go through that process as we have done in the past and the same process that brought us Jurgen almost nine years ago, it is something we will do in private with the people here, with our owner Mike Gordon in particular and when we get to a place when we have further news we will discuss it at that point but it won't be a running commentary.”