Despite Liverpool struggling this season, there are no question marks over who is the best fit to continue managing the club in the long-term future. Jürgen Klopp’s current contract expires in 2026, and unless some extraordinary circumstances unfurl, the German is expected to fulfill his obligations until the end of the 2025/26 season.
What’s next for Liverpool beyond 2026 is moot though. By then, Klopp will have been at the club for over a decade, and given his history in the past at Mainz and Borussia Dortmund, it’s unfeasible to expect him to continue at Anfield forever. There had been question marks over whether he was even committed to sign a new deal last year when he put pen to paper on his current contract.
But should the Liverpool boss leave, he will give FSG a bit of an existential question to fulfil. What now? What’s next? More importantly: who’s next?
But FSG might be a step closer to finding an answer in Xabi Alonso. A former Liverpool midfielder who played a major role in the club’s most dramatic Champions League title success back in 2005 in Istanbul, Alonso spent several years at Anfield before moving on to Real Madrid and Bayern Munich.
But he has always kept a close affiliation to Liverpool, and has even competed for the club’s legends team in the past.
Back when he retired in 2017, Alonso first started out as an academy coach at Real Madrid and worked on his coaching badges in the Spanish FA alongside Mikel Arteta, who has gone on to achieve great success with Arsenal.
Alonso then moved to Real Sociedad’s B team before joining Bayer Leverkusen this summer, where he has quickly transformed a relegation-fighting side who collected just five points in their first eight games to now fighting for a place in Europe next season in the Bundesliga.
Last week, Alonso also guided his side to the quarter-finals of the Europa League with a convincing 4-0 aggregate victory over Ferencváros, and finding himself up against Union SG on the more ‘favorable’ side of the draw — which avoids both Juventus and Manchester United en route to the final — he has a good chance of returning to Budapest at the end of the season to collect some silverware.
More confirmation of that was seen at the weekend when Alonso, on his return to Munich, beat Germany’s current champions 2-1 in a shock result that has seen Bayern plummet to second in the table. That’s almost unprecedented at this stage of the season in the Bundesliga, but Alonso’s result is still impressive considering that was only Bayern’s third league defeat in 25 games this season.
Playing an attractive and fluid attacking style of play both incorporating the defensive disciplines of Carlo Ancelotti and the possession based football of Pep Guardiola, Alonso has already proven himself a tactical genius. 3-5-2 or 3-4-3 formations with inverted wingers and a false number nine hovering almost as an attacking midfielder is innovative and fun to watch.
Given his affiliation to Liverpool and should he continue on the same track, there may not be a better candidate to replace Klopp in the future than the Spaniard, and FSG should keep a close eye on Alonso’s progress in the coming seasons. His recent results have definitely proved his credentials as one of the most exciting young managers in European football.