Earlier this season many Real Madrid fans wanted Carlo Ancelotti replaced. He seemed to have no direction for the club and had the team playing abysmal football. Ancelotti failed to trust the young players, and the results were embarrassing at times. There was the first leg performance against PSG, the 1-0 loss to Getafe, and the 4-0 loss to Barcelona as some of the lowlights.
But Ancelotti rebounded. He rectified all those mistakes, won LaLiga, and brought Real Madrid to the Champions League Final with the kind of man-management and frenetic genius that only Don Carlo is capable of.
So the “theme” of manager replacements is now a dead one, thanks to Carletto’s brilliant turnaround. But as with monitoring transfer targets of the future, such as Dortmund’s Youssoufa Moukoko or Palmeiras’ Endrick, it does not hurt Los Blancos to look at coaches of the future.
According to a report from BILD’s Ulrika Sickenberger, Real Madrid have a surprising name on their list of potential future managers to watch. He is so surprising, in fact, that the report includes the tag line “No joke!”
Oliver Glasner has taken mediocre squads to the Champions League twice
Oliver Glasner did not get Eintracht Frankfurt into one of the European places in the Bundesliga this season, which would normally be a disappointment, especially after the Eagles held onto Filip Kostic in the summer 2021 transfer window and added a few quality players like Jesper Lindstrom, Ansgar Knauff, and Rafael Santos Borre. Eintracht, in fact, finished in the bottom half of the table in 11th, behind even Borussia Monchengladbach, whose own first-year manager (and Eintracht’s previous manager), Adi Hutter, was fired.
Yet Glasner is reportedly the one on Madrid’s radar despite his disappointing performances domestically.
However, Eintracht will be playing in next year’s Champions League. Because like Unai Emery’s Villarreal before them, the Eagles won the Europa League, taking down Rangers in the final after defeating Real Madrid’s chief rivals Barcelona in the semifinal.
The way Frankfurt outclassed Barcelona in the second leg was fantastic to watch. This team had no business competing with Barça when comparing the investment into both squads, yet there was only one winner in the end.
Glasner was successful before Eintracht, too. He is not a one-hit wonder. Glasner led Wolfsburg to the Champions League, succeeding in the Bundesliga with a fourth-place finish. This season, Wolfsburg have been shambolic without him, in 12th and having gone through two managers.
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Real Madrid generally do not take risks with managers. They need to hire a certain character and a certain person who fits a top club. Glasner has not provided evidence he can do that. But you never know where the next great manager will come from. I would rather have Real watch Glasner’s managerial career over the next few years, rather than being linked to coaches we know who would fail at Real’s level, such as Joachim Low or Mauricio Pochettino.