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Carlo Ancelotti would reconsider his plans to take a year away from the strain and stress of football if Liverpool came calling. In fact, they’re the only club that could convince him to get straight back into managing following his dismissal from Real Madrid. Or at least that’s what Marca would have you believe. Now, according to Bild, Jurgen Klopp would be willing to do the same.
It seems unlikely. It seems speculative. It seems the kind of eyeball-drawing click-bait common in the English tabloid press, eager to prey on the chaos and discontent that seems to swirl around Liverpool far too regularly. Of course, in the cases of both Ancelotti and Klopp, it’s not the English press who are driving the story, and if there’s any reason whatsoever not to simply dismiss the rumours out of hand, this is it.
Marca, as Real Madrid’s mouthpiece, have plenty to occupy themselves with as the Spanish giants look to be close to bringing in Rafa Benitez as their next manager. Bild too have their own concerns, and those concerns don’t tend to be fishing for the clicks of obsessive Liverpool fans. And while they’re a tabloid, they are at least a tabloid with a solid track record and some real insight when it comes to what’s going on in the Bundesliga.
Bild don’t claim that Klopp would jump at the Liverpool job without a second thought, but similar to the reports out of Spain concerning Ancelotti, they do suggest he would be very interested if asked. That he could be convinced. And that, if he were to change his plans to take a break from football, it’s likely only Liverpool who could get him to do that. It’s a viewpoint that has been echoed by German football expert Raphael Honigstein.
That Ancelotti and Klopp might actually be interested in the Liverpool job to the point that, of all the clubs potentially looking for a new manager this summer, they are the only ones who could convince them not to step back from the game for a season might seem unlikely to many fans. After all, in recent seasons, Liverpool have typically been the side getting passed over when it’s the big name players who are doing the picking.
Whether it’s Alexis Sanchez choosing Arsenal or Diego Costa signalling he’d rather stay at Atletico Madrid—before happily heading to Chelsea the next summer—or Henrikh Mkhitaryan choosing Klopp and Dortmund over Liverpool and Brendan Rodgers, Liverpool fans have gotten far too used to being something an also-ran in recent seasons. So it’s easy to see why many would insist the likes of Ancelotti and Klopp aren’t coming.
It makes sense, even if only as something of a defensive measure. A way to avoid the disappointment when the big, exciting target doesn't come. Managers, though, are older than players. They work to a different time scale. For them, Liverpool’s glory days are far better remembered, and the chance to put a sleeping giant that is still one of the world’s ten biggest—and ten biggest spending—football clubs back on its perch would hold significance.
Both managers have also talked often about their fondness for the club, for its history and culture. Which doesn’t guarantee Liverpool could land either, of course. But it does mean it perhaps isn’t as crazy to think they could as many, skeptical and shunned one too many times by big name players in recent years, might tend to think. If Bild, who have a solid track record in Germany, say Klopp is interested, then he just might be.
If he is—or if Ancelotti is—it is a chance Liverpool simply cannot not afford to pass up, and all because the club have been burned by players who don’t even really remember what happened in Istanbul and would rather go to London for the night life and shopping doesn’t mean they shouldn’t at least try.
