Spanish paper Marca reported yesterday that Zinedine Zidane will leave his post as sporting director of Real Madrid to make the next step into the managerial world.
Marca’s report says he has an agreement with Madrid president Florentino Perez that he will be manager of Real Madrid if he can get more experience, and that’s what he intends to do.
He has most notably been linked with a job at Monaco, in his home country of France, but there are plenty of openings in England that could entice the former Madrid striker.
The most intriguing would be at Tottenham Hotspur, who have announced that interim manager Tim Sherwood will not be given the job past this summer.
Oddly enough, Sherwood was the striker at Blackburn Rovers whose presence convinced owner Jack Walker to rebuke manager Kenny Dalglish’s attempts to sign a 23-year-old Zidane, with Walker famously claiming, “Why do you want to sign Zidane when we have Tim Sherwood?”
It would be a surprise if Zidane would be a candidate for the Manchester United job, with United reportedly not even considering interim manager Ryan Giggs due to his lack of managerial experience, therefore it would seem hypocritical if they then courted the Frenchman.
Zidane actually himself endorsed Giggs for the permanent job at United, echoing his own situation saying, “You will always get arguments that they are young or that they are not experienced. But between them they have been at Manchester United for 30 years. And you can not be better equipped than that.”
Despite not having a first-team managerial position on his resume, Zidane was appointed assistant coach to Carlo Ancelotti last year and is often seen on the touchline directly next to Ancelotti giving very loud instructions.
The fact that he has the opening to return to Real Madrid may actually hurt his intentions to get experience first, as clubs know he will not be there for the utmost long term.
So where will he go, with a view towards what is apparently his “dream” of managing Real Madrid?