Fabrizio Romano has addressed reports linking Jurgen Klopp with a major European club, in the wake of the German announcing that he’ll be leaving Liverpool at the end of this season.
Less than 48 hours after that massive Friday bombshell, it also emerged that Xavi is to step down from Barcelona once the current campaign ends, leaving two of Europe’s biggest footballing institutions seeking new managers in 2024.
In his Daily Briefing for CaughtOffside on Monday morning, the Italian shot down any likelihood of the 56-year-old taking the reins in Catalonia once his Anfield tenure concludes, with reports from El Nacional claiming that Klopp had become Joan Laporta’s preferred candidate at Camp Nou.
Romano wrote: “We’re inevitably seeing links with Barcelona now after Xavi also announced he was leaving his job there, but there is nothing ongoing now. It’s still all very early and fresh, Barca will take their time to decide, it’s not going to be decided in some days…step by step.
“Klopp has been very clear that he wants to stop for one season so I think it would be more than complicated for Barca or anyone else to hire him for next season. As of today, my understanding is there’s nothing going on on that front.”
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Klopp cited his ‘running out of energy’ as the primary reason behind his decision to leave Liverpool at the end of the season (liverpoolfc.com), so any chance of him going straight from Anfield into the Barcelona pressure cooker seems remote.
There’s simply no way that even Pep Guardiola in his Camp Nou pomp would’ve survived finishing fifth in LaLiga and missing out on Champions League football, whereas nobody on Merseyside was calling for the German’s head in that scenario last year, such is the appreciation for everything he’s done overall for the Reds.
Some Spanish media outlets inevitably tried to put two and two together in the wake of the double managerial bombshell over the past three days, but LFC fans in particular know full well that the 56-year-old wouldn’t leave immediately for a highly pressurised environment.
Maybe Klopp will find himself at a leading European club further down the line – he’d certainly be a man in demand if he indicated a desire to return to management – but it seems a safe bet that he won’t be the immediate successor to Xavi at Barcelona later this year.