Ancelotti hopes Xabi Alonso coaches Real Madrid ‘one day’

Carlo Ancelotti said he hopes Xabi Alonso can coach Real Madrid “one day” after the Bayer Leverkusen boss was linked with the position following Real’s 3-1 derby defeat to Atletico Madrid on Sunday.

Alonso, 41 — who twice played for Ancelotti, including at the end of a five-year spell as a Madrid player between 2009 and 2014 — has guided Leverkusen to second in the Bundesliga this season, level on points with league leaders Bayern Munich.

ESPN reported in May that Alonso is the leading candidate to take over from Ancelotti, whose contract at the Santiago Bernabeu expires in June 2024.

“I had Xabi Alonso as a player,” Ancelotti said in a news conference on Tuesday ahead of Madrid’s LaLiga game with Las Palmas. “He has a high-level knowledge of football. He’s doing very well with Bayer Leverkusen. He has that reading [of the game], that capacity.

“I think one day — for Raul [Gonzalez], for [Alvaro] Arbeloa, for Xabi Alonso — their biggest wish is to coach Real Madrid and I want that for them because I know them all, I love them all. Let’s hope that one day they can be Real Madrid coaches.”

Alonso starred for some of modern football’s top managers — Rafa Benitez, Jose Mourinho, Ancelotti and Pep Guardiola — as a midfielder at Liverpool, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, before beginning his coaching career at Madrid’s academy.

He spent three seasons in charge of boyhood club Real Sociedad’s reserve team before taking over at Leverkusen in October 2022, taking them from a relegation battle to Europa League qualification.