Kylian Mbappe is reportedly lobbying against Jurgen Klopp at Real Madrid — and pushing hard for Zinedine Zidane to take the job for a third time. That's an interesting power play from a player who hasn't won a single piece of silverware since joining Los Blancos.
The context: Real Madrid sacked Xabi Alonso in January and installed Alvaro Arbeloa as interim boss. With no LaLiga title and no Champions League trophy on the horizon, Arbeloa is widely expected to be shown the door in the summer. The search for a permanent manager is already underway, and Klopp's name keeps surfacing internally.
But according to Football365, Mbappe isn't convinced by the Klopp option. He'd rather see his compatriot Zidane — who delivered three consecutive Champions League titles across his two previous spells — return to the Bernabeu dugout.
Klopp's situation is more complicated than it looks
Fabrizio Romano confirmed Klopp is on Real Madrid's radar, but pumped the brakes on any suggestion of a done deal. "Real Madrid are still having internal conversations about managers, and one of the names always mentioned internally is Jurgen Klopp. But at the moment, that is not something advanced or concrete," Romano said on his YouTube channel.
The key obstacle isn't whether Madrid want Klopp — it's whether Klopp wants to go back to daily management at all. He took the Head of Global Soccer role at Red Bull in January 2025 after leaving Liverpool, and stepping out of that structure to manage one club again would be a significant shift. Romano flagged exactly this: Madrid need to know if he's genuinely interested before anything else moves forward.
There's also something quietly ironic about Mbappe's opposition to Klopp. In 2020, he was effusive in his praise for Klopp's Liverpool, calling them "like a machine" and saying "they win, they win, they win." Whether his current stance is personal preference, tactical thinking, or something else entirely is anyone's guess.
What this means for Madrid's summer
A trophyless season at Real Madrid is a crisis by the club's own standards. Whoever comes in next faces immediate pressure to compete at the top of LaLiga and in Europe — which makes the manager appointment one of the most watched coaching decisions of the summer. Zidane carries the mystique of those three consecutive Champions League wins, but he's been out of management since 2021. Klopp is proven at the elite level but may not want the job.
Mbappe, for his part, has scored 84 goals and added 11 assists in 98 appearances for the club. The numbers are solid. The trophies aren't there. His influence over the boardroom, real or perceived, adds another layer to an already complicated rebuild.
Real Madrid's next manager will inherit a squad in transition and a fanbase that expects trophies as a baseline. Klopp or Zidane — whoever gets the nod, the margin for error is thin from day one.
