Klopp has been name-dropped in speculation following Xabi Alonso's ouster at Real Madrid last week, but the ex-Liverpool manager has said multiple times that he is not in the running for the vacancy


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Jurgen Klopp has once again rejected the notion that he is in the running to become the next coach of Real Madrid, admitting he is "at peace" since leaving the touchline in 2024 and assuming a role as Red Bull's head of global soccer.

Xabi Alonso's time at Real Madrid came to a close after just seven months following a 3-2 defeat to Barcelona in the Spanish Super Cup final last week and Klopp's name has been linked to the vacancy. He quickly rejected the notion in an interview the day after Alonso's ouster and did so again on Saturday ahead of RB Leipzig's 5-1 defeat to Bayern Munich.

"I'm in a place as a person, I'm at peace," Klopp said in a media roundtable over the weekend. "I don't want to be somewhere else. I don't get up and excited if, whatever, Real Madrid is showing interest – if they would, but it's the media."

Since departing Liverpool in May 2024 and assuming his new job at Red Bull a year ago, Klopp has insisted that his days on the touchline might be over, previously telling CBS Sports that he misses "nothing" about his previous role. He reiterated that stance yet again, almost closing the chapter on that period of his career entirely.

"We [are] build[ing] a house right now and my missus wanted to have a trophy room that was really big and there was another small room and I said, 'This is enough,' because we know exactly how many trophies we had and we will not add any," Klopp said. "Again, I don't know what I'll think in five years when I'm 63. That's not too old for the job or in two, three years, I don't know. I don't expect me to change my mind but I don't know how we all don't know exactly, so that's why. Do I want to coach again? In the moment, I would say no but we cannot say never, never, never, never but I'm completely happy with what I'm doing. It's a little bit like all the things I did in the past [led] me to be really suited for this moment."

Klopp said he has had his fix of being a singular person of focus at a given team, instead using his new job at Red Bull to focus on the journey of building teams from a zoomed out perspective.

"I don't need to be in the center of this kind of thing," he said. "I don't need to be on the pitch if we win something, be the one in the middle and these kidneys of things. It's nice but I've had enough of it and I'm not there to go again, go again, go again. If I feel that, I go again."

Even though he left the door open for a potential return to the touchline one day, the decision to come back is unlikely to be made hastily.

"I always was happy where I am," he said. "That's how it is, until I was not but it took time. I could say I was always happy but then after four days, I said, it's not great anymore. I know myself. I'm consistent. I don't change my mind overnight with these kinds of things."

Klopp may be uninterested in taking the Real Madrid job but he did have a word of advice for Alonso's former employers as they search for a new coach.

"I heard the news, Xabi Alonso, and now it's a bit of a mixed [feeling]," he said. "Yes, I was surprised and no, I wasn't surprised. 'What! Of course,' a little bit like that so you could read it. I don't Google Real Madrid news but it was everywhere … I don't know what it says about Madrid or not, stuff like this, but I have no clue why it happened but it's always a specific case and not a general [one] because what they see now, bringing just the next one in is not that easy so I would recommend, if you sack a manager, better have an idea who you want to succeed and it should be realistic."

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