The Football Association are prepared to hire an interim England manager for a year in order to appoint Pep Guardiola as Gareth Southgate’s replacement.
Southgate resigned as Three Lions boss on Tuesday after eight years and 102 games in charge, an incredible run that ended with defeat in the Euro 2024 final.
The race is now on to appoint his successor with Eddie Howe, Graham Potter, Lee Carsley and Mauricio Pochettino high on the FA’s shortlist.
While there has been plenty of fan and pundit support for the hiring of Guardiola, landing the Manchester City boss has always been viewed as a wild fantasy rather than a realistic prospect.
A large reason for this is the desire to appoint a new manager before England’s next fixtures in September and Guardiola is contracted to City until next summer and could yet extend his stay at the Etihad.
However, the Independent report that there is a growing feeling that the former Barcelona and Bayern Munich boss will call time on his City career at the end of the upcoming season.
As such, the FA are prepared to wait for the 53-year-old if they feel there is a chance they can hire him in 2025, and will appoint an interim manager to oversee the national team until then.
That would likely be England U21 boss Carsley, which would also give him the opportunity to try out for the senior job if Guardiola became unattainable.
Guardiola has previously stated his interest in going into international management at some stage, and is already very familiar with some of England’s top players like Phil Foden, Cole Palmer, John Stones and Kyle Walker.
He has no interest in become Spain manager however due to identifying as a Catalan instead, though the La Roja job is unlikely to be available for some time anyway given their Euro 2024 triumph.
While it would be risky to wait on his arrival, Guardiola is widely considered the best manager working today and one of the greatest of all-time, having won 12 league titles (including six Premier Leagues), 10 domestic cups and three Champions Leagues, as well as many other honours.
Next England manager odds:
Eddie Howe: 5/2
Graham Potter: 3/1
Lee Carsley: 7/2
Jurgen Klopp: 17/2
Mauricio Pochettino: 9/1
Thomas Tuchel: 18/1
Pep Guardiola: 40/1
Odds courtesy of Betfair
Moreover, while he would miss the Nations League campaign, qualifying for the 2026 World Cup may not even begin until September next year due to a shakeup of the qualification format.
But despite his reputation, there are reservations over hiring a foreign manager, while Jamie Carragher has also mused that club success does not equal trophies on the international stage.
‘It is like we are living in some kind of fantasy world in which international managers get months or years to work with the exact profile of players they choose, developing patterns of play on a daily basis so it becomes natural whenever a tournament comes along.
‘Not even [Jurgen] Klopp or Guardiola could guarantee the same style and results managing an international team as they had with their clubs. Have we learnt nothing from the Fabio Capello experiment?’
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