Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola has been ambitiously linked with a summer switch to Serie A giants AC Milan, who are set on taking a new direction next season.
Incumbent coach Sergio Conceicao is widely expected to leave his post at the end of this campaign, regardless of whether Milan go on to claim the Coppa Italia – a semi-final against rivals Inter is all square after the first leg was played this week.
The European champions have gone backwards over the last 12 months, languishing ninth in the Serie A table after losing four of their last six league matches, in the wider context of an overall disappointing campaign. They were knocked out of the Champions League by Feyenoord in February.
Milan are already tipped to appoint ex-Juventus and Tottenham Hotspur executive Fabio Paratici as sporting director, who will be available once a 30-month global ban from football expires this summer.
Gazzetta dello Sport has reported that Paratici has already met with the agent of Roberto De Zerbi, the former Brighton & Hove Albion coach, now enjoying success at Marseille. It is not necessarily clear what the subject of their exchange actually was, but De Zerbi is among the favourites all the same.
Other names of varying feasibility mentioned are Antonio Conte, who has Napoli in a title fight with Inter but is also linked with former club Juventus, Massimiliano Allegri, a scudetto winner with Milan in 2011, Roberto Mancini, a six-time league champion as a player and coach, and Maurizio Sarri.
Allegri, Mancini and Sarri are all currently available and are proven as coaches in Serie A.
But Guardiola is a left-field suggestion, breaking the idea that Milan would prefer an Italian-speaking coach after hiring successive Portuguese speakers in Conceicao and predecessor Paulo Fonseca.
It feels more speculative at this moment in time, but Guardiola is coming towards the end of his toughest season with Manchester City after dominating English football since 2017. He signed a new contract until 2027 in November and a much-needed squad rebuild has already begun in earnest, but City are still at genuine risk of their lowest Premier League finish since the 2008 Abu Dhabi takeover.
Guardiola has spent longer in Manchester (nine years) than his spells at Bayern Munich (three years) and Barcelona (four years) combined. He has never coached in Italy but turned out for both Brescia and Roma in Serie A during the injury-hit final years of his playing career.
