Thierry Henry believes his former teammate Zinedine Zidane is hoping to become France national team coach rather than return to Juventus management.
The Italian team have had a sub-par start to the season, with the loss to Benfica last night confirming their elimination from the Champions League.
The Old Lady succumbed to a 4-3 loss to Benfica in a game they needed to win to keep their hopes of progressing to the next stage of the competition alive. This, coupled with Juventus’ poor performances in Serie A, has led to the club sacking Massimiliano Allegri.
Zidane recently revealed that he will return to management soon, but did not provide further details. There have been reports that Juventus want Zidane as their manager, but Henry believes his compatriot will not go to the Italian team.
Zinedine Zidane waiting to become France coach, says Thierry Henry
“Zizou (Zidane) won the Champions League, Zizou showed that he can go (to a club like Juventus). He has shown that he can win at a big club. I’m not going to go there (if Zidane could beat Juventus). I think he is waiting for the national team (France). So I’m not going to go there,” Henry said on CBS Sports. [via GOAL].
And he added: “I don’t think I’ll go there (Juventus). I think you are expecting one thing and one thing only. The national team”.
Zidane’s last step as coach was at Real Madrid. The Frenchman returned to Real Madrid as coach in March 2019. Zidane led Real Madrid to LaLiga glory in the 2019/20 season.
However, Real Madrid failed to win any trophies in the next season. They finished the 2020/21 season without trophies. And Zidane resigned from his position in May 2021.
He has been linked with various clubs since then, including Manchester United and Paris Saint-Germain. But Zidane remains without a team, although he has been proposed to replace Didier Deschamps as France manager after the 2022 World Cup.
Meanwhile, Juventus sits eighth in the Serie A points table with 19 points from their first 11 games in the league this season. They are already 10 points behind Napoli, leader of the table.
Juventus have not lived up to expectations so far this season, and this has led to calls to replace Allegri.
