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Hansi Flick to become new Germany manager, Bayern to target Nagelsmann

Time to go to plan B.

RB Leipzig v TSG Hoffenheim - Bundesliga for DFL Photo by Boris Streubel/Bundesliga/Bundesliga Collection via Getty Images

The odds of Tottenham Hotspur landing Julian Nagelsmann as their new manager after a (future) sacking of Jose Mourinho just got a lot longer. According to Fabrizio Romano, the German Football Association is set to hire current Bayern Munich boss Hansi Flick to become its next manager, with the Bundesliga giants expected to target Julian Nagelsmann as their next boss.

That is, obviously, awful news for Tottenham Hotspur, who according to inside reports have viewed Nagelsmann as their top candidate to replace Mourinho if/when he gets fired. Mourinho’s sacking is looking more and more like a foregone conclusion, though obviously nothing has been made official on that front either.

It was always going to be difficult to land Nagelsmann if you’re Tottenham Hotspur. Considering Nagelsmann is one of the hottest potentially available managers in European football, a lot of dominoes would’ve had to have fallen (or not fallen) in very precise ways in order for Spurs to be an attractive job for him. One particularly large domino was an open job at a bigger club, and it doesn’t get much bigger than the Bayern Munich job. Of course, much of this is speculation — we don’t know for sure that Nagelsmann wants or would accept the Bayern head coach position, but it would be pretty foolish to assume that he’d turn that down to come to the seventh place club in the Premier League.

For Tottenham — and again, assuming they fire Mourinho which seems like a safe bet at this point — it’s a blow, but there’s a pretty decent sized silver lining. Unless something else unforseen happens, it’s quite likely that Spurs would be the biggest and most attractive club with a managerial opening this summer. There’s actually now a pretty strong case case for firing Mou now, because it signals to the fraternity of football managers that there’s a plum opening, and they should express their interest if they want the job.

Everyone has their list of Potential Spurs Managers (Non-Nagelsmann Edition)™ and we’ll be sharing our list before too long, but there would be a decent chance that someone really good that nobody’s considering right now might want to make a move to Tottenham. It’s time to start focusing our attention on who they might be.