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Benfica presidential candidate Cristovao Carvalho has made an extraordinary claim that, should he win next month’s election, he will look to appoint Jurgen Klopp as head coach.
The ex-Liverpool boss has not returned to management since departing the Reds in May 2024, and is currently working as Red Bull’s head of global soccer. The 58-year-old has indicated on several occasions that he has no intention of making a coaching comeback just yet, but has not ruled out the prospect indefinitely.
Carvalho hopes to convince Klopp to join his project in Lisbon, with elections taking place on October 25 to decide the club’s next president.
The ambitious, slightly fanciful, pitch from Carvalho centers around making Benfica among the “leading clubs in world football”, and said he wants to re-sign Joao Neves from Paris Saint-Germain.
Speaking in a recent interview with Portuguese outlet Sic Noticias, Carvalho outlined his plans to make Benfica an elite club, which includes hiring Klopp.
“With me, [current coach] Bruno Lage won't stay beyond his contract [which ends at the end of the season],” explained the prospective new president.
“I need a world-class coach, one who has already won the Champions League and who wants to win a Champions League with Benfica. There's only one name in my head: Jurgen Klopp.
“He even said that Benfica is a great club that he would like to coach one day. Someone who says that has something more to be at the club than anyone else.
“With Benfica today, it's obvious we can't win a Champions League,” Carvalho continued. “But I have a financial plan geared toward that goal.
“I can promise Benfica fans that, in four or five years, we'll be playing in a Champions League final.”
Klopp has been linked with several managerial positions since he left Liverpool, including the Real Madrid and Brazil roles this summer, but the German cited his mental exhaustion when he left Anfield, while he admitted this summer that he is still enjoying a slower pace to life.
“I don’t want that anymore,” Klopp told Welt in June. “I have a job now that fulfills me and is also intense.
“I don’t sleep longer in the mornings, nor do I go to bed later at night, but I can organize my work much better.
“For example, my wife is totally happy about it because we can plan things much better that we couldn’t before. It was never about doing nothing, but about doing something different.
“I have coached 1,081 games—not including friendly matches. If we count those from 23 years, maybe it’s around 1,200. Then there were the press conferences and media appointments.
“I was always just reacting. And in Liverpool, the tasks as a manager were added on top. That was a lot, really a lot.”
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