BERLIN (AP) — Xabi Alonso is waiting just like everyone else to see who will coach Real Madrid next season.
The Spanish coach said on Friday he knew “nothing new” about his future amid links to his former club, but that he understands why the uncertainty continues and no decisions have been made.
“I respect what happens in other clubs,” the Bayer Leverkusen coach said. “It’s not a situation that I need to talk about. I know that they’re at a stage in the season in which they’re still fighting for the championship, and we also have our goals. The season isn’t over, so we must wait.”
Alonso is widely expected to return to Madrid — where he played from 2009-14 — and take over if current coach Carlo Ancelotti departs at the end of the season. The 65-year-old Italian’s contract with Madrid runs for another season but he is being courted by the Brazilian Football Confederation after what has been a disappointing season so far for the Spanish powerhouse.
Madrid was eliminated by Arsenal in the Champions League quarterfinals, lost the Copa del Rey final to bitter rival Barcelona last weekend, and is trailing the Catalan club by four points with five rounds remaining in La Liga. They meet again in Barcelona on May 11.
Ancelotti has said he will remain with Madrid for as long as the club president Florentino Pérez wants him to stay. That will likely depend on his team’s remaining five league games.
Alonso, who took over Leverkusen when it was in the Bundesliga’s relegation zone in October 2022, led the team to an unprecedented German league and cup double last season. No other side has ever completed a Bundesliga season unbeaten.
A drop in performance levels was perhaps inevitable. Leverkusen was surprised by third-division team Arminia Bielefeld in the semifinals of the German Cup and looks set to watch Bayern Munich lift the league trophy on Saturday.
Leverkusen CEO Fernando Carro and sporting director Simon Rolfes are keen for Alonso to see out his contract through next season. But they are also identifying possible replacements with Kicker magazine reporting on Friday that former Manchester United and Ajax coach Erik ten Hag has emerged as the favorite. The club has also been linked with former Barcelona coach Xavi.
“We haven’t spoken about that,” Alonso said of his possible successor. “We speak, Fernando is there. We spoke about a few issues in the morning and there’s always a good connection and communication. We’re all informed about everything and there’s never a problem for us. We’re staying calm. We’ll wait until the right moment until there’s something to decide.”
The 43-year-old coach added he isn’t concerning himself with any of the speculation.
“I’m staying calm. I know you’re expected to have something new at every press conference, but that’s not my job. It’s to prepare the team for every game. That’s all I can say."
Leverkusen plays at Freiburg in the Bundesliga on Sunday.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
FILE - Leverkusen's head coach Xabi Alonso gives instructions from the side line during the German Bundesliga soccer match between Bayer Leverkusen and Union Berlin at the BayArena in Leverkusen, Germany, on April 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner, File)
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — An independent counsel on Tuesday demanded a death sentence for former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on rebellion charges in connection with his short-lived imposition of martial law in December 2024.
Removed from office last April, Yoon faces eight trials over various criminal charges related to his martial law debacle and other scandals related to his time in office. Charges that he directed a rebellion are the most significant ones.
Independent counsel Cho Eun-suk’s team requested the Seoul Central District Court to sentence Yoon to death, according to the court.
The Seoul court is expected to deliver a verdict on Yoon in February. Experts say the court likely will sentence him to life in prison. South Korea hasn't executed anyone since 1997.
Yoon was scheduled to make remarks at Tuesday's hearing. He has maintained that his decree was a desperate yet peaceful attempt to raise public awareness about what he considered the danger of the liberal opposition Democratic Party, which used its legislative majority to obstruct his agenda. He called the opposition-controlled parliament “a den of criminals” and “anti-state forces.”
Yoon’s decree, the first of its kind in more than 40 years in South Korea, brought armed troops into Seoul streets to encircle the assembly and enter election offices. That evoked traumatic memories of dictatorships in the 1970s and 1980s, when military-backed rulers used martial law and other emergency decrees to station soldiers and armored vehicles in public places to suppress pro-democracy protests.
On the night of Yoon's martial law declaration, thousands of people rushed to the National Assembly to object to the decree and demand his resignation in dramatic scenes. Enough lawmakers, including even those in Yoon’s ruling party, managed to enter an assembly hall to vote down the decree.
Observers described Yoon’s action as political suicide. Parliament impeached him and sent the case to the Constitutional Court, which ruled to dismiss him as president.
It was a spectacular downfall for Yoon, a former star prosecutor who won South Korea’s presidency in 2022, a year after entering politics.
Lee Jae Myung, a former Democratic Party leader who led Yoon's impeachment bid, became president by winning a snap election last June. After taking office, Lee appointed three independent counsels to delve into allegations involving Yoon, his wife and associates.
There had been speculation that Yoon resorted to martial law to protect his wife, Kim Keon Hee, from potential corruption investigations. But in wrapping up a six-month investigation last month, independent counsel Cho’s team concluded that Yoon plotted for over a year to impose martial law to eliminate his political rivals and monopolize power.
Yoon’s decree and ensuing power vacuum plunged South Korea into political turmoil, halted the country’s high-level diplomacy and rattled its financial markets.
Yoon’s earlier vows to fight attempts to impeach and arrest him deepened the country’s political divide. In January last year, he became the country’s first sitting president to be detained.
Supporters of former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol hold signs outside of Seoul Central District Court, in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
FILE - Then South Korea's ousted former President Yoon Suk Yeol who is facing charges of orchestrating a rebellion when he declared martial law on Dec. 3, arrives to attend his trial at the Seoul Central District Court in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, May 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, Pool, File)
