Milan back in contact with Jaissle for manager role

AC Milan have held a fresh face-to-face meeting with Al-Ahli head coach Matthias Jaissle as they push to fill the managerial vacancy left by Massimiliano Allegri’s dismissal, with Fabrizio Romano and Matteo Moretto both reporting the direct contact on Friday. The development comes against a complicated backdrop – Ralf Rangnick, who was central to Milan’s broader sporting restructure plan, is now reported to be cooling on a technical director role after growing frustrated at the club’s delays.

Milan wanted Rangnick confirmed before the World Cup kicked off on Thursday night. That confirmation never came. The consequences of that failure are now reshaping the entire search.

Who Jaissle Is – and Why Milan Are Calling Again

Jaissle, 38, is not a household name in European football, but his CV is harder to dismiss than his profile might suggest. He won back-to-back AFC Champions League titles with Al-Ahli after cutting his teeth as head coach of RB Salzburg – where he took the Austrian Bundesliga and Cup double in 2021-22 before moving to Saudi Arabia in 2023.

His footballing identity is rooted in the Red Bull high-press, high-intensity model. That is not coincidental – Jaissle developed through a system built substantially on Rangnick’s ideas, and Italian reports from May consistently flagged him as Rangnick’s preferred candidate for the bench role if the German accepted the director position in Milan. He was always the Rangnick pick. That context matters now more than ever.

The financial hurdle is real, though. Al-Ahli are seeking around €6m in compensation for his release, and Jaissle is understood to earn in the region of €12m net per season in Saudi Arabia – a salary Milan are unlikely to match, with reports suggesting he has so far been unwilling to accept significantly less. Friday’s meeting was an attempt to bridge that gap. Whether it succeeded is unconfirmed.

The Rangnick Factor – Why This Is More Complicated Than It Looks

Rangnick’s reported conditions for joining Milan were extensive: broad powers over appointments, a unified philosophy imposed across the first team, Milan Futuro and the academy, and the ability to bring a significant number of his own staff. He set a deadline – confirmation before the World Cup. Milan missed it.

That matters for the Jaissle pursuit specifically because Jaissle’s candidacy was built around the Rangnick project. He was never just a standalone coaching hire – he was the coaching component of a structural overhaul. If Rangnick stays with Austria, the logic of bringing in Jaissle as an isolated appointment becomes less compelling, and the financials become harder to justify on sporting grounds alone.

It also complicates the Oliver Glasner situation. Glasner is a long-term Rangnick disciple and has been strongly linked with the role, with Gerry Cardinale understood to have held direct talks with the former Crystal Palace manager, who is pressing for a decision before the end of the week. Whether Glasner’s interest survives the collapse of the Rangnick framework is a genuine open question. Nothing has been ruled out for him, but the picture is shifting.

What Milan Are Actually Looking For This Summer

Milan dismantled their entire senior structure the day after the 2025-26 season ended – Allegri, sporting director Igli Tare, technical director Geoffrey Moncada, and CEO Giorgio Furlani all gone simultaneously. The scale of that clearout signals ambition, or at least the intent to signal it. The reality is that they are now running a coaching search and a director search in parallel, with no clear hierarchy in place to run either process properly.

With speculation around Rafael Leão’s future adding further uncertainty to the summer, Milan’s need for clarity at the top of the football operation is acute. Amorim, Slot, and Pochettino have all been mentioned at various points, but Romano and Moretto’s Friday reports focus the credible contact on Jaissle and Glasner.

The Verdict – Can Milan Actually Get This Done?

The honest assessment is that Milan have created most of their own problems here. Missing Rangnick’s World Cup deadline has not just potentially lost them a director – it has destabilised the coherent sporting project that made Jaissle a logical choice in the first place. Pursuing him now, without that framework and with a €6m compensation fee and a vast salary gap still to resolve, is a considerably harder sell than it was a fortnight ago.

Glasner remains the more straightforward appointment if Milan want pace over project. Jaissle would require both a financial compromise from the coach himself and a clear sporting vision from a club that has conspicuously failed to communicate one. The Rangnick decision is the one that unlocks or closes everything else. Watch for movement on that front first.