Ligue 1 club Stade de Reims have identified Real Madrid assistant coach Davide Ancelotti as the leading candidate in their search to appoint a new head coach.
Stade de Reims had included the 34-year-old on their shortlist earlier this month and have subsequently expressed an interest, via an agent, to the Italian.
Madrid have no interest in allowing Ancelotti to leave the club and view him as a valuable member of their first-team coaching unit.
Although further talks are expected to take place after the Champions League final, currently the main focus of Madrid and Ancelotti, the French club have already conveyed their plan: to offer the coach a long-term contract to make him the lynchpin of a project in which he would be surrounded by young people with the aim of qualifying for European football.
The Italian has served as assistant to Madrid head coach Carlo Ancelotti, his father, for eight years across spells coaching Bayern Munich, Napoli, Everton and in the Spanish capital.
He previously served as fitness coach at Paris Saint-Germain, when his father was manager, and followed Carlo to Real Madrid in 2013, where Davide worked as assistant fitness coach before receiving his UEFA A coaching license in 2016 — allowing him to work in senior coaching roles.
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Davide has long held managerial ambitions of his own but opted not to take up a lucrative offer from a Saudi Arabian club in January, instead waiting for the right opportunity to come along. Sevilla have also expressed an interest in Ancelotti, but the move did not materialise.
Reims parted ways with former head coach Will Still earlier this month, with former Mali international Samba Diawara acting as interim head coach.
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