Alvaro Arbeloa is going through his worst moment since taking over the Real Madrid bench from Xabi Alonso. The last two setbacks in LaLiga (2-1 against Mallorca and 1-1 against Girona) and last week’s defeat against Bayern Munich at the Santiago Bernabeu have compromised his future on the bench of the white team. In this critical situation, there are those in the Catalan press who are quick to write off his career as a coach.
In the opinion column entitled ‘A bluff called Alvaro’, published on Tuesday in Sport by Enric Jove ahead of the second leg against Bayern Munich, Arbeloa receives a long list of harsh adjectives for his management of Real Madrid. He refers to him as a “cheap bubbly”, “president’s puppy with a blackboard” or “spokesman in a tracksuit”.
“Alvaro no fools anyone anymore. Not the Madrid fans. Not the dressing room. Nor, worse still, himself”, he says. “His record at the helm of Real Madrid will be poor. Although he remains haughty in his speeches”, he says.
“He wanted to be many things. Spokesman for the club. Shield of the president. Loudspeaker for the players. As docile and submissive with the board as he was indolent with the stars,” it says. “A weak coach” whom the Real Madrid dressing room “smelled and devoured” in “ten minutes”. “He went into that kitchen thinking he was the chef. They put an apron on him and sent him to wash up. And he accepted it. The ‘impostor syndrome’ taken to the highest level,” it summarizes.
Finally, he assures that “in football, as in life, those who talk too much end up portraying themselves” and that Arbeloa “has blown up his own career“. He even goes so far as to speculate that it doesn’t matter what happens in the Champions League, a statement that today sounds risky. “You are guilty. Today, not even a Champions League would save him. Game over”, he concludes in his controversial article.
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