Real Madrid ended 2025 with a victory. However, the 2-0 win over Sevilla at the Bernabeu left more fuel in the fire in which the white team has been living for weeks than healing sensations.
Xabi Alonso’s “now we’re going on holiday” after beating Sevilla sounded more like relief than celebration, the desire for a truce after a week in which his name and his work have been in the front line of fire when analysing the ills of a team that went from firmness to losing its way.
2026 will see the Madrid ship face rough seas. First up is Betis, who are unbeaten in their 14 outings, a unique case in the European elite. Then comes the semifinal of the Supercopa against Atletico Madrid, the rival that opened the first gap with the 5-2 at the Metropolitano.
With optimism in tatters, Xabi Alonso’s Real Madrid will be looking to make a radical change. In its long history, it has plenty of examples of years that ended badly and gave way to others that went down in history. The most recent example is the transition from 2015 to 2016.
Real Madrid came out badly in 2015 under Rafa Benitez. The results were not bad: three defeats in 24 games, although one was the 4-0 defeat to Barcelona in La Liga. But the feeling of disconnection between the team and their coach and between the president and the coach was a reality. This unbearable atmosphere was compounded by the elimination from the Copa del Rey due to the improper alignment of Denis Cheryshev.
Benitez resisted Christmas, but on January 4 he was sacked. A 2-2 draw at Mestalla, after Madrid had taken the lead twice, was the epitaph of Benitez at the club. The chosen one was Zidane, who made his debut with a 5-0 win over Deportivo.
Under Zidane’s guidance, Madrid were able to fight for La Liga until the last matchday against Barcelona and were crowned champions of the Champions League against Atletico Madrid in Milan. But, above all, it was the embryo of a team of the era, that of the three consecutive Champions Leagues, something that had not been seen since the 1970s with Ajax and Bayern Munich.
Fourth from bottom on December 4
Real Madrid were also champions of Europe in 2000. The eighth, in Paris and against Valencia, came with Del Bosque at the helm. With the Salamanca-born coach, Madrid had to face a situation that today seems like science fiction. On December 4, after 14 matches and after losing 5-1 to Zaragoza, the team was fourth from bottom, with only one point more than Valladolid. At the top of the league were Deportivo, Celta and Zaragoza, with Rayo, Mallorca and Alaves among the top seven.
With Del Bosque taking over after Toshack was sacked in mid-November 1999 for a phrase for the ages – “There is more chance of seeing a pig flying over the Bernabeu than of me backing down” – Madrid finished LaLiga in fifth place (seven points behind champions Deportivo) and were crowned champions of Europe.
Self-management
Those two radical changes, which took Madrid from crisis to European champions, came after a change in the dugout. In 1998, Madrid were also European champions, something that had not happened since 1966. At the start of the year, Jupp Heynckes‘s team was four points behind Barcelona. Players and coach were at odds. “He had lost control of the dressing room. It was a decision taken a long time ago and one game was not going to change it. If Madrid had not won the European Cup, the team would have had the worst season in a long time. Ninety minutes cannot change the future of the team,” explained Lorenzo Sanz on May 28, a week after the seventh European Cup, about a decision taken months earlier.
If it was not executed before, it was because the team, with more self-management than direction from the bench, was advancing in the European Cup… until they won it. In La Liga, they finished fourth, 11 points behind Barcelona, and in the Copa del Rey they fell in the first round to a second division team, Alaves. Unbelievable things are told about that Heynckes-players relationship. “The players, who are a bit of a pain in the ass, ate up the ground. There comes a time, when we were already out of the league, when Heynckes called a meeting with Hierro, Sanchis, Raul, Redondo and me. And Raul, who was 19 years old, went to a blackboard and started to say that we had to play like this, like this and like this, and with that personality that he has, asking what we thought. And we looked at him as if to say: ‘but sit down, there’s a coach here’. And that’s when we realized that there wasn’t,” Mijatovic told MARCA.
In Xabi’s favor is the fact that more than once Madrid has turned a crisis situation around to end the season with a great celebration. On the other hand, it has rarely been achieved without a change in the dugout.
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