Real Madrid and Xabi Alonso have parted ways just seven months after a marriage that began last June at the Club World Cup and ended with the Spanish Super Cup, which the white team lost on Sunday against Barcelona. In between, there was an exciting start to the project and a progressive loss of confidence that came to a head in Jeddah. Many believed that the fact that they were not thrashed by Barcelona would prolong the coach’s credit, but at Madrid there are no honourable defeats.
A removable pressure
The departure of Xabi Alonso has sporting and non-sporting causes, if the latter can describe the management of the dressing room by the Basque coach. Obviously, results are what matters. The Club World Cup was not won, despite the good performance, after the ridiculous performance in the semifinals against PSG. Despite this, the project was in good health, as the team was already showing the hand of the new coach. Especially in the high pressing, a characteristic of the game that mysteriously disappeared after the 5-2 defeat at the Metropolitano, the first defeat of a season that began to go dangerously wrong. In the end, lethally.
No trace of rock and roll
Because the promised rock and roll never appeared. The team almost always looked short of vigour and energy, with physical preparation under suspicion. The same difficulties as with Ancelotti against low blocks continued and the famous pressing, which was supposed to be the team’s hallmark, was barely seen. There were only loose glimpses in some matches, such as the LaLiga match against Barcelona at the Bernabeu. An oasis in the desert of a team that did not emanate the promised electricity and that, as the games went by, came to resemble more and more Ancelotti’s Madrid in 2024-25.
No football in between
Not everything should be blamed on the coach. Xabi asked for a brain and the club did not give it to him. It invested 60 million euros in Mastantuono, practically the same amount for which Zubimendi went to Arsenal. The departure of Modric, a decision by the club against the coach’s criteria and the player’s desire, left Madrid’s midfield orphaned of fine feet. The Tchouameni, Camavinga or Fede Valverde have many virtues, but among them is not to set the tempo of the team or spin plays with subtlety. Only Bellingham has that quality, but he has played in so many positions that he does not seem able to know what criteria to apply in each one.
Yeda’s ball games
The lack of ability to play the ball out of the back came to a head in the Super Cup. Against Atletico, Courtois made almost 40 long kicks to avoid the pressure of the Rojiblancos and look for second plays with Gonzalo or Jude. The image of a small team, without resources and without courage, was only slightly attenuated in the final, in which again the long ball was the main offensive argument of the team. At Madrid, what matters is the what, but also the how, and that image of a diminutive club in Jeddah was too much for Xabi, who was already in a bad way when he arrived in Arabia.
The crisis with Vinicius
In fact, the criticism of Xabi began to leak out almost from the beginning. He is a very interventionist coach, with special attention to tactical details, video and the board, something that many Real Madrid players did not take kindly to after Ancelotti’s much more relaxed style. Some cracks soon began to appear, such as Vinicius’ substitutions in some of the early season games. The situation exploded in the Clasico, with a new substitution of Vini who showed his disagreement in front of the 80,000 spectators at the Bernabeu and the hundreds of millions who watched it on TV. The club took a back seat and left the matter in Xabi’s hands, without sanctioning the player. The crisis was not resolved and the relationship between the Brazilian and the Basque, which was never fluid, suffered. But Vini was not alone in the group of critics.
The division in the dressing room was another of the factors that ended up weighing on Xabi’s dismissal, who was also criticised for not giving continuity to his commitment to young players such as Güler and Mastantuono, who left the team when results began to go wrong, until the final breakdown.
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