Passing Mastermind to Tactical Maestro – The Xabi Alonso Era Begins

1. That was the bare minimum and it should/would have applied for any coach.

2. You cant make a horse out of a donkey with communication and man management. You have no idea how his communication is. Everything we know about him said he is a good communicator. So youre talking out of your ass. He renounced his ideas because "at Real Madrid you have to win", so knowing the success of the Carlo model from before with stubborn uncoachable individualists, he chose that one. People said hes rigid and stuck to his system, turns out he wasnt but you cant decide if thats a good or a bad thing, so you decide that based on your agenda.

Xabi is a club legend, a football legend, a class act in every way and didnt deserve this from the club and from the players, starting with Mbappe and Vinicius.

 

More harm than good in the last few seasons. Not just the football on the field, but what surrounds it. Time to go.

 

Agreed; Xabi deserved far better than that. The way he embraced him came off as oddly haughty, almost dismissive, as if Xabi were some lesser coach. It felt disrespectful. In the end, I’m glad Xabi chose to walk away and protect his own trajectory.

He deserves a club/management that respects his vision, knowledge, and gives him the backing to succeed.

Absolutely true! You can never win with certain fans or the board; no matter what the manager tries, any failure is pinned first on the manager rather than the players. That’s exactly how the squad became so spoiled in the first place. The club has created a nursery for grown adults, where the coach is forced to walk on eggshells instead of being empowered to lead.

 

Ramon Alvarez also claiming there were problems between Xabi and Bellingham, Valverde and others in Jeddah.

 

This much is absolutely true. Real Madrid is and always will be a "Win now" team. It's not about a long term project like Arsenal has with Arteta (look what good that has done them) or Tottenham. You have to have a vision and Xabi had that in spades. The problem he had was IMPLEMENTATION. He could not get the buy in from the players he needed. He was further handicapped by two summer signings that so far has been pretty damn underwhelming. Huijsen just stopped looking special, and Trent is perpetually injured. When things got heated after the prior Clasico, Xabi compromised his vision to get the players on his side.

To make matters worse, players like Mbappe and Vini Jr have been given WAY too much power for a club the size of Real Madrid. No winning team would give their players this much agency to behave the way they do. Xabi knew he was walking into a boiling cauldron, and still took the job anyways.

The last manager was sabotaged by the President so that he could get Xabi. Xabi was undone by the players that overstayed from the last manager who should've been sold when their stocks were high. Despite what is being said about Xabi's relationship with the players, you can tell that players like Rodrygo and Jude would run through a wall for Xabi. But the divas ultimately won out. This is feeling like the same segue as last time when Zidane left.

Lopetegui and Solari were awful choices. I hope Arbeloa can turn things around. But Zidane and Carlo were successful DESPITE Florentino Perez, not because of him.

 

Sounds like Ramon's source is trust me bro/Papa Perez. Last we heard from Jude he was completely behind Xabi.

 

You cannot have a 'win now' team, then turn around and buy players under 21.

 

Why did you have to login your alt?

 

This is true. Also Xabi did not walk away
He was fired.

 

Genuinely one of the absolute worst decisions I have seen this club take, and there have been a few of those.

 

The “board” has zero say on whether Perez stay or goes.

 

In this scenario, they wouldn't actually be doing it without the manager's consent, the point would be that it punishes insubordination toward the manager, while not preventing the player from begrudging them further for disciplining them. It's like when a child disrespects one parent and the other parent jumps in to discipline them for it. They do it in the NBA occasionally when the situation warrants it and it seems to work well.

 

Didn't he pass an executive order in 2012 to make it where basically the next president needs to be a billionaire in order to run and be a socio for 20 years or more?

 

Wasnt surprised by the firing. But rather, the timing of it.

This clip pretty much sumss up Xabi's last few months in the club:

https://youtube.com/shorts/3Yy7MPZkWh0?si=j3Nt-Q2UDHMauGMu


Arebloa as interim? What is the club's plan exactly?

 

It’s a good learning lesson for him in coaching career

you don’t alienate your best players and then cry wolf. He might be a good PowerPoint manager. Poor at man management & he paid the price for it.

good luck elsewhere.

But we were supposed to believe vini will be shipped to your country before Xabi leaves. What happened to that?

 

Al-Hilal is preparing the offer.

 

He was exuding so much aura and character when he arrived, and the players were seemingly so on board when the season started.

How quickly everything fell apart especially coming off a win against Barcelona.. I was so looking forward to seeing Xabi bring a different spirit and approach to our game.. Ah well...

 

Thinking a bit more on what went wrong in this journey for things to unravel so quickly.

To start, Xabi absolutely carries some of the blame here. He came off as nervous from the very first interview and it seems like this lack of confidence has spread throughout the team and has led to his undoing. But nothing unforgivable. He has clear ideas, has the team winning, and lost a final by a small margin. Still in the cup, top 8 in CL, and 4 points off the lead in La Liga to a Barca that won 12 in a row.

Then you have the players. This is a lot harder for me to forgive. The likes of Vini, Mbappe, Jude, Fede, Tchouameni, and Camavinga (aka Friendship FC) were supposed to take a step up and actually lead this team. The likes of Modric, Nacho, Ramos, Kroos, Marcelo, or Case would have bitchslapped these punks for stepping out of line. This sacking reflects way more poorly on these divas than it does on Xabi. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Lastly you have probably the biggest culprits, the board. Enabling the very worst of our team’s impulses, constantly and pathologically understaffing the team in key positions for years, always running after the next shiny south american toy, and perhaps worst of all are the leaks in the press of ‘this will be the final final last chance of Xabi if he doesn’t win he will get sacked’. The dance we have been having for months. This cannot be papered over anymore with another Ancelotti reign. We need a deep, thorough cleanout because there really is no spine in this team (or upper management) to build around at this point. Perez is the best president in our history, may be better than Bernabeu even; but ultimately this is on his head. Spoiling your brats and building an unbalanced group of individuals - straight out of the Florentino and JAS book of deadly sins.

 

The rot starts at the top and it is institutional

The club's official tv station spends its time embarrassing itself complaining about the referees

loser mentality that will inevitably filter down to diva behavior on and off the pitch

 

All of this, we had a coach that was winning and many here wanted him sacked......... whilst he was WINNING because they didn't like his football, and thought he was inept, think about that, it is what it is, none of this is new for this club, they are always ups and downs but i believe this club will continue to be successful , sorry for Xabi but as i said from the start, Madrid is not Leverkusen and time isn't something that any coach gets here without proper results,, never was, results are necessary, sacking him midway i don't agree with but..... we move on , we've seen coaches last even less time before

Exactly people keep talking about Carlo this and Carlo that, well, he got the sack for his poor year of football and no results, the basic premise after that was we'd see better football this season with nearly all the same players that have performed before, and reinforcements but..... not much changed, 1 game here 1 game there, no consistency, it is what it is

This has to be one of the most idiotic posts i've read in awhile, the anger is off the charts

Now i have to go look into who was on who's side and the different factions in the locker room or the divas and the spoiled brats ....... wait, i won't do any of that, i'll just continue to support my team, can't be bothered with any of that side of it....

 

Yes; a coach with 70% win percentage is clearly the biggest problem in the club.

 

I don't think we fully grasp how badly the wheels has come off. Florentino is unhinged, and he's letting the primadonnas call the shots. No sane coach will take this job while those players run this team. PSG getting to dump Mbappe on Madrid was a gift from heaven to them. Vini going on an ego trip after Rodri leapfrogging him to a Balon D'Or just made him even more insufferable. Real Madrid are just so cooked. This defense is made of glass and low IQ. Midfield hardly has an identity. Alonso didn't help himself. But this was the easy way out for a president and a board who has completely lost the plot and have no idea that they KEEP FCKING GETTING INJURED RIGHTBACKS AND CENTERBACKS. FCK OUTTA HERE.

I'm sorry to say: Arbeloa ain't fixin this, lads.