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Xabi Alonso Wednesday night was supposed to be spent in the dugout of Castilla-La Mancha, watching him play real Madrid The team swept Albacete with relative ease. Instead, he spent his money sitting in the fanciest armchair your imagination could imagine, munching on leftover Christmas chocolate and giggling quietly.
That’s because Real Madrid were knocked out of the Copa Generation B by a second division side thanks to a 94th-minute winner that ensured Jefte Betancourt never had to pay for his own pint in the city again… two days after they sacked Alonso as head coach.
There is already a narrative. He was a modern coach with strong, proven and effective playing principles, but he couldn’t get them to stick with a team of players who thought they were the hardest working. Now, I’m not an “insider” – I have fantastic gossip about three players you’ve heard of, but none of them are relevant here – but it’s been an open secret that the writing has been on the wall for him since October.
In perhaps the most perfect testament to what Madrid’s circus can sometimes achieve, Alonso seemed to end up losing the job just because he played and won a Clasico. 2-1 alliance win over barcelona This was supposed to be a landmark moment in his reign, but instead it left everyone focusing on a litany of reasons why it would never work.
We’ll start with the basics. Alonso chose to frustrate Barcelona in this game, then quickly do the opposite – and it worked. Their opponents had nearly 70% of the ball, but Real Madrid took twice as many shots and had twice as many expected goals as Barcelona, a staggering 3.6 times. It might have been a rout if Mbappe hadn’t missed a penalty, but heading into the final half-hour the game was still in the balance.
Real Madrid rarely pressed them high, while Barcelona pressed like a pile of empty tracksuits through man-to-man coverage before breaking down the right and eventually forming a 3-V-2 on the edge of the box.
You should score 1,000 times out of 1,000 times, but Fermin Lopez feels he never really rated Rashford or Yamal and just smacked it at the goalkeeper.
It’s not the first time Barcelona have had Real Madrid’s yoke slipping down one side of the pitch and Alonso wants to reinforce it. To be clear, if you go back to the beginning of the action, it’s not Vinicius the YoungerIt’s their fault but obviously you don’t need two players so high up the pitch if you’re worried about a result like this.
Rodrigo was duly called from his nap on the bench and, to put my wording here mildly, Vinicius was gone Absolute fucking backup. The two exchanged words on the sideline – which, by the way, was captured gloriously by the Spanish filmmaker; the depth of field was just beautiful. Imagine being in a place like Turf Wilds – before he hurtled into the tunnels.
But the truth is, it worked.
Even just a quick comparison of the pair’s respective heatmaps during the game shows that Rodrigo was asked to adopt a more conservative position and, from the 72nd minute onwards, when the change was made, Barca managed just two shots – one of which was from a full 50 yards.
Later that night, Vinicius Jr. issued a public apology for his remarks.
Specifically, he wants to apologize to all fans… and to his teammates… and to his club… and to the president. That bit in football is equivalent to The Simpsons Mr. Burns sent that beautiful thank you card for all the chocolates, and Lisa had to put down the words: “Dad, your name isn’t on it.”
A quick check of the till reveals the following equation: The manager made the right managerial decision which won them an absolutely important game and the players involved reacted Is it him or me Ultimatum. At any normal club, Vinicius Junior would currently be on loan at Chelsea.
The wider point is that Alonso’s football philosophy is incompatible with a club like this – but have you watched Madrid this season? ? ?
He turned his team into a terrifying team losing possession at an alarming rate, topping the league in total pressing sequences, tackles in the final third, high turnovers and shots coming directly from them.
There are many more examples like the above, where under this kind of pressure they did not recover with good numbers, but regardless, they still have the best defensive record in the league and are only 4 points behind the top of the table and should go straight into the knockout rounds of the Champions League. For a first season in charge, when such obvious structural and tactical issues were part of his briefing, it was really, real Good start.
It’s so good, in fact, that whenever Alonso decides to leave the deck chair and get back on it, he’ll have his pick of Europe’s top jobs. As for Real Madrid, they need to find someone who can compete at the forefront of modern football coaching… and also run a nursery.
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