“This is a team, it is a club, and we all go together hand in hand,” Xabi Alonso declared, maybe asserting a tad forcefully. “If you coach Real Madrid, you are prepared for anything,” he remarked on the morning before Manchester City visit once more the Santiago Bernabéu for the latest edition of a very modern classic. “I’m looking forward to what’s coming and that starts tomorrow, [an opportunity] to turn round the anger. In our heads, there’s only City. In football, for better or worse, things change quickly”. Losing and things could alter for good, and definitively: this opportunity is an obligation, too.
Following Madrid’s desperately poor 2-0 setback on Sunday, Alonso said he had “reached some conclusions,” and he was far from the only one. Late into the night, emergency discussions carried on, the club’s board forming their own opinions after a solitary triumph in five league games. Their diagnoses were not the same and while radical changes are being postponed, tolerance has limits, the names of candidates already out. “You have to face those situations but my head’s only on the game, things I can control,” Alonso stated in the press conference
“For sure the coach had a good plan but, in the end we, the players, are the ones on the pitch,” one of the squad's leaders stated. “If we lost 2-0 to Celta, there’s a problem that’s on us: it’s not the coach’s fault.”
City will be his twenty-eighth match in charge of Madrid and it might be his final one at a club where a crisis is never more than a couple of defeats away, where even sharing points is insufficient, and there’s invariably another candidate who can coach. Things have indeed evolved rapidly, even if the origins of the trouble were there from the start. Presented as a tactical disciplinarian, exactly what they needed after a season of lack of discipline and disappointment, Alonso was an anomaly at a star-driven institution.
When Madrid triumphed in El Clásico in late October, they moved five points ahead at the top. They had won 12 of 13 competitive games, although the setback was significant: 5-2 at Atlético. It also revealed cracks. Replaced in the 72nd minute, Vinícius Júnior headed directly for the dressing room, threatening to walk straight out the club. In a letter a few days later he said sorry to all but Alonso. Institutionally, rather than reinforcing the manager, there was a conspicuous quiet.
Within the dressing room, the assessment was clear: Alonso was wrong to remove Vinícius off. Questioned on this point if he would repeat that decision, Alonso responded: “I am unsure of the purpose of that query. If, in the moment, I believe a decision is required on the field, I will make it.” Tensions had been laid bare, a separation between trainer and a portion of the team. Federico Valverde too had made his frustrations public. The components weren't meshing as they should. A typical grievance began to surface about all the orders, the videos, the long sessions. Who did he think he was, the manager?!
More than a week after the clásico, Madrid were overcome at Liverpool, starting a sequence of two wins in seven. Capable of a more direct style, they beat Olympiakos and Athletic Bilbao but between those were held by Rayo, Elche and Girona. Belatedly, talks were held to repair cracks or at least mask the problems, to bring calm. Focus turned on the footballers for the first time.
In Bilbao, where they had been brought together a day early, it seemed some agreement had been reached; Alonso yielding to their requests more than they did his. Reconciliation was staged when Vinícius greeted the coach as he departed. A brief break followed. A few days after, though, Celta beat them and so it falls apart once more.
That it is understood that Alonso’s future is on the line is as important as the fact it is. If Madrid beat City, that can always be disputed, but it is calculated. Alonso knows that. He also knows, for all that he tried to talk about injuries and injustice, not even truly convincing himself, Madrid were dreadful against Celta: a lack of style, poor commitment, no structure.
But the most vulnerable point, is always the manager, and Alonso’s future, more than the actual football, was the central theme to this game. However much the man who is still Madrid’s manager kept trying to bring it back to the match, which he did with virtually all his replies. The briefest response he gave might have been the most significant, had he truly believed it. Asked if he felt the entire team was behind him, Alonso replied in a one word: “yes.”
“Being Madrid manager is not about changing [the culture]; it is about adapting,” Alonso continued. “We understand the ethos of Real Madrid thoroughly; it's what makes it the globe's greatest club. One must adjust, absorb knowledge, engage with the squad. Certain days bring success, others less so. We must confront this with vigor and optimism; it's the sole path to reversal.”
It was when he was asked if he felt alone that Alonso talked of a collective, a club, that goes together, and when attention was turned to the question of backing or its absence from above, he replied: “Dialogue with the leadership is ongoing, founded on trust, togetherness, and mutual respect. We are all united in this endeavor. We are psychologically prepared for any challenge: the squad is unified, certain of victory tomorrow, without a shadow of doubt. This is the Champions League. We are playing at the Bernabéu. The environment will be electric. That generates a unique dynamism, even among the players.”
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