Alonso wasn’t perfect, but sacking him ignores Madrid’s real problems

So, Xabi Alonso becomes the tenth permanent Real Madrid manager of Florentino Pérez’s 21-plus-year presidential reign to be sacked without even completing a year in charge.

Just when the 44-year-old Madrid playing legend seemed to have calmed the stormy waters that had threatened to overwhelm him since autumn, the biggest sin in the entire dictionary of Must Not Commit for Bernabéu managers, losing to Barcelona when a trophy is at stake, has cost him his job. Those around Alonso — who leaves with Madrid only four points off the top of LaLiga, safely in the UEFA Champions League top eight and with a nervy Copa del Rey tie at Albacete on Wednesday — will look back at the final moments of Sunday’s Supercopa final and think about Álvaro Carreras and Raúl Asencio, who each had point-blank chances to score and take the final to penalties.

Alonso, in retrospect, stands condemned, at least in the eyes of Pérez — the only person whose opinion matters when a coach’s fate is concerned — of several offenses.

First: the damage done to Alonso’s public reputation and club credibility when, on substituting Vinícius Júnior in the victorious Clásico last October, the Brazil international erupted in petulant anger while showing complete disrespect for his manager. Even in victory, the player’s immaturity hogged the headlines because he screamed into the night air, “This is why I’m going to leave this team. This is why I’m leaving!”

Pérez wants Vinícius to renew his contract, at all costs. So although Alonso palpably repaired much of the damage with his 24-year-old star, and on Sunday helped him produce his best goal and best performance since Carlo Ancelotti left, it’s now clear that irreparable damage was done to Pérez’s view of his coach.

Second: Losing to Barcelona in a big final remains, it seems, a capital offense. Just as a reminder, it’s about five weeks since I wrote in this very space, “If the 44-year-old coach, who won all there is to win in his playing career and then made history by making Bayer Leverkusen Bundesliga champions for the first time, can beat Atlético Madrid in the Supercopa semifinal and either Barcelona or Athletic Club in the final, then he’ll finally be left alone to do his job until the end of the season. But to come home without a trophy? Alonso will almost certainly be sacked.”

Third: when Madrid played anodyne, point-dropping football against Rayo Vallecano, Elche and Girona, and then lost consecutively at home to Manchester City and Celta Vigo, there was a massive manhunt mounted, by the club and by the media, to find someone to blame. Correctly or not, and I think the answer is firmly “not,” it has been the coach — rather than the president or the players — who has been found guilty.

Fourth: Alonso, it must be said, hasn’t “played the game.” Managing upward is an increasingly key skill when you’re coaching at a big club — that’s true anywhere in the world, but particularly when your direct boss is the unaccountable Pérez.

Throughout his life, either as the favored son of the excellent footballer Periko Alonso; or while coming through the ranks at Real Sociedad; playing brilliantly for Liverpool, Madrid, Bayern Munich and Spain; or making history by taking Bayer Leverkusen to their best-ever trophy season; Xabi Alonso has been the man. Venerated, respected, ultra talented, backed, fêted, desired, rewarded and awarded deity status. Don’t take my word for it, just think how he’s regarded by Spain (European and world champion), at Liverpool (hero of the greatest match in their entire history), local boy made good at Real Sociedad, José Mourinho’s lieutenant at Madrid and Pep Guardiola’s chosen lynchpin while winning trophy after trophy at Bayern. He simply didn’t need to kowtow to anyone. Ever.

It’s different at Madrid and, so, when his friend and mentor, Guardiola, used a vulgar expression in support of Alonso before City won at the Bernabéu in December, it went down very badly indeed when Alonso’s post-match response, teased out by a journalist, seemed to be sympathetic to what City’s Catalan coach was suggesting about Alonso’s relationship with Pérez.

Until very recently, Alonso, never rude, was standoffish and cool with the assembled, hard-nosed, some would say Pérez-aligned media who turned up to news conferences six times a week at the Madrid training ground. He changed his stance when he knew he was fighting for his continued employment: he began to expand on answers, share a joke, become a bit more touchy-feely, and it was working. But he played that game a little too late.

It was extremely telling when Alonso suggested to his players on Sunday in Jeddah that they form a guard of honor for Barcelona’s victorious players (as Hansi Flick’s men had done for them while they walked up to get their losers’ medals), but Kylian Mbappé usurped him and fiercely gestured to the squad that he, not Alonso, had the final word and that no way would they be forming two lines and letting the Supercopa winners feel honored. Very, very damaging imagery.

What’s a little bit shocking is that the Spanish football media, having set the table for an Alonso sacking over and over again in November and December, were utterly caught by surprise. Even playing pretty moderately, in victory against Sevilla, Real Betis and Atlético, Madrid’s players were clearly pulling for their coach, they were building results — admittedly from a low base — and they were looking very like steering Los Blancos into the extremely valuable top eight of the Champions League with two winnable matches in their sights this month. Marca’s headlines this morning included “Xabi revives the Mourinho style” and “What a miss from Carreras in the 95th minute.” No blame thrown at the coach. Their famous columnist, Alfredo Relaño, stated, “Xabi Alonso lost the final but saved his situation.” The much more hawkish, Pérez-oriented Diario AS used “Only Raphinha was better than Madrid” as their match headline, and the self-confessed ultra-Madridista columnist Tomás Roncero’s column read “Nothing to reproach you over.”

One of the biggest signs, in my opinion, as to the general mood of this singular, polemic, but highly successful, billionaire president, and something that Alonso could have paid more attention to, is the name of the stadium.

For the longest time, it’s been called the Santiago Bernabéu in honor of the man previously regarded as the greatest leader in Real Madrid’s history. More and more, and often in formal terms, it’s being called “the Bernabéu” — a change that, in my view, will preface a gradual, strategic and corporate-driven moving of Pérez toward the top of the podium of all-time presidents. This 78-year-old widower has, gradually but consistently, aimed at moving beyond his “Primus inter pares” (“first among equals”) status to be regarded as the all-time greatest. His costly and, so far, not wholly successful redevelopment of the stadium was supposed to be the jewel in the crown but, for a host of reasons, hasn’t hit home with the power he expected it to. I think, a couple of months away from his 79th birthday, he feels that time is flying and he has none to waste.

He needs, desires, more league wins, more Champions Leagues, fewer sights of Barcelona lifting trophies, less whistling and jeering when Madrid play at their imperious HQ. He craves the formation of a European Super League. Right now, he’s being thwarted in too many of those desires.

Those previous nine coaches he sacked only a matter of a few months into their reigns usually, it must be pointed out, made way for more successful, more glorious periods for the club as European and domestic trophies were stacked up and the cream of world football actively chose to move to Real Madrid. This fact is incontestable.

President Pérez, in my opinion, has blamed the wrong man, has ignored the real problems and, and now that he has passed the baton to Álvaro Arbeloa, he has perpetuated the real flaws rather than cured them in sacking Alonso. But he won’t care about that opinion and, in the past, his irresistible force has defeated any apparently immovable object. This time? I’m unconvinced.

Bad luck, Xabi. You only partially contributed to this situation. But, as you always said yourself, Real Madrid is different. Real Madrid is unique. Good luck with what comes next.