Xabi Alonso: Real Madrid Future After Man City Loss?

CNN Español
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Real Madrid added another disappointment this Wednesday. In front of their people, in the Santiago Bernabéu itself, the whites fell 1-2 against a Manchester City that is far from its best times, leaving an already discussed Xabi Alonso even more affected.

The defeat does not hit so much numerically (they are still among the best eight in the tournament thanks to the draws of Newcastle and Borussia Dortmund), but it does hit them mentally and football-wise.

In a week in which there was a lot of talk (and will continue to be talk) about Xabi Alonso’s future as a coach, the Madrid players came out determined to support their manager. For a good part of the first half we saw a Madrid team that imposed conditions against the Citizens, disconnecting any offensive possibility from the English team, and hurting when they had the opportunity.

However, since the tie (with the complicity of Courtois), it was a house of cards slowly falling. To make matters worse before the break came Rüdiger’s innocent penalty that Haaland converted into a goal.

With the defeat, Madrid collapsed. He came out in the second half subdued, without ideas, without freshness. It is true that there is an epidemic of injuries in the white team, from which not even the scorer, Kylian Mbappé, could be saved. But with the names that the White House has, one always expects more than what was shown in the last 45 minutes.

When Real Madrid beat Barcelona on October 26, there were many who speculated that Merengue was ready for a dream season, both in Spain and in Europe. However, just over 40 days later, the Madridistas seem adrift, defenseless against an onslaught of resultsist waves that threaten to turn the ship around and plunge the season into a true shipwreck.

That 2-1 victory at the Santiago Bernabéu left the whites at the top of LaLiga with five points ahead of the Catalans, but today, six days later, it is the Blaugranas who are looking down on everyone, and with a four-point advantage. In fact, Madrid is closer to losing second place (Villarreal is third with one point less) than to returning to lead the Spanish championship.

It is true that Real Madrid had, after the consecutive victories against Barcelona and Valencia, an endless streak of visitors.

The tour began with a painful defeat at Anfield against a Liverpool team that, in the midst of a crisis, paraded them into every corner of the playing field. The result was brief, 1-0, but the damage was great: from then on, Merengue seems to have sunk into a football desert, and with each passing game, the hole seems deeper. There is no football, there is no pressure on the rival, there are no outstanding individuals, there is no associated game, there is no surprise in attack. When none of that goes well, what remains are doubts. Many. On the playing field and on the other side of the lime line.

Three very expensive away draws in LaLiga against Rayo Vallecano, Elche and Girona followed, including some where they deserved to leave with nothing. The victory at the beginning of December at the home of Athletic Bilbao seemed to promise a sudden renaissance, but everything went overboard last Sunday, when they lost at the Bernabéu itself against a Celta de Vigo team that was already looking with concern at the relegation zone.

But the worst was not the result. Madrid was seen with emergencies and without solutions. Those from Vigo argued with him about the ball and were encouraged to hurt him. As they say in football: they smelled blood and went for it.

To make matters worse, Madrid left a final image of absolute helplessness: Fran García saw two yellow cards in one minute and, already in stoppage time, when the team was trying as best it could to equalize, Carreras was also sent off for two yellow cards seconds apart. The straight red card that Endrick saw without even stepping on the field other than to warm up ended up painting a picture of absolute lack of control.

Little remains of that Madrid of the first months. That white team that bit in all sectors of the field, eager to recover the ball and that added people in attack to do damage. On the contrary, the team has become apathetic, without collective ideas and with very low individual performance.

None of the players are at their peak performance and it is difficult to find one that stands out. What’s more, it seems that the scorer Kylian Mbappé also turns on and off with alarming ease in each game. The players who are supposed to unbalance do not appear. Neither Vinícius Jr., nor Bellingham, nor Valverde, nor Güler. That makes it a predictable cast.

Added to this are the reports (not verified, by the way) from some Spanish sports media, which speak of some disagreements between certain representatives of the squad and the coach. There are several rumors, but none was as clear as that of Vinícius, who was the protagonist of a surprising anger when he was replaced in the victorious classic against FC Barcelona. The Brazilian left visibly upset with the coach’s decision to remove him from the field of play and, when apologizing for his tantrum, he did not mention Xabi Alonso: “I want to apologize again to my teammates, club and president,” were his words on social networks.

The coach’s future changes depending on who you ask. Some say that he is on a tightrope and that a defeat against Manchester City in the Champions League this week could catapult decisions, adding that the names of Zinedine Zidane (a man “of the house”) and Jürgen Klopp, the successful former Liverpool coach, are already on the table.

Others, on the contrary, do not see an early departure for the Spanish strategist, especially considering that he only began his cycle at the head of the first team a little over six months ago. Furthermore, Xabi may not have the three Orejonas in the showcase that Zidane does as coach, but it is also pure Merengue history: 236 games played, six goals, 31 assists and six titles.

Perhaps, after all, Xabi is paying not only for these six months, but also for the failure of last season, which under Carlo Ancelotti ended without any major title. In a winning club like Real Madrid, everything other than becoming champion is looked at askance.

This Wednesday’s defeat against Manchester City is one more hard blow to the coach’s cycle. It is true that the team showed improvements, but it is already known that Florentino Pérez does not hesitate to change course in the face of a storm.