The sunny Greek autumn welcomed Madrid to the old port of Athens, Piraeus, far from the cold of the Castilian plateau, where the whites have been declining in recent weeks. In the heart of Tuesday afternoon, Xabi Alonso’s team landed on the shores of the Mediterranean, troubled by the first crisis of the season. He lost the match, the results and, what’s worse, the figure of the coach was weakened.
Before the classic a month ago, it was already known that there were players dissatisfied with the coach. Vinicius, Valverde and Endrick had even expressed it. But the Brazilian’s public challenge after his substitution at Barcelona and his explosive note of apology – without mentioning the coach – were pure dynamite, also because the club showed itself, at least from the first minute, in agreement with the winger’s challenge to its coach. Since then, the collapse of football (three games in a row without a win) has aggravated the wear and tear of part of the Basque’s dressing room, which comes to the duel with Olympiacos (21, Movistar) very punished and with the last minute losses of Courtois and Huijsen (they only have Asencio as a pure central defender). This Tuesday did not seem like the happiest birthday for Tolosarra (44 years old).
Sunday’s poor 2-2 draw in Elche ended up triggering the red code in Madrid. Hours later, in the midst of a deafening roar that left Xabi even more exposed, the entity also underlined the responsibility of staff in this recession. In Valdebebas they asked for a step forward on their part to dispel any doubts about their commitment this season. Otherwise, these sources warn, they would be “the next ones targeted.”
The words that came out of the city of sport after the blackout of the last matches, appealing for involvement, went in a similar direction to the analysis that Carlo Ancelotti had tired of presenting in the press room last season. Since the first championship match, in Mallorca, the Italian has asked the team for intensity, commitment and attitude almost daily. And almost always without success. Fifteen months later, with a coach with a different profile and method, the internal scanner again points to something as vague as team effort. Although with a big difference compared to Carletto’s time: back then there wasn’t such a big gap between some stars and the coach. Now, one of the most common complaints coming out of the dressing room about Xabi is that he doesn’t communicate much internally.
Conversation with Fiorentino
“The most important thing in all teams is the players. It will always depend on them, their quality and their attitude,” Xabi surmised on Tuesday in his most solid appearance in recent weeks. Subjected to a monothematic press conference on his situation and the difficulty of managing the locker room, he responded to everything without running away from anything, like other times. He did not deny the obvious, that he is on “a curve,” and said that this morning he had spoken to Florentino Pérez in what he implied was a normal conversation. “I’m not the first to live with these situations. I think a lot about how Carlo, Mou or Pellegrini (his coaches at Real Madrid) would handle the situation. You have to know how to handle them,” said the Basque, who recalled that “every change takes time”.
Rarely has a victory in a classic had a less beneficial effect. According to the club, the best minutes of that afternoon were due more to a waste of energy – now decreasing – than to football. In Valdebebas they describe this triumph above all as “cosmetic”. Since then, however, Madrid has become almost completely disorderly: due to the internal conflict that intensified after Vini’s ordeal (Atletico reported on Monday that the Brazilian does not intend to renew as long as the tension with Alonso continues) and because the results have failed.
stop the bleeding
Nobody expects even a radical improvement in the game, but rather, at best, try to stop the bleeding. In the last few matches the team has not responded to any version of Xabi, neither the less interventionist one (Anfield and Vallecas) nor the more interventionist one (Elche). The midfield suffers as with Ancelotti because neither the Italian nor the Basque received the desired reinforcements, and Güler’s new assignment (further back than Bellingham) has distanced the Turk from Mbappé.
In attack, despite the recent drought, the monoculture of Kylian prevailed, author of half the goals (18 out of 36), while Vinicius accumulated seven games without scoring and nine without providing assists. The coach insisted on Rodrygo as Vini’s rival, but this only aggravated his crisis with the rebel star. Rodrygo hasn’t scored since March. With the exception of Mbappé, the other attackers scored only 20% of the goals (seven out of 36). Only Courtois, absent in Athens, remained a guarantee every day. The data of a crisis that has exposed the figure of Xabi Alonso and which already places the players under the magnifying glass
