Interventionists like Xabi Alonso often fail at Real Madrid. Can he deliver?
Perhaps it should be remembered at this point that Xabi Alonso's first pre-season at Bayer Leverkusen, the one that laid the base for them felling Bayern Munich to win the German title, was a picture of precision and calm.
Hidden away in the Saalfelden basin of the Austrian Alps, Alonso's staff and players spent that first week away in the summer of 2023 quietly absorbing the tactical arithmetic of their new coach, surrounded by nothing but pine trees and the craggy peaks of the Steinernes Meer. Their hotel was a scenic walk away, up a rocky path, and the most tempting off-field distractions included a local mining museum and the impressive selection of hiking trails.
Two years later, Alonso's first week at Real Madrid has been more a cacophony of head-banging, Hard Rock Stadium noise. That was where Alonso's opening game as head coach was staged on Wednesday — a 1-1 draw against Al-Hilal in the Club World Cup, where Jude Bellingham was trudging through his 60th match, in his eighth competition, in 33C heat, of the never-ending 2024-25 season. On Sunday, he will play his 61st in North Carolina, against the Mexican side Pachuca.
Before jetting out to Miami, Real's Fifa-arranged training centre at The Gardens North County District Park had to be hastily upgraded to include temporary gyms, showers and changing rooms, with their hotel a 30-minute bus ride away in Palm Beach. Raúl Asencio, the central defender, was on antibiotics and Kylian Mbappé was admitted to hospital on the morning of the first game with an 'acute case of gastroenteritis' — he returned to training the next day. Alonso's pre-season capsule is no longer encased by woolly clouds or misty peaks, but selfie-hunting fans, cameras, cars and security police.
Alonso would not have been surprised by any of this, of course — the 43-year-old who first joined Real as a player in 2009 as part of a transfer frenzy that followed Pep Guardiola's Barcelona winning the Treble. Before his move, Alonso had already played in the Istanbul Champions League final for Liverpool and after he would navigate those ferocious Madrid years with José Mourinho, three finals with Spain and more than 100 games for Bayern Munich. Alonso knows big clubs. He understands Real Madrid. 'He's lived with el monstruo,' said Jorge Valdano, who was Real's general manager when Alonso signed 16 years ago. 'He knows the ins and outs.'
For so long, Alonso has been viewed as the perfect fit too, his return to Madrid framed like a destiny fulfilled. The managers he played under — among them Guardiola, Mourinho, Rafael Benítez, Carlo Ancelotti and Vicente del Bosque — would make a decent coaching manual of modern greats.
He speaks four languages fluently and grew up in Gipuzkoa, the Basque brain factory where Unai Emery, Andoni Iraola and Mikel Arteta all started out. He even played like a coach, as a deep-lying playmaker, setting the tone and drawing the angles. 'I feel like it's my moment, that it fits in all aspects. That's what they've told me,' Alonso said at his presentation. 'We all knew what your fate would be, as soon as you first sat in the dugout,' Real's president, Florentino Pérez, said.
Yet Real managers have not often been like Alonso, at least not the ones who lasted. Alonso is in that mould of coaching obsessives, a details man, who takes training sessions himself, and likes to pull and push his players into his network of revolving positions.
At Leverkusen, he was involved in all areas, including recruitment, where the club signed unfancied veterans such as Granit Xhaka and Jonas Hofmann. He was tuned into the vibrations of the dressing room, where he deliberately separated old cliques. His team were tactically agile and well-rehearsed, able to play 3-4-3, with wingbacks, while shifting to a 3-4-2-1 or 3-5-2, or flipping completely to a 4-2-3-1 or 4-5-1.
That micro-style of management has not always worked at Real, where players and politics so often take hold. Since Pérez's re-election in 2009, the three coaches who failed to win La Liga or the Champions League — Julen Lopetegui, Benítez and Manuel Pellegrini — were all most comfortable on the training ground while Ancelotti, Zinédine Zidane and Mourinho, who won 11 league and Champions League titles between them, were pragmatists stylistically, who prioritised confidence and command of the dressing room. 'When you work with high-quality players, they know how to manage those periods of games when you're not playing well,' Zidane said. 'My job was to keep people calm.'
In Spanish, they call it managing con mano izquierda, with the left hand, like the art of diplomacy or reducing the noise. Interventionists have sometimes faced resistance, like Benítez, who still fields questions about how he told Cristiano Ronaldo how to take free kicks and ordered Luka Modric to stop passing with the outside of his foot. In 2018, Antonio Conte was essentially removed before he started, after it was rumoured that Pérez wanted to appoint the Italian to restore order in the squad. 'Respect is earned, not imposed,' Sergio Ramos said, so Zidane was eventually appointed instead.
None of which is to say Alonso won't make it work, not least because he was there with Benítez and played under Ancelotti. More than anyone, he should know where the balance lies. Since his arrival on May 25, Alonso has dodged the sugary questions looking for sentimental answers, as if determined not to look giddy or out of place. He has a younger, and perhaps more malleable squad, than his predecessors and there are signs that even Real see this as a moment for renewal, with more authority conceded so far than might have been expected before.
In that sense, Alonso has been allowed a larger backroom team than Ancelotti was given and has brought his own fitness coach, Ismael Camenforte López, which has left the future of Real's long-time fitness guru, Antonio Pintus, in doubt.
In the transfer market, Peréz, the chief scout Juni Calafat and chief executive José Ángel Sánchez still call the shots but Alonso's voice is being heard, with Real spending €10million (about £8.4million) just to sign Trent Alexander-Arnold early so he could start training before the Club World Cup. Dean Huijsen, a ball-playing centre back in the Alonso mould, has arrived from Bournemouth, and Real want another central midfielder, left back and a back-up striker. The future of Rodrygo, the Brazil winger admired by Arsenal, will be decided in the coming weeks after talks with Alonso. 'I want to communicate with the club and reach a consensus,' he said. 'It's not that we're coming in with demands, more with the idea of improving.'
The challenge will be to weave his methods into a superstar side that has won repeat Champions Leagues on moments and belief in recent years, while growing used to the lighter touch. Bellingham hailed the way Ancelotti let the players 'play with freedom' and be 'off the cuff' but Alonso wants a clearer identity, where they pass with purpose and press high with a carefully choreographed trap. When they won the title under Alonso in 2023-24, Leverkusen won 367 high turnovers, which was 100 more than Real managed last season. Ancelotti regularly faced criticism about his team's stomach for sprinting and at Paris Saint-Germain, Luis Enrique castigated Mbappé for his lack of pressing. Can Alonso make Mbappé, Vinícius Júnior and Rodrygo run?
In midfield, Real have been missing a deep-lying connector like the retired Toni Kroos and question marks remain around Bellingham's role. Alonso believes there is room for improvement around Bellingham's 'efficiency' but he has defined him as a midfielder, with the 21-year-old starting against Al-Hilal on the left of the central three, even if his best contributions have so often come closer to goal.
Aurélien Tchouaméni in the middle is not a natural distributor and Federico Valverde is being used as a right-sided centre back but has previously been at his best out wide. Alexander-Arnold, whose set pieces have been a particular focus in training, drifted into midfield when Real had the ball on Wednesday but the pace of the passing was ponderous and the options unclear. 'It was slow and full of disconnections,' concluded El País, the Spanish newspaper. 'Like recognising distant relatives at a Christmas gathering.'
And for all the stodginess in attack, Real's biggest problem last season was in defence, where Ancelotti was hit hard by injuries and let down by lapses of concentration. In Alonso's first game, Alexander-Arnold started on the right of a back four but he may push forward into a wingback role, with the more dependable Dani Carvajal starting inside, on the right of a back three.
Many of the defensive problems also lie further forward. Real were too open off the ball under Ancelotti and it will be up to Alonso to make them more compact, particularly in midfield. His title-winning Leverkusen side conceded 24 goals compared to Real's 38 this season and faced 291 shots to Real's 405. Can a 20-year-old Huijsen lead a serious back line? Can Alexander-Arnold?
Certainly, Alonso has the talent in his squad and the tactical acumen to find solutions. He has inherited a Real side that, for the first time in four years, won none of the league, cup or Champions League, which should, in theory, make Ancelotti an easier act to follow. He has revolutionised a team, transformed players and won all the biggest prizes before. If anyone can make this work, Alonso can.
The only doubt, really, is whether he can do it on the move; at Real, where rebuilds have to be stirred in with success and adjustments made carefully, in the swirl of egos, pressure and noise. Even this pre-season is doubling up as the defence of a world title, like an omen of what is to come, at a club that belongs more in the Miami heat than the hush of the Austrian Alps.
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