Real Madrid is experiencing its most complicated moment in years. And, perhaps, the second was Florentino Pérez. It’s been 18 months since the team achieved a historic double at Wembley, winning their fifteenth Champions League. Previously, he won his 36th league title. And, in the meantime, he had announced the signing of Mbappé. Everything was wonderful. The comparison also with the other side of the airlift, with a Barça in demolition, mired in a sporting, economic and institutional crisis which had long presaged white domination. In Spain and Europe. A year and a half later, none of that has happened. And, worst of all, it doesn’t seem to be happening. Madrid’s free fall since June 2024 has several explanations, but the one with the most depth and impact is the appropriation of the club by an ego-filled locker room that first devoured Ancelotti and is now doing the same to Xabi Alonso. Both cases with the connivance of the club, which gave the keys, the lock and the door handle to a group of players who live in an absolutely unreal world and whose attitude dangerously leads Madrid to a second blank season. The noble floor has a great responsibility for what happens in a team where problems accumulate as the whims of the players increase, while their commitment and desire to play football decreases. The question is what Madrid would be without Mbappé’s goals and Courtois’ saves. Last season. And the current one. Only two of them are saved from a final season and a half of heartbreak which shows an alarming lack of quality in a few players whose Madrid jersey is too big for them; and those who don’t fit lack the commitment, sweat and pride that the white club emblem demands. In these six months of the Xabi era, the Madrid locker room does not get along with Alonso. It was about raising the level of demands, both in training and in matches; enforcing discipline and order in a spoiled, imperfect and, many times, toxic locker room; and modernize the team in terms of football. All this lasted two television news shows. That of the Club World Cup and that of the first month of this season. Over the weeks, players have performed poorly because of their tactical demands, their high pressing, their attacking line, their endless videos or their few days of rest. And Xabi, knowing that his locker room was broken, gave in little by little until he gave him his hand, his arm and everything he was asked for. The last example is recent. The victory in San Mamés has a before and after which shows the power of the locker room. Traveling on Tuesday and not Wednesday angered many of the players and, after the victory against Athletic, Xabi gave them two days off, when only one was planned. Preparation for the match against Celta consisted of only one training session, that of Saturday. This is just one example among many that have occurred since the Vinicius affair broke out. A controversy that opened Xabi’s eyes. Until then, Alonso didn’t really know what it was like to coach Madrid. And he was a player for five years and saw first-hand how even a manager like Mourinho found himself without the support of a large majority of his players when things started to go wrong. Now it is Xabi himself who feels the weight of the players in Madrid, but he does not understand why he was recruited if in the first corner the club looked away, as happened with Vinicius. It was at that moment that Xabi understood that he had to manage 25 egos and put aside his role as coach. The beginning of the end. Since then, Xabi has become a political coach who tries to get closer to the locker room by offering concessions: shorter videos, untouchable stars, more days off, fewer tactical obligations… So many decisions contrary to his way of thinking. Xabi thought that training on his knees in Madrid was going to catapult him to the locker room and, normally, it’s quite the opposite. Everything that has happened in recent weeks prepares for what seems imminent: his dismissal. As this newspaper reports, Xabi played in San Mamés, against Celta and against City, and it will be like that. A defeat against Guardiola this Wednesday would practically leave him out of Madrid. He doesn’t want to admit it and the club has publicly shown patience in these three games with an air of ultimatum, but Florentino, Xabi and the players know that, in a context like this, the one who explodes is the coach. Even if Plan B isn’t clear, it isn’t clear either. The names used either do not convince (Raúl or Arbeloa), or are not possible (Klopp or Conte), or we come back to the same thing as with Carletto (Zidane). This is the risk and the damage of demolishing coaches as different as Ancelotti and Xabi in just a year and a half, and putting the club back on a platter in the locker room.
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