A youth-development project at Real Madrid requires patience, but did Florentino Perez have that patience?
Perez understood that it is tough to compete with clubs backed by investors from the gulf countries in the transfer market, who are ready to invest 200 million in each window with ease. So he planned to go for talented youngsters with huge potential, who could grow to become one of the best players. He invested around 300 million in talented youngsters around the world and brought them to Real Madrid with the intention of grooming them to set up a great future. But if you want that youth development project to be a success you need to have patience, and the cost of that might be one or two trophyless seasons on the road. No player can guarantee you 40 goals in a season from the age of 18, and they need time to mature and develop.
After Zinedine Zidane and Cristiano Ronaldo left the club in 2018, Perez appointed Julen Lopetegui as the manager, a person who actually had a long term plan and tried to introduce a proper playing style. But Lopetegui wasn’t backed in the transfer window, and he had to take over a UCL winning team without any proper replacement for their talisman.
He was impressive in the beginning, but the cracks were beginning to show up, and a stretch of bad results and a 5-1 humiliation in the Clasico meant the end for Lopetegui. Lopetegui did commit few mistakes and his tactics were ineffective against teams like Sevilla, Alaves, and Levante, but Perez could’ve been patient with him because Perez couldn’t provide Lopetegui with a proper replacement for Cristiano Ronaldo. It was harsh to ask the manager to bring a complete change in just 13 games. Lopetegui was severely unlucky as well, as most of the senior players couldn’t play at their best level, and they were mentally and physically exhausted.
Lopetegui was sacked, the Castilla manager and former Real Madrid player Santiago Solari was appointed as the interim manager, and he impressed with some immediate results. He motivated the team well and had his fair share of luck which Lopetegui didn’t have. He was appointed as the permanent manager, and he continued to provide results with the usual bumps here and there.
He was a gutsy manager, who tried to implement a fast-paced game and tried to integrate youngsters like Vinicius Jr, Sergio Reguilon, Marcos Llorente, and Dani Ceballos into the team. Though it backfired in a few games, he was courageous enough to go with the same approach. His fearlessness was very important in few games, but ultimately it led to his own downfall. The youngsters had talent, but not experience. And the experienced ones underperformed when it mattered the most. Real Madrid were knocked out from Copa Del Rey and Champions League, and fell behind in the LaLiga title race, in a space of one week.
Solari was setting up a team for the future and looked like a good manager for the youth development program. But he was unlucky in few stages of the season, and he had to face a sack because of a trophyless season. If Perez focused more on youth development, then he should’ve been patient with Solari. Because a manager appointed in the middle of the season cannot guarantee you trophies with an aging core and without any signings. In fact, it was because of Solari that the team could at least finish in a Champions League spot.
Perez wanted trophies, and he had to look towards Zinedine Zidane again, a manager who won Real Madrid a trophy in each season as a manager. Perez gave Zidane the signings he wanted (a privilege Lopetegui and Solari didn’t have), and Zidane won LaLiga in his first season of the second stint. But was everything right?
Zidane is more of a man-manager than a master tactician who needs world-class players in each position. He trusted the old guard too much when he wanted results and didn’t bother about youth development, which is one of Perez’s primary objectives along with winning trophies. He isn’t the right manager for a youth development project, which involves trusting a raw product and grooming him properly by giving them regular minutes and focusing on each of them individually These issues were always there, it’s just that they’re being given more prominence when the results aren’t going in Zidane’s way.
Managers can be blamed for results, players can be blamed for underperforming, but in the same way, the President should also be criticised in this case. Florentino Perez needs to have clarity regarding his objectives. Does he prioritise the youth development project or immediate results and trophies? After investing 300 million on the youth project, shouldn’t the president be prepared for the consequences? If Perez wants to stand with his youth development project, then he needs to be patient and trust the managers and the process. Two or three consecutive bad results shouldn’t decide the fate of the manager. This is a project that requires long term vision, and one period of ‘crisis’ shouldn’t hamper the process. It’s high time that Perez learns from his mistakes, and needs to ensure that he doesn’t commit the same mistake again.