The last year hasn’t been any good for Real Madrid. Though Real Madrid won the LaLiga in 2019/20, they couldn’t win a single trophy in the 2020/21 season. A trophyless season generally means changes, big changes to be specific. People expect a revolution that turns Real Madrid into a winning machine.
In this revolution, Real Madrid had no intention of letting go of Zinedine Zidane. But the Frenchman left the club by himself, as he resigned from his post a week ago, despite having a contract till 2022. He couldn’t have a farewell press conference, so he explained the reasons behind his exit with an open letter. He mentioned that he couldn’t feel the support from the board, but he explained everything in a highly respectful and thankful tone.
Though Zidane wrote the letter in a classy way, the letter caused a stir in Madrid. A lot of questions were raised at the club, and they were mainly directed towards the president Florentino Perez, and the General director Jose Angel Sanchez.
The club tried to divert the attention from Zidane’s resignation by announcing David Alaba’s signing a day after Zidane’s resignation, and by releasing the home kit for the next season and announcing Carlo Ancelotti’s name as the manager, just a day after Zidane’s letter was made public. But none of that can make people forget the Zidane saga and everything that has been going wrong at the club in the past few years.
Zidane’s letter had shown that a lot was going wrong at Real Madrid. His letter, combined with many other factors do call for changes at Real Madrid. While changes are definitely needed on the field, a change in the board and their behaviour is equally important.
Let us have a look at five such things which must change at Real Madrid.
Lack of sporting vision and long-term planning
Real Madrid has made a lot of signings till 2020, with Reinier Jesus’ being the last player on whom a transfer fee was invested. The club wanted to go with a youth development scheme that involved the signing and development of up-and-coming youngsters. With an inflated transfer market being dominated by clubs backed by rich investors from the middle-east, Real Madrid had to adopt such an approach to survive in Europe as a fan-owned club.
The scheme sounded very interesting on paper, but in reality, the implementation went horribly wrong. Real Madrid did get talented players, but those signings looked more like a group of talented individuals, and not like players brought in to form a team. There was a lack of sporting vision in the recruitment because those players could’ve never formed a particular system or be a part of a project. To make it worse, some of the players belonged to the same positions and they were bought for exorbitant prices.
It would be an exaggeration to call this project a complete failure because some players like Fede Valverde and Eder Militao have been successful. But most of the players are yet to justify the amount of money invested in them.
But this also raises one serious concern. Was there ever really a project? Because the poor planning made by the current general director Jose Angel Sanchez, who also assumes the sporting role, does raise such doubts. And in those signings, a business-minded approach looks more prevalent than a sporting vision.
Even in the process of selecting the next manager after Zidane’s exit, managers with different profiles were linked to the club, with some having a mindset and requirements opposite to the club’s ambitions. This does make one wonder if there’s really an existing project at Real Madrid. Finally, it was Carlo Ancelotti who was appointed as the manager, someone who doesn’t have a reputation to lead a revolution at a club and has practically been a short-term manager at his recent clubs. He’s a fan favourite for sure, but I highly doubt if he’s the strong personality that the club needs at this moment.
There’s a desperate need for changes in this regard. Because no top club can survive in the competition without a proper long-term plan and sporting vision, which further increases the importance of having a sporting director. Real Madrid is currently linked to a sporting director in Luis Campos, but his arrival isn’t confirmed yet. But a failure in landing a top sporting director wouldn’t be a great sign for sure.
Ability to show some patience and trust the process
When a club appoints a manager, they need to trust them and back them in high-pressure situations or matters related to transfers. But unfortunately, Real Madrid hasn’t been able to show that faith in the manager, and trust the process. They haven’t been able to show the patience that is required for a project to succeed.
This has been one of the reasons behind the departure of Zinedine Zidane, who couldn’t stand the discussions within the club about sacking him in December, at a time when Real Madrid was on the brink of dropping to the Europa League. Zidane knew that it was the club who leaked the news of a potential sack to the media.
This is really disappointing because every manager cannot stand such a disrespectful gesture. Zidane did succeed in the test and avoided a sack, but that doesn’t change the fact that the club was about to be impatient again and stopped believing in the manager who had won so many trophies at the club and is one of the greatest managers in the history of Real Madrid.
This impatience from Real Madrid has been evident in the past, with Julen Lopetegui and Santiago Solari being the victims of that impatience. A change of manager in the middle of the season might be a desperate attempt from the club to save the season, but most of the time that sacking only leads to a worse situation (Zidane is an exception), and that even increases the pressure on the incoming manager.
This impatience has been visible in the youth investment project as well. When you want to use youngsters who are still raw talents, you have got to show patience in such a long-term project and the cost of that patience might be a trophyless season or two. But a sudden impatience born due to an unsuccessful season, which leads to big measures which might be unnecessary wouldn’t help the club in any manner.
This is something Real Madrid should change. When they start a project, they should put their complete faith in that and be patient in their approach. Otherwise, the club would be left in no man’s land, with no project going forward until completion.
Respect for people who have done a lot for Real Madrid
There’s a popular notion among the media and fans of rival clubs that “Real Madrid don’t respect their legends”. This became very famous particularly after Iker Casillas’ controversial press conference and departure from the club in 2015. And Real Madrid not giving a farewell to players gave further strength to this claim.
It is senseless to judge a club based on some incidents because the legends of Real Madrid wouldn’t be back at the club to work in some role or the other if they felt they were disrespected by the club. Even in Iker Casillas’ case, he decided to leave the club, and he did receive a farewell from the club.
But in recent times, there have been some incidents, which makes people doubt if that is how Real Madrid respect their players and managers.
Cristiano Ronaldo left the club in 2018 on good terms and he even returned to Madrid in 2020 to watch a Clasico, but there were some reasons behind his departure which don’t look good. He mentioned in an interview that the President didn’t see him as indispensable anymore, due to which he left the club where he actually wanted to retire.
Florentino Perez couldn’t provide Ronaldo with the pay-rise he once promised, and the club couldn’t support Ronaldo in any way during the trial of his tax issues. This could be one of the reasons behind his departure, though he didn’t reveal them publicly. But looking at the difficult life Real Madrid have faced post- Ronaldo, one could easily wish for this break up to never have happened. And maybe things could’ve been different if Perez saw his star player with the same respect and gave him the importance that he felt once.
The most recent case that is somewhat relatable to this issue is the departure of Zinedine Zidane. As mentioned in the previous slide, Zidane couldn’t feel the trust of the board at certain moments, though he didn’t mention any name in particular. But this open letter had exposed the board, and it wasn’t a coincidence that some Spanish media outlets, with one particular outlet being run by a friend of the president, started an agenda against Zidane. It doesn’t take a genius to understand the reason behind the agenda, and it’s nothing but a form of disrespect.
Sergio Ramos, the club captain, is facing such a difficult challenge again, with the club asking him to take a pay cut for an extension of a year, while the centre-back feels he deserves a two-year contract. The club has a policy of offering just a year extension to players in their late thirties, and the same happened with Luka Modric. But Ramos hasn’t lowered his demands, and at a time when a new player is offered the same wages as him, his reaction is understandable.
The club doesn’t need to arrange a grand farewell for every player to show that they respect their legends. They just need to value the existing players and deal with them in the same way they deal with players interested to join the club.
Showing greater importance to medical facilities and player fitness
Real Madrid had a trophyless season in the 2020/21 season, and one of the main reasons behind the failure has been the number of injuries. The club has had a terrible season in terms of the number of injuries, as they’re around 67 injuries in the season, which is way higher than what any other club in Spain has seen.
There were questions asked about the work done by the fitness coach Gregory Dupont, and also the Sanitas medical facilities. Gregory Dupont has left along with Zinedine Zidane, and he is being replaced by Antonio Pintus, who is considered to be one of the best in this field. This actually shows that Real Madrid has taken some action in this regard.
But there are still questions about Sanitas, whose contract was about to expire this year. But Real Madrid has renewed with Sanitas, who don’t have a great reputation. They have a history of making huge mistakes in the case of injuries. There are still doubts over their work this season because there have been relapses in the case of certain players like Dani Carvajal and Eden Hazard, while some players took more time to recover than what was initially expected.
It would be harsh to criticise Sanitas without proper evidence, but this doesn’t make one forget their history. It would be better for Real Madrid to rake more care in this regard, and give players’ fitness greater priority than the value of deals they make with these health firms.
Repair Real Madrid’s damaged reputation after the European Super League saga
Everyone knows about the European Super League saga that has happened in the past two months, which picked up pace in April. A total of 12 European Clubs had signed an agreement with the investors to form the European Super LEague on their own, after separating from UEFA.
After protests from fans and threats from UEFA, many clubs have backed off from the Super League formation. But three clubs are remaining, are Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, and Juventus. And guess who has been the face of this operation? It is none other than the president of Real Madrid, Florentino Perez.
Florentino Perez has spearheaded this operation along with other club presidents so that they can generate greater revenue for their respective clubs. Though he is the president of the club, at the end of the day he’s just an individual who is a part of a club and not an entity that represents Real Madrid or owns the club.
But due to these actions from Perez, Real Madrid have been criticised as a club by the whole media and the majority of the fans around the world. The club’s reputation has been damaged due to this Super League drama, and UEFA is actually considering banning them from the UEFA Champions League for two seasons. The judgment hasn’t been passed yet, and the three clubs are planning to seek the European Court of Justice. But a scenario of Real Madrid being suspended from the Champions League is so saddening to imagine.
In a battle for money and power, it is the club’s reputation that has been damaged. And there’s a need for the current board to repair that damage and make amends. If the board doesn’t take some measures soon, the reputation of the greatest club in the history of football will be further damaged.