Some Real Madrid fans were quite relieved when the club relieved Xabi Alonso of his duties in January earlier this year, and at least, to an extent, it makes a little bit of sense. There were things that he did wrong towards the end of his tenure.
Fans did not really like some of his substitutions as well as some of the ways he used to treat their favourite players, but the truth is that when things were going well under him, they were amazing.
In fact, Alonso’s Real Madrid, up until the Clasico win, was a better start to the season than what Carlo Ancelotti had in his last year in charge. It was also better statistically and otherwise than Alvaro Arbeloa, and is so much better than Jose Mourinho’s this season – but people do not want to admit that.
There were a lot of things right with Real Madrid under Jose Mourinho
Real Madrid weren’t perfect at the time – everyone knows that – they struggled to remain intense all game long, and some substitutions and personnel choices were not perfect, but they were getting the job done, and that is not up for debate. Until the Liverpool game in November, Real Madrid had only lost one game – which was a 5-2 defeat to Atletico Madrid in September.
All of the remaining performances were wins, some of them were dominant, some were close, but not vulnerable, and some were huge, like the one against Barcelona in October.
That win was the only time Real Madrid have beaten Barcelona since the 2023-24 season, and there is no surprise as to why. Alonso was a tactically astute manager who knew how to build his teams for success. The game plan he curated for the Barcelona win worked flawlessly, and it could have even resulted in a much bigger win had Real Madrid taken their chances.
After his sacking, Arbeloa had successes in a few of his games, but did not have the consistency or the dominance in the league. Even though Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid have only lost two games so far, which is one more than Alonso’s count until this point, they have still looked vulnerable in most of the games they have played.
The football that Real Madrid are playing under Mourinho has not been good. He also has not taken some personnel decisions right, and has barely scraped by in the majority of his wins as Real Madrid manager this season.
Real Madrid, even without a controller, had some sort of dominance under Alonso, at least in the first part of his reign, and with time, you could tell that things would get better.
Yes, his treatment for some of the players was not the best, but that was only because he wanted the best for his squad. When he first benched Vinicius Junior, it was either because he was not playing too well, or because he wanted the player to remain fresh for the business end of the season.
He played Fede Valverde at right-back because he had no other option to play in that position, and that is why the two biggest players on this team had a problem with him.
While, in reality, Real Madrid finally had a project that was working. They had a good system, and even if there were things to iron out, that would have taken some time to figure out.
Had the club backed him, maybe he would still have been the manager at Real Madrid. The club needed a modernised visionary, a disciplinarian, and while Alonso was trying to fix that problem, the club was planning to get rid of him.
Would the board have trusted him the same way they now have trusted Mourinho to make the right decisions? Not at all, but that is unfair, because if Real Madrid want to finally get out of this rut, they would have to modernize like the rest of their rivals have.
Add us as a preferred source on Google