Xabi Alonso is leaving Real Madrid. And with him, he is taking a project that could have turned the fate of this club upside down, for the better. Too bad many grew impatient, and those with power succumbed to external noise.
Xabi came with promises and plans and had started to make progress, slow but steady progress. But as Cristiano Ronaldo once said, “At Real Madrid they don’t ask if you can win, but how many times you can win.”
And so the manager faced unwarranted wrath, the source of which we can easily reckon. It was a departure too soon, a story left incomplete, a manager not trusted, and a whole lot of dreams shattered.
With his departure, though, Xabi is again turning the lives of many upside down. The fates of many players will change. Some must rejoice in what is to come, and some shall repent for what is lost.
Winner: Jude Bellingham
Xabi was a manager of mixed emotions. He wanted chaos, but he wanted controlled chaos. And Bellingham was his architect en plein air. And for that, he changed Jude’s profile.
The Englishman was modified into a disciplined interior midfielder whose main job was to retain the shape of the chaotic triangle that was all but fragile. This recasting cost Jude his most explosive quality, that of an instinctive raider who breaks lines open with singular passes and or appearances.
No doubt, Bellingham was exceptional even in the role that Xabi gave him, but not the best, and certainly not as productive or as real a threat as he was in his natural role. The new manager may see something different on his chalkboard for Jude. Fans must be excited to see what is coming for this boy.
Winner: Vinicius Jr
Of course, who else if not him? Vinicius was the first of many who faced the fate of Xabi Alonso’s radical ideas. Fans have their views on the way the manager governed the Brazilian’s role, but we need to understand in unison that the rift between the two was unwarranted.
Taking Vinicius out in crucial moments was surprising and, to be honest, not a good decision from Xabi, but none of that meant Vinicius could crash out. That was poor on the player’s part too.
Xabi also made it clear that with dipping performances, nobody’s position was secure, and Vinicius learned it the hard way. The important man that he once was was reduced to a second choice guy in an instant. Of course, that would not sit right with the player or the board of the club.
With Xabi out, Vinicius shall go out to party. He is definitely getting his undisputed position back.
Winner: Ferland Mendy
This is a thoughtful one, and lend me your ears with patience. Ferland Mendy is injured right now, as he always is, and he might not even be going into next season with Real Madrid. So the time that he has to prove himself is meagre.
Had Xabi stayed, he would have never gotten the opportunity to make a presence, even if he turned into prime Marcelo. Fran Garcia and Alvaro Carreras would have always beaten him. There was no way he was getting any regular attention from Xabi.
But this departure makes him a winner insofar as the mere opportunity to make an impact, in a relative sense, is concerned. We do not know where Alvaro Arbeloa would use him, if he would use him at all. But Xabi’s departure shall come as a sigh of relief, if only in the face of the probability of an opportunity that never was. Mendy was a loser when Xabi signed, and he is a winner as he leaves.
Loser: Arda Guler
I do not see a bigger loser than him in this event. He was Xabi’s talisman. He had his fate turned around by the manager. Under Carlo Ancelotti, Guler suffered, and under Xabi Alonso, he thrived.
This departure would also mean a shift in tactical expectations for Guler, but that is a secondary concern right now. The first should be that the midfielder might very well go back to square one, with his biggest supporter not being there anymore.
Arbeloa is a rather liberal manager who loves creativity, at least from what we hear from the walls of La Fabrica, but the first team is not the academy. And if Xabi’s episode has taught us one thing, it is that managers are moulded by the club much before managers mould the club.
Guler, if not at a loss, stands at least at a crossroads. He must analyze whether the new manager is as trusting of him as Xabi was, or if he is going to be seeing the bench much more once again. Again, this is all speculation, and we do not really know what is to come from Arbeloa. But Guler is definitely a loser, plainly from the perspective of one less supporter, so to say.