Euro Leagues: What next for Real Madrid?

0:00On the Football Daily Podcast, the EuroLeagues with Steve Crossman. It's time for the Euroleagues. We are going to discuss Xabi Alonso leaving his position as head coach of Real Madrid. What next for him? What next for the club? Could Jurgen Klopp end up at the Bernabeu? Then we'll reflect on how Paris FC knocks Paris Saint-Germain out of the cup and whether Napoli's title defence is just starting to slip. We've got the Athletics' James Horncastle, we've got ESPN's Julien Leroyne and we've got Guillaume Balaguet. Good evening, everybody. Good evening. How are we? All right? All good? Yeah. Very good.

0:39Good. Well, I think we should just jump right in because you know how people always say it's a packed show. This is genuinely a packed show. And I feel like it's going to take some time to unpack Real Madrid. So I'm just going to do the statement, Guillaume, first, that they released. So for those that don't know, they lost 3-2 to Barcelona in the Super Cup. Alonso gone. In comes Alvaro Arbeloa and promptly starts by getting knocked out of the cup by Alba Theta last night, which we will talk about. But this is what Real Madrid said. We wish to announce that by mutual agreement between the club and Xabi Alonso, it's been decided to bring his time as first team coach to an end.

1:17Xabi Alonso will always carry the affection and admiration of Madridistas because he is a Real Madrid legend and always represented the values of our club. Real will always be his home. OK, I'm hearing a lot of mutual agreements here, Guillaume. I'm hearing a lot of he has left his position. He was sacked, wasn't he? Yep. Right, okay, good. I did like how you use a small pause after the mutual agreement because yeah, you have to put the focus on that first. He was sacked. He didn't know it was going to happen. He was surprised by it on the way from Saudi. He was convinced that perhaps things weren't going the perfect way but certainly a way, but quite clearly this was a decision that was not made on the back of the Super Cup.

2:09In fact, I'll tell you more. After 13 wins in 14 games, including the Classico, the day after the Classico, there was a training session and Mark reports that he got a little bit upset by faces, people too relaxed, not enough intensity. It's like I'm coaching a kindergarten, he shouts. I know how he feels. Yeah, well. he was trying already felt frustrated despite the wins that the team wasn't going in the direction that he wanted and then he lost against Liverpool drew against Rayo Elche Girona and then he lost against Celta Vigo this is the 7th of December and that's when Real Madrid decided Mr Real Madrid Fiorentino Perez decided this is it Xavi Lonzo has to go next is when so that's more than a month ago he decided he's done?

3:02And there's nothing he could have done, really? Nope. It was, first of all, you have to say he wasn't, Frontino Perez, it was his decision, but he wasn't on the back of him thinking, this is the guy for me. It was suggested to him. Secondly, Xabi Alonso, as soon as he entered the club, he said, no, I don't want to go to the Club World Cup. And the club says, no, no, you have to go. So his authority gets diminished from minute one. And as I said, on the 7th of December, it was like, all right, tell you what, look at the calendar, Super Cup. We win it, great. It may stay a little bit longer. We lose it, that's the moment.

3:34Because the next manager, Arbeloa, already decided, has got a Copa del Rey, easy draw, Albacete, and then it's Levante, and then it's Monaco. So, you know, a good start to the new manager. It hasn't worked like that, has it? No, no, it hasn't. So the thing is, Jules, that quite often you don't necessarily want to put a manager or a player in before an absolutely humongous game, do you? Because the danger is they get burned straight away. Michael Carrick, Man City, Arsenal. Good luck. Wilfried Nancy. But the problem is, if you don't do that, and I know we're going to sort of split this up between Xabi Alonso and Arbeloa, but it's all the same story.

4:18The flip side is if you try and cherry pick the time and then it goes horribly wrong, it looks even worse. Yeah, that's true. I guess the only good time really is at the start of an international break. Although for the top clubs, there's nobody there at the training ground. So you're going to coach a couple of players, the kids, and then that's it. But I guess to have those 10 days where your club doesn't play because it's the international break and you have a certain amount of players available for there for you to start is probably the least worst of when to bring a new manager in, really.

4:50Because the bounce is... We often hear about new manager bounce. All of this is great, but there's often no bounce. It's like it's an unbounce even. And I think in this case with Albacete and really, and probably the worst thing even is to lose it the way they did. And the last minute when twice they came back and they thought, OK, at least extra time. Surely that team 17th in the second division are going to get tired and we can just get like a scrappy win. Not even that. The guy's called a screamer for you to lose 3-2 and be really embarrassed. So it's again, there's never a good time, I think, when you're in crisis anyway to change the manager.

5:26Let's just move just quickly away from Real Madrid and let's give 35 seconds, if you allow me. Tu Albacete and Jeff Teh scored twice. This is a guy that's been in 23 teams since 2011, 23 professional teams, who not so long ago, his mind blew up and he decided to leave football. Didn't know what was going to happen next. So looked around for a job, any job. And his dad said, do you want to be an electrician with me? All right, electrician for six months. then he says his mind cleared went back to football and had a dream night the one that he had dreamt all these years he's 32 and he was crying the first thing he did once the game finished he just rang FaceTime his family kid and wife the three of them he was asked what did you say to them nothing we were just all the three of us crying there was no words coming out of us there's no words that can describe what he was feeling so that's it a little moment for Alba Jete who qualified to the quarterfinals of the cup Real Madrid might need a new manager soon, so maybe he's laid down a marker.

6:28I don't know, James, what's the opposite of a bounce? A burst? Is that what it is? Perhaps this is kind of a dead cat bounce, though, isn't it? Yes, it is. I think it's fascinating listening to Guillaume explain Florentino Perez's process here and look at it with kind of a month to sort of, OK, these are the scenarios in which we do this or not, always with the intention of it being our below-er to come in, rather than thinking, okay, regardless of what happens in the Super Cup, let's win it, Xabi stays on for a little bit longer. Lose it, we move. You've still given yourself a month to consider options other than Arbeloa.

7:07But, Guillaume, I'm going to throw this to you. Arbeloa is very close to Florentino Perez, no? And not just Florentino Perez, his son. And to Xabi Alonso as well. Yeah, and Xabi. Still. Alvaro, there's a before and after Jesus Christ, sorry, Mourinho. which is basically a player that did a lot with his career and his talent. Not a lot of talent, but he was at Liverpool, Champions League final, etc. And then when he went to Madrid and he became the biggest soldier of Mourinho, his career was transformed because without much thinking, once he retired, having been at West Ham for a little bit, he went back to Real Madrid, became a coach, and he was just parachuted into the second team and having tried Santi Solari, who's also at the club and also works for Real Madrid before, they thought, okay, it's the chance to give Arbeloa the opportunity to be in the first team, even though nobody really believes that this is the greatest of idea.

8:09In fact, if I tell you what Florentino Pérez was doing the day before the game against Albacete, this is while Arbeloa was training, the only training session that he had with the first team, Florentino Pérez was already calling agents to see who could come in this season in case the Arbeloa experiment doesn't work. Jules, can I just check something with you? Because your face massively screwed up about a minute ago. Is that because you've just been introduced to another English phrase that you don't know when James said dead cat bounce? I was trying to picture in my head what is the cat is dead and he can't jump?

8:44No. Effectively, what it means is if you have something which is going down, it will inevitably, when it hits the ground, come back up a little bit. So it's basically a bad thing, all right? Right. They thought about Dead Cats Can't Jump, but they decided with this. Bridget Bardo, if she was still with us, would not be happy with this. Dead Cats Can't Jump is an odd sequel to a Wesley Snipes film, when you think about it. It was quite impressive that James came up with that. I loved it. It was great. Great expressions like that. It's quite political, but then I think James Horncastle secretly has got that in his locker as well, so I like that.

9:24Hey, if we talk about Real Madrid, a manager has to be political. He has to know how to play those games. Xabi wasn't enough. Clearly Xabi Alonso wasn't enough. That is a great link, Jules, because it's true, isn't it? And listen to the thing, it would be easy to kind of feel sorry for him and stuff. Ultimately, there is an expectation of a certain level of winning at Real Madrid. Didn't happen. And there is an expectation of a certain way that you are. and it might have seemed like a perfect fit, but after he put on the coat, if you like, it didn't seem to work. So the perfect fit is interesting here because we would all agree that he was great at Bayer Leverkusen, right?

10:00With a squad that he basically put together with players who looked up to him and just saw this guy's amazing, all his ideas are great, we're going to do everything he says to the comma, to the full stop, and it would be great and they got amazing results. The perfect fit for Real Madrid and Champions, But also was the fact that, yes, he used to play there. He's this great brand of football. He had the best coaches in history. So, sure. But I think quite early on, we also said on the show, hang on a minute here. This squad here, which is a very particular squad, full of egos and superstars, probably one of the most difficult dressing room, in a way, to probably manage.

10:38If you arrive with your ideas and you're quite rigid and you're quite dogmatic and this. So we were all quite curious, I think, to see how that would work out. because when you come to the back of Carlo Ancelotti, as we've said the other day, the chillest manager in the history of football, and you are the complete opposite, let's see how that goes down with this dressing room. And that's the thing. And maybe Guillaume can help us understanding, did they promise Xabi Alonso that he could do, that he would have like full power to do everything he wanted, to change the mentality, to get this team to play?

11:11Or did that change halfway through? And maybe at the beginning, say, yeah, yeah, do what you want. But then once Vinny were not happy and Bellingham was not happy and X and Y were not happy and Valverde, then suddenly the club said, hang on, you need to change. And Xabi didn't want to change maybe because, just to finish game, for somebody as smart as Xabi Alonso, and maybe when you get to this level, it's you and your methods and your principles and you don't want to budge and you don't want to change and you don't want to tweak anything. and maybe that's the way you get to the top. However, if you are a bit smarter though and you know that at some point you'll have to be a bit smoother and you'll have to change a few things maybe, then you do it.

11:51It looks like Xabi didn't want to change and maybe he was a bit naive on that sense. I'm not sure. He did change. The games against Athletic Klopp and against Olympiacos, all of a sudden it was a team defending deep. There was no pressure high because what was the point if three players weren't doing it? So he was forced to change in a Real Madrid that you would not recognize with the kind of Real Madrid that he said he was going to put in practice and certainly nothing to do with Bayer Leverkusen. Did they change with him, though? They forced him to change. You don't go and say, listen, unless you play in a different way, unless you stop me having to defend, I'm not going to play.

12:26But he sees the faces. He sends the team. He hears Florentino. So there's a lot of things that make him think and perhaps he stopped at Pintus, the former Zidane physical coach, to come in and be imposed by the club. Because the accusations, you have to accumulate a series of accusations to get rid of a manager, just for the public side, even though the decision was made and it was radical. And one was like, oh, the team physically is not well. The players are not responding to Xabi. Xabi, this is not the kind of football that he said he would put in practice. The list became very, very, very long.

13:01But what's interesting, and you know what? I've been asking managers, three of them in the last week, what is it that you get promised? when you come in? And then how does that develop? For instance, were you told Enzo Maresca that the imposition from the club was to get some substitutions at a certain time? Did they tell you about that? No. Ruben Amorim, did they tell you you're going to be a coach instead of a manager? No. So at the beginning with Xavi Alonso, it was like, we've seen what you've done about El Lavekusen. Go and do it. We trust you. And we need a change. We understand we need a change because last season was bad.

13:35So he comes in, starts doing that. But when he says, as I said earlier, don't want to go to the Global Cup. I want to start when the season starts proper. And he says, they told him no. So he's got to coach a team with players that are going to go, players that are tired, players that don't know if they're going to go. Already the whole thing starts badly. And he, yes, for a while, went on with his methodology, pressure high, tried to convince them. I think the failure of Xavi is not being able to do that, the convincing. Because everything else, the coaching was good. The selection of players was good, decent.

14:07And he got to a point, maybe when he said he was coaching a kindergarten, but certainly little by little just we came to a point where players were like, nah, not with you. Do you think that Xabi Alonso will learn and be better from this experience? Because over the last 72 hours, so many people have held up the mirror of Carlo Ancelotti to Xabi Alonso and pointed at it and said, Xabi, this is what you should have done. and Carlo Ancelotti at his age is humble enough and wise enough to go to the players say I've got these ideas what do you think oh you want to do that okay I'll factor that in let's do that very good at not just managing games situations managing presidents but managing players but people forget that Carlo Ancelotti is now considerably older than Xabi Alonso he's been through what Xabi Alonso has just been through.

15:03When Carlo Ancelotti got his first big job at Juventus, it didn't go well. They came up short. He was sacked. And it was only through that learning that he realized he had to adjust more. He realized he had to incorporate bigger egos better. He realized that he had to be more aware and have his ear close to the street about what they were doing and saying about him upstairs to journalists and he became a better manager because of it and likewise sometimes coaches will go to a club and in italian they always they always use the english word which is funny they always talk about feeling is there that chemistry between the coach and the club at that particular time and sometimes for whatever reason it's not there at other clubs they do find it so I don't think what has happened to Xabi Alonso over the last seven months all of a sudden makes him a bad manager in the same way that what happened to Ruben Amorim over the last 14 months doesn't make Ruben Amorim a bad manager yeah these are two guys who achieved incredible things with Bayer Leverkusen and Sporting Lisbon and I think in their next job now and I think Xabi will have a better pick of his next job still than Ruben Amorim will.

16:23But I think just because Xabi Alonso didn't work out at Real Madrid does not mean he can't work out at Liverpool, at Bayern Munich, or just another big club. Yeah, well, it was Jose Antonio Camacho, you remember, Spanish national coach and Real Madrid coach. Very sweaty man, yes. Saying that you start becoming a good manager when you get the sack. And that, yeah, there's going to be lessons there. I don't think he had a lot to, you know, his behaviour, his insisting on his idea to a point, didn't have to do with the fact that if actually left Real Madrid, as he had done, he's going to have Manchester City, Liverpool and others looking at him, no doubt.

17:02But he's got in the industry that profile still. So yeah, it won't affect it. Also, Real Madrid had outlayers. But let me say something else quickly about Real Madrid. I noticed a lot of negativity towards the club. Oh, what a way to behave against Xavi Alonso and Diego of players. But actually, it's the most successful club since association football started in 150 years or whatever it is. The most successful club. So they know what they're doing. And certainly, Florentino Perez, who has done this kind of thing before, finished the run of a manager early, knows what he's doing. It's just that, as Jules was saying earlier, and James as well referred to it, this is a group of players that think that perhaps they're better than they are.

17:46They don't want to do things that they should be doing. And good luck to the next proper manager that comes to Real Madrid to organise all that. Hey, Rafa Honigstein. You're with us briefly just because Jurgen Klopp's name has obviously come up. So, Guillaume can tell us a little bit about what may be happening from the Real Madrid end. What do we know? What do you know about the possibility of any discussions or any interest? Well, I'm not privy to those discussions, but I think it's a fascinating experiment, mental experiment to envisage Jurgen Klopp at Real Madrid. And I think in the past there have been approaches.

18:24And in the past Klopp's answer has always been, one, I don't speak the language and B, I've got another job. Now, those two answers would be a little bit different this time because he's been learning Spanish. Has he? Yeah, lives in Spain. He plays paddle in Mallorca. That's all he does. Yeah, all the time. Well, and of course he has a job, but it's not a coaching job. And it is a job that still leaves, I think, the opportunity to go back into coaching proper. And I don't think it is as categoric as it used to be when it comes to him and saying no to Real Madrid. But you still wonder if his way of doing things, especially with the experience of Xabi Alonso, could actually work there.

19:13And there I have big doubt because he is probably the last remaining football ideologue, maybe not so much in terms of system information, but in terms of principles. Even Guardiola has kind of negotiated with his own principles over the recent years. I don't think he would have tolerated somebody not pressing like Erling Haaland 10 years ago or having Ryan Cherky doing his own thing, not listening to the manager. but he's mellowed in a way or adapted or matured or whatever whatever verb you want to use or adjective but Klopp I have seen no suggestions that he has I think when you see now how Leipzig with a bit of guidance from him have gone back to their original blueprint of young players and pressing and being really energetic I just don't see him coming in and saying you know what I'm going to turn to some kind of German version of Carlo Ancelotti and say guys from now on it's Just vibes here.

20:10Just do your thing. Tactics, schmactics, you know, we don't need all that. You train as much as you want. You do whatever you want. You express yourselves. I just don't see it. And I think he would be very unhappy there. And I think if Real Madrid are looking for that kind of manager, then Klopp wouldn't be the right answer. So there's a couple of things to say, Guillaume, I suppose. And first is that he has, Jurgen Klopp, fulfilled the sort of the Klopp vow that he made when he left, which was no British club again ever and no club job for at least a year. So he did sort of throw out some caveats of I won't be doing anything anytime soon from a coaching perspective.

20:50Well, that has kind of passed now. And it is Real Madrid. Do they want him? 100%. 100 %? Yeah. Right. So as Rafaia said, they tried it before. He already got no. Frentino Perez doesn't believe in no so if that's what he wants and normally, eventually he tends to get the man I agree with Rafi that if he doesn't change his way it could be a clash an immediate clash because he will come in and say I won different players or you have to get used to this kind of methodology but they won him and Frentino Perez on the Tuesday so this is the day before the Copa del Rey game against Aldecete was bringing super agents, trying to find out the availability for this season of Jurgen Klopp, Enzo Maresca, and a third one that I haven't found out who it is.

21:43But I know that in the list of potential managers for next season is Pochettino. So I don't think he would have ranked Pochettino to say, would you just leave the USA to actually come and join Real Madrid, which is your dream? Maybe he did. Maybe he asked the question, but the answer, again, was no. So Arbeloa is for now, but the idea of Klopp taking over this team is very present. And I hear Rafi and we know the past, but this is his last job in managerial football. You go to Real Madrid and adapt, no? Don't you? I just don't see him adapting. He's never adapted. And I think the older you get, maybe Pep Guardiola is the odd one out, I think the less you are able to adapt in your ways, in your way of doing things.

22:25Maybe he wants something different. I think if there is one last job, I think he'd be much more suited to having the German national team. I thought about that. It might be a job that might come up after the World Cup or maybe after the Euros. I think there you pick your own players. You can be even more of a principled guy because you don't have any contracts. If a player doesn't run enough or isn't part of the team as much as you want or is too much of an egotist, you just don't invite them anymore. So you have, of course, you cannot buy and sell a player, but you have almost complete power in a way that a Real Madrid manager, if you want to compare it, that, of course, never has.

23:04So I think there is probably something in him that says, you know, the magic of this club is something that you cannot just say no to. But if he thinks about it and tries to square that, what the requirements are, what the realities of this job are, or at least the way we perceive them from the outside, But with the way he works, it doesn't strike me as a natural fit, even with him speaking Spanish and maybe wanting that kind of last big job somewhere. I've been discussing with two or three people today what these words of club mean and how would Valentino Perez take it when he says, in general, it's a sign that not everything that is 100 % right when Xavi Alonso, who showed over two years in Leverkusen what an outstanding coaching talent he is, has to leave Real Madrid just half a year later.

23:54If there is an implication that is not to do with the coach, that there's something else that's the problem at Real Madrid, there's something else. It's pointing directly to Florentino. And the interpretation from people that have taken decisions from coaches and the future direction of a club, saying, yeah, he's saying no. He's saying no. He cannot go and say, no, I don't want you Real Madrid, but he can say it in different ways. But I insist the Jurgen Klopp link will continue for a while. Rafi can I just ask you a question Klopp has always been a risk taker he's not afraid of big jobs he's also proud I think of never being sacked and I think if there's one inevitability about going to Real Madrid it's you will be sacked so I don't know whether that would figure at all in his thinking but like you know it's and I don't know how conscious and protective he is of the legacy that he's already built but do you think he would maybe look at it and think is this is this worth the hassle if it is to be my last job in management I think James what you're saying or what you're implying fits well with what Guim is saying I think Klopp has always chosen his clubs very carefully and chosen clubs where he feels somehow he can connect with the energy of the place you know Mainz, Dortmund and Liverpool are very different but in the same way they're kind of similar in certain ways that they rely on the crowd that they were they were in a place where he took them from being I don't want to say nothing but fairly behind the curve to the very biggest heights and it's a very different job than coming in at bayern or real madrid where it's no question that you finish second but you have to finish first and you have to win the champions league and everything else is failure and he's never done that job and he's never done the job where he's worked with with superstars he he created superstars he's never taken a club where superstars are already there and think they they might know best plus he's never had a a club boss who thinks i've done it all because i have won already a lot of things the club bosses that he has worked with hadn't won anything themselves and then you have the thing about the legacy seven years at mine seven years at Dortmund nine and a half years at Liverpool I think it's hard to see a similar outcome at Real Madrid and I think deep down it might be in his mind to say you know what I'm I I want to be one of the very few managers at this level who haven't been fired yet and the reason for that is that i chose my clubs very carefully and knew for example at liverpool that finishing fifth one season is not the end i mean we know that finishing fifth at real madrid would you wouldn't allow to finish fifth because you'd be fired before and even xavi with the result the the results and the season he was having in terms of the results and the the situation the table still had a lot of chances to win stuff, but it wasn't good enough.

27:04So I think that statement that Guillaume just read out suggests that Klopp sees this as a very, very difficult place. In brackets, probably not the right place for him. Brackets closed. And I think that might not be the end of the discussion. That might not be the end of the story, as Guillaume has intimated. I think Real Madrid might ask again. but I think for the reasons we mentioned I think it's going to be hard to see this working and I think Klopp will be very conscious of that And again, just to finish on that why, if you're Real Madrid why would you go there again? You just tried Xabi Alonso I know it's different to Klopp and maybe you want the biggest name because you're the biggest club in the world but those dogmatic managers they clearly don't work with these squads so unless you're ready, if you're Real Madrid to get rid of maybe a third of your dressing room because that's never going to work with somebody like Klopp.

28:00Like Rafa just said, because he makes the stars, he doesn't coach the stars straight away. It's never going to work. So even for the club to think that Klopp could be a good idea, I think it's crazy. Rafa, lovely to have you with us. Thank you very much. Thank you. Raphael Honnickstein. I'm just trying to decide, Jules, whether Tactics Schmactics or Dead Cat Bounce is the best name for the pod. It's high level tonight. It's really difficult to find out. Well, we'll think about that.

28:28Hello, this is Matt Chorley's Urgent Questions, your daily dose of political mayhem from the heart of Westminster. Order, order. I call Matt Chorley. I'm a supporter of flags. It turns out time is finite. Government doesn't want to be involved in this. I do not think the candidates are front looks. Matt Chorley's Urgent Questions. Subscribe to the podcast and you'll get the best bits every day from around 5 o 'clock. Listen on BBC Sounds. On the Football Daily Podcast. The EuroLeagues with Steve Crossman. We've got Guillaume Balaguet, we've got James Horncastle from The Athletic and ESPN's Julianne Laurent all with us.

29:07And we'll start the second half of our EuroLeagues with a brilliant story in the Coupe de France. Paris FC knocking Paris Saint-Germain out in the round of 32. And before I say anything else, Jules, I'm really disappointed how little needle there seems to be. like I'm not having Luis Enrique saying like oh best of luck to them for the rest come on it was one of those games one of those you know smash and grabs that we see in our leagues all the time if you look at all the chances that PSG missed and the expected goals and the one from Paris FC and the two shots on target and the one scored by Iconi that won them the game I think there was that kind of feeling within the within the stadium on on Monday night it's one of those games that I think if you're Luis Enrique you take on the chin he said to them I don't expect us to win every game.

29:56Nobody wins every single game of their season. Nowhere, no countries, no league, no level. So this is the first thing, but I think it was a very important win for Paris FC in a way. Okay, it might just be the Coupe de France and they're still very much, they will have to fight not to go down in the league. But I think in terms of symbol and what this could make, not now because they're still way, way, way below PSG in terms of level and the size of the club and the resources and the revenues and the money, everything. Even with the third richest owners in the world, it still doesn't happen like this.

30:32You just don't click your fingers and suddenly your team becomes one of the best teams in the world. But it shows that they're in that kind of little race with themselves that they have of trying to get as close as possible to PSG, not just in terms of stadium, because as we've said so many times on the show, there's literally 10 yards between the two stadiums in Paris. also trying every time they can to cause problems, to cause an upset there and there. They were okay in the league when they lost 2-1, but this one was brilliant. And four, former PSG Academy product and PSG player in Jonathan Iconi, Paris Born and Bread, Bondi Born and Bread even, him and Kylian Mbappe played together at youth level for Bondi under Kylian's dad as a coach.