Pep Guardiola in the Arctic, Real Madrid’s Managerial Troubles, and Chelsea’s Past Comes Home: European Nights: 01/20/26

0:00You're listening to the Meninblazers Media Network, Suboptimal Radio.

0:30Bodo Glimt

0:35Glimp forever. More, more, more. Oh, we bellow into the Arctic winds. About the Champions League, the Europa League. And every factoid we can find about everybody's second, maybe third favourite team. Bodo and Glimp's here to drink down this Champions League matchday with me. As always, I don't know which of us is Bodo and which is Glimp'd in this terrible, terrible Buddy Cop movie. It's Mr. Rory Smith. You can be Glimp'd because that's the one that means flash, I think. Is it really? Not flash as showy like flash of lightning i'll take it i'll take it either way baby i do think that would be an incredible cop movie and bodo and glimpt to keep in the streets of gotham safe surely it's a it's a nordic noir and there's one there's one there's an underpowered detective duo called bodo and glimpt and they have to solve crimes committed by much by much richer people i suppose i can't really track the metaphor yeah when wallander's murdered bodo and glimpt are left to save the day.

1:33Wallander's too brutal for me. Is it really? Yeah, it's too raw. I don't like it. Sweet, sweet branner. This week, Raw, it's a debut of Arctic Circle. Pep, yes, Guardiola is packing his designer parker. God knows, he's probably got some avant-garde take on the parker. He may even sew up the holes in his jeans. That should be radical surgery and get a sled dog his way towards the North Pole, deep into the northern tundra of Norway. This club with a stadium capacity of just over 8 ,000 frostbitten fans in Asmaira Stadion. They don't know cold. They should have been at Soldier Field last night. It's come out of nowhere to win four Norwegian titles since 2020, capturing hearts of every neutral alive.

2:17Formerly sponsored by a local toothbrush company because their fans would lead chants with the toothbrush in their pockets. That's called product placement. Away trips so long, they always became sleepovers. now they're welcoming Manchester City. This is dreamland stuff. Pep Guardiola is going to be there. Roar, Manchester City is going to need to release a new winter line for Pep to survive this trip without frostbite rope. Yeah, January in the Arctic Circle is going to be cold. And I know that we have a bit of a running joke on European nights, Rog, about the British weather. But compared to northern Norway at this time of year, it's tropical and balmy in Manchester in January.

2:55But at least they can take a bit of solace in the fact that it'll be quite a light flight. The City, I think, are missing 14 players. I've got to tell you, if Pep Guardiola can make a balaclava look good, which is something I've always tried to bring back, he can do anything. Bodo should probably hire Michael Carrick as interim manager for just one game. That game against Manchester City, 12.45pm Eastern today. Tuesday, also on tap this matchday, Arsenal head to Milan to face last year's beaten finalist Inter. Thomas Frank gets a brief reprieve from the punishing Premier League as Tottenham host Borussia Dortmund.

3:30What could possibly go wrong? Liverpool head to Marseille. Real Madrid breaking a new manager. Emphasis on break, probably. And nouveau Chelsea face, a similar old face from their old days in David Luiz. Welcome back, friendo. All that and more. So let's pull on our designer parkas and go to the football.

3:54This is the sound of whistles, jeers and fury at the Santiago Bernabeu capping off a wild week, even by Real Madrid's black belt in wildness. The crowd of 70 ,000 booed every single player when announced, chanted for President Florentino Perez's resignation that despite a 2-0 win over 19th place Levante on Saturday, started as all things do in world football in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where Real Madrid lost a slapdash, kick-drunk, downright crazy 3-2 Clasico to Barcelona in the Spanish Super Cup. I think essentially like the Community Shield, except they play in Saudi Arabia. After the game, then-manager Xabi Alonso said, quote, we have to move on as soon as possible.

4:38And so Real Madrid did by firing Alonso. Roar, we have discussed Xabi many times on this show, the 44-year-old Bas, son of a manager, won it all as an elegant midfielder for Liverpool, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Spain. And then, with name brand recognition in the three biggest leagues in the world, instead of jumping straight into coaching, meticulously plotted a management career. Initially with the reserves of this first club, Real Sociedad, then for his first senior gig, he picked Bayer Leverkusen, relatively low-pressure platform, based in sort of an outpost of Cologne in Westphalia. And even after getting unbeaten in his first four seasons to win the club's first ever Bundesliga title, winning the German Cup and only losing precisely one game all season.

5:25That won the Europa League final to Atalanta, turned down former clubs Liverpool and Bayern Munich to stick around for another season to grow. And yet eight months or 233 days into his tenure at Real Madrid, some of his designer stubble has lasted longer. the most handsome manager in football, finds himself unemployed, death by mutual consent, which is what we were told. Most people who understand the situation know there's nothing mutual about it. He becomes the 11th manager to last less than a year in two decades under President Florentino Perez at Real Madrid. Roar, for someone who so carefully, fastidiously, so patiently mapped out his managerial career, how did it all end so wrong, so quickly for Xabi Alonso at Real Madrid?

6:12Well it depends a little bit on on how far you want to take it back there are suggestions that Florentino Perez had started to second guess his appointment right at the start when he didn't show the requisite amount of enthusiasm for the club world cup obviously Perez wanted that to be Real Madrid announcing themselves as the first ever FIFA world champions in that sense didn't work out like that Xabi was a little bit more circumspect about how much that tournament mattered that's going off message you don't go off message at Real Madrid but I think the real kind of trigger point comes back in September when they beat Barcelona in the Clasico and they beat Barcelona in the Clasico at least in part because late on Alonso decided he needed to take off Vinicius and put on Rodrigo because Vinicius doesn't track back and in most clubs obviously that is a perfectly sensible tactical decision but at Real Madrid it is not allowed.

7:04Vinicius had a strop, he apologised to everybody 24 hours later apart from Alonso and the club were very quiet about it the club didn't come out and kind of offer any institutional support and from that moment on it had become pretty clear that this manager had been brought in to make Real Madrid a little bit more modern to break the stars to a system to implement like a tactical shift where it isn't a team built around an individual but it's a team built around an idea they'd reached their first test Alonso and Vinicius had fallen out and the club decided as they always do with the player. And from that point on, really, it started to look an awful lot like it was a question of how long Alonso might last rather than what he might be able to build.

7:49And, you know, ultimately, in September and October, you could easily have said he'll get the season, he might get two. It'll depend on how they're doing the Champions League. They then hit a bad run of form in November. They lose at Liverpool. They draw three straight games in La Liga. Right at the start of December, they lose 2-0 at home to Celta Vigo. and from there on in, Florentino Perez, it seems like, had made up his mind that he needed an excuse, an occasion to sack Alonso. He'd had enough. He didn't want that sort of manager anymore and the Super Cup final provided the occasion. I mean, the Vinny Junior strop, which is what I think it's called trademark, was really remarkable.

8:26Vinny was caught on camera saying, always me, I'm leaving the team, it's better if I leave. And there was no punishment from the club. As you said, it was remarkable. Vinny posted an apology to nearly everyone. And these apologies are vetted. They are cleared. They do not come out of the blue. Vinny Jr., I will bet huge money. Didn't just sit down and be like, I got this. I'm just going to ruminate. Maybe I'll play the piano, tinkle the keys in a meditative style, and then just pump out my own apology. These things are multi-layered, many agents, many comms specialists working on them. And the fact that it was an apology to everybody apart from Alonso, Alonso, they knew what they were doing and it probably would have been sanctioned.

9:08And after that, every single game was played in the glare of must-win for Xabi to keep his job. That line in The Princess Bride, good night, Wesley, good work, sleep well, I'll most likely kill you in the morning. This despite, this is amazing to me, Alonso had a higher win rate as Real Madrid manager than Zinedine Zidane in either of his tenures, more than Carlo Ancelotti. Then after the Super Cub loss, frankly, dispiriting, demoralising seeds humanly. Of Alonso trying to get his players to give a Barca regard of honour. Kylian Mbappe waving them off down the tunnel. I mean, I don't know if I've seen shoulders slump so hard as Xabi's reaction.

9:48It was like he was resigned to his fate in the moment, in public. And I'm old enough to remember back to last season, when it all went kusplat under, cuddly, avuncular, the steady hand, slightly off kilter, out of control eyebrow of Carlo Ancelotti. He was criticised for giving players too much leeway, not having a fancy new pressing system, you know, whatever the kids are doing tactically nowadays to the club. Went out and got themselves just that, a young manager, a shiny systems manager, the hottest property, the most coveted manager on the market, a beloved former player to boot club DNA. You know, Pep Guardiola was asked if he had any advice for his old friend Alonso when Manchester City played Real Madrid in the last round of the Champions League.

10:33His advice, fantastic, classic pep. He said, piss with your own penis, which I think, well, it could mean many things. I can't really tell you exactly what it means. I believe it means be your own man. I don't know. There's levels of kink I don't fully understand. I want to be clear, but whatever. Turned out to be terrible advice. And I'm quoting a certain Mr. Rory Smith in The Observer. Real knows that has to change what became clear this week as a club waved goodbye to Alonso is that it does not know how to do it Rory by the way I relate to that very very much we all know we need to change few of us know how to do it but not all of us have one of the biggest football clubs in the world Real is the ultimate individuals club the ultimate players club can a systems coach ever achieve or was someone like Alonso just always destined to fail Well, you looked at Alonso and thought if anyone could do it, it was him because of that background.

11:31Not just the fact that, as you say, he was a beloved former player. But, you know, he had worked during his playing career, not just under Mourinho and Guardiola, but under Ancelotti as well. And he'd said, I remember seeing him a couple of years ago, and he said that that was, of all the people, the managers he'd played under, the one he learned most from was Ancelotti because of his ability to combine tactical acumen with man management, for want of a better phrase. for the ability to get the best out of difficult, precious, delicate stars. And so really you looked at it and you could see why Real thought, well, we need to be a little bit more cutting edge, a little bit more advanced in what we do tactically.

12:11And the only way we can do that is with someone who has the buy-in and the credibility that Alonso has. So if he can't do it, you're tempted to say no one can. And I have a theory as to why, Rog. Would you like to hear it? When have I ever said no? Keep your theories to yourself, love. Because Real Madrid's innate belief is that they win games because they are Real Madrid. The natural state of affairs is that Real Madrid are winning. And I think on some level, saying that you need a system and a tactical approach, an idea to enable you to win games, is kind of antithetical to that. You're basically saying that the system is above the club.

12:48Real Madrid's system for winning games is being Real Madrid. if you're saying that you need to have a kind of specific you know pressing plan you're kind of contradicting the thing the club believes about itself so I'm not sure there is a way that anyone can go in and say my idea is so much better than anything else that you have to change your whole club to accommodate it. Real don't do that they they say their plan is to have better players than the rest of football and win games that way and I'm not sure maybe maybe the second of Alonso is them saying, actually, do you know what? We're okay with that.

13:23That is the way we do things and that is what we want to be. Maybe there is something weirdly, admirably self-knowing about it. The amazing thing listening to you is that Alonso, having been a player at Real Madrid, didn't know that himself about the culture, the deeply entrenched politics, the incredible pro-individualism. But this is the thing with all managers, isn't it? They always think they can change the club, the executive, the sporting director, whoever it is. They always think that they will be different. The level of self-belief you have to have to be a manager is totally unfamiliar to me and to you and to anybody else.

13:59Because you have to basically believe that you are right all of the time. Managers don't do imposter syndrome is what you're saying, Rul. There is no such thing as imposter syndrome for a manager. It's the opposite, isn't it? Yeah, it's this absolute conviction that you can solve any problem. and yeah Xabi Alonso who is incredibly smart and incredibly personable and he is what you want him to be but there will be on some level he will have thought I can I will be able to to kind of navigate my way around Florentino Perez just me messianic complex of managers partly I think in Alonso's case it's slightly different I do wonder at Leverkusen he had this clause in his contract that said he had the right to talk to to Liverpool Bayern Real Madrid and Manchester City so that's the three teams he played for plus Manchester City I think it's interesting and I thought it was interesting at the time that in 2024 he could have gone to either Liverpool or Bayern they were both available and he said no he stayed at Leverkusen and when Real came calling he leapt at the first available opportunity now you could say that's romance it's because Real was the club where I think he played the most games where he spent most of his sort of elite career or it could would be a practical measure that when Real come along, you can't say no because they won't come again.

15:15And you kind of know it's not a job for life. You're not locked in at Real Madrid. So whether he went in thinking, I can kind of ride the tider for a couple of years and then get out, rather than I can actually institute change, that is also possible. But either way, I don't think he thought it would be over after eight months. Anyway, that's the present. We've got to look at the future as Real and Xavi go their separate ways. Real Madrid turns to Alonso's close friend, former teammate, Alvaro Arbeloa, formerly Liverpool and Real Madrid. He was managing the Real Madrid reserves, came in talking about how the Madrid project is to, quote, win, win, win, win and win again.

15:52So naturally he went and lost his first game 3-2 to Alba Sete, a team nicknamed the Clockwork Cheese. I just love that. They'd never beaten Real Madrid, a team that rested many of its players so they could be fit for a relegation scrap in the Spanish second division. Arbeloa said, quote, At this club, every defeat is a tragedy. So imagine one like this. I mean, you can. It is the worst first day at the office since Ethan Hawke in training day, which prompted the boos against Levante this weekend because Super Cup loss aside, results under Alonso were not poor. In fact, the stat going around, in his first 34 games, Giabbi's record perfectly matched handsy flicks at Barcelona.

16:3124 wins, four draws, six losses. He unlocked Mbappe, scored 29 goals. All comps, half of Madrid's total. They won 13 of his first 14 games in charge. They're second in La Liga. They're seventh in the Champions League group phase. Good enough for automatic qualls to the next round. Still sacked. Eight months ago, Alonso was the jewel of the next generation of coaches. Does this sacking do damage to him? Long-term, Raw? Do we just say it's Chinatown, it's Real Madrid, Jake? Is it an understandable blip? A lot of great managers have collected seven checks in Madrid and gone into great things. Is he still, I guess I'm asking, the biggest piece in the coaching tree, Domino Cascade, about to come?

17:17Well, given in the four days since he's been sacked, he's been linked to Tottenham, to Eintracht Frankfurt, to Manchester City, to Liverpool, even to Manchester United. I think Xabi will still have plenty of suitors. It's not great. It's not something that he will relish having happened. But I think there is enough understanding that Real Madrid is a law unto itself that it won't in any way impact kind of how his career maps out from here. If you're a Liverpool fan, Rule, which apparently all of Alonso's children are, do you think it changes anything internally as they think about their own future in the coaching area?

17:52Maybe a more, you know, a better haired option is available. I think it definitely changes the external environment for Slott because there is now someone who, if you are tiring of Liverpool's performances and if you're not a fan of Arna Slott, there is now someone to whom you can kind of hitch your colours. And I don't think it's entirely coincidence that Anfield booed Arna Slott's Liverpool the week that Xabi Alonso became available again. I don't think that's unrelated. That's a conspiracy theory and I like it. I just think it changes the way that you think as a fan. I think if Alonso was at Real Madrid or didn't exist at all, oh no, that's a bit harsh.

18:28If he'd not gone into management, he wasn't an option. I think that you would be more inclined just a little bit to think, well, Arnest Lott won the title. We've got to stick with him. It's Liverpool. We don't change managers that easily. But Alonso's out there, available. He's a former player, had this incredible start to his career as a Bayer Leverkusen team that featured two of Liverpool's first team. it does change the calculation for a fan internally is I think more interesting because Arnazlott won the title in his first season at Liverpool and that was his big mistake yeah that was kind of the error that he made was starting to if anything he's hit it too well Rog but you know they're fourth at the moment they're not playing well but at the same time Alonso was their first choice that they wanted they did inquire after Alonso when Jürgen Klopp first announced that he was leaving that Liverpool are obviously aware of how good a coach Xabi Alonso looked like he was going to be.

19:22I don't think it changes anything immediately. I don't think they will sack slot for Xabi Alonso this week. But in the summer, especially if Liverpool miss out on the Champions League, you wonder whether, again, it will inform their thinking because there is an alternative available. For now, Xabi gets a beautiful break. Well, to Sir, gets paid out on the rest of his$10 million salary for the year. They are below us next game, hosting Flo Balogun and Monaco, 3pm Eastern today. Rob, besides a Flo Balogun hat-trick which feels inevitable, what do you think we'll see in this game? I think we'll see goals.

19:56I think it's one of those games, and you get them a lot at Real Madrid in the Champions League, where they don't play particularly well for vast stretches. They're not hugely convincing, but they have enough firepower, including former Monaco player Kylian Mbappe, to damage basically anybody. so I wonder if this is the sort of game that ends maybe 5-2 to Real Madrid We'll take a quick break and when we come back the new Chelsea face a representation of old Chelsea past it's like meeting your childhood self

20:29He's done it! The greatest night in the history of Chelsea Football Club European champions they've beaten Bayern in their own backyard They found the Holy Grail after a bench afront with danger. That, dear listener, is the sound of Didier Drogba's clinching penalty to lift Chelsea Football Club to their first ever Champions League trophy, defeating mighty Bayern Munich for the 2012 title unforgettable Chelsea moment. Real old head to remember the penalty a few takers before when a floppy-haired Brazilian named David Luiz took, I have to say, a comically long run-up and a full dead spin and essentially battered the ball as hard as he could into the top corner.

21:17If penalties could be cult classics, I think this one would be Pulp Fiction. But David Luiz is Chelsea. He was there from 2011 to 2019 with a two-year rendezvous to Paris Saint-Germain stuck there in the middle. Luiz, a mainstay on the back line during a time period that defined Chelsea's golden era and a multi-hyphen at former owner Russian oligarch, plunderer of Soviet spoils, Roman Abramovich. And yes, those Chelsea teams ushered in an era of ludicrous spending and state sponsorship club ownership, which changed the game. But they're also very, very good at football, specifically winning football.

21:54Five Premier League titles between 2005 and 2017. Five FA Cup wins, three League Cups, plus Europa League titles in 2013 and 2019. and to top it off, unforgettable 2012 and 21 Champions League trophies. And that 2021 Champions League trophy, more commonly known around the world as the Christian Pulisic Champions League final trademark. Yeah, it does feel like the bookend to an era. An era defined by legends of that club. Players who in turn define Chelsea. People like David Luiz, but also Drogba Lampard, John Terry, Peter Cech, Eden Hazard, and Golo Kante. Time that feels very distant to the churn and burn approach of today's more day-trady Chelsea.

22:38That old Chelsea will come to face the new one tomorrow with aforementioned David Luiz. His hair, yes, thinning. As comes to us all, hair is truth, but still a little floppy. And his pathos of the Cypriot First Division football team, not a character from Assassin's Creed, people. They'll go to Stamford Bridge to take on the Blues. So Roar, this return, David Luiz back in West London. Tell me about those Chelsea teams of yore. How do you remember them now? And what was their defining characteristic? I think you nailed it, Rog, to be honest. I think they won. That was what set Chelsea apart from everybody else between, I guess, 2004 and maybe, yeah, that Champions League under Thomas Tuchel in 2021.

23:22That's a 17-year spell in which what Chelsea existed to do wasn't really to stand for a style or have a kind of pathway for young talent or act as a home to the these prodigies it was just they were there to win football matches to win trophies and when they did they were okay and when they didn't they sat their manager and even when they won sometimes they still sat their manager um they were grizzled and gritty and quite pragmatic not unattractive to watch necessarily but they knew how to win games and they they built a dynasty off it to be honest if you if you think about the way Chelsea are perceived now compared to the way they would have been perceived in 2003 say they are seismically different you know Chelsea are this behemoth of a club global giant one of the kind of avatars of the premier league around the world in 2003 2004 they they weren't really that they were kind of a glamorous slightly underachieving team from West London.

24:19And what has transformed them was Abramovich's money. It was all of those players. And it was an endless parade of trophies. So let's jump into the present tense, Ru. Pull out your spreadsheets, people. Set your phases to amortisation. Because we're going to talk about the new Chelsea. No longer the plaything, a bauble, a tchotchke for a Russian oligarch. Now under the watchful eye of American investors, clearly capital. and thus far their footballing philosophy it's been a little Waystar Royco-y like a satellite launch from Waystar Royco in particular spent a lot of money and then kind of blew the whole thing up we're all familiar with the story the banishment, the subsequent shipping off of club mainstays from the previous era the signing of anything with a pulse slightly coveted under the age of 25 the squad blow, the fight for playing time the multiple locker rooms at times according to Transfer Market Club has had 56 player departures over the past two seasons alone.

25:18The mass exodus has almost become normal and has been matched only by the managerial overhaul. Graham Potter, Mauricio Pochettino, Enzo Maresca, they've all come and gone. It's now Liam Rossini's turn. Mahajic after stints at Hull City and Bluco's de facto farm team, Strasbourg. It's pretty clear the club's trending towards smaller name coaches with less pull, siphoning more pressure on the players, There's more power to the board. But despite all of that, the results, the club back in the Champions League for the first time since 2023, former manager Enzo Mureska brought home first conference league glory, and then truly impressive, the Club World Cup winning that final against PSG last summer.

26:02So, I mean, it depends where you're standing, how you feel about this. Is it working? Or are they just kind of churning their way out of consistent competitive relevance? I suppose the thing is you have to ask, and I don't know the answer to this question, Rog. It depends what the aim, what's the target. That, I think, is the question that a lot of Chelsea fans have around Bluto's project. And it's the one that you have to ask whether they are being successful in what they're doing. I don't know. They are back in the Champions League, that's good. But they are also a Premier League team, which means they've got more money than basically everybody else.

26:36They also have very, very wealthy backers, which means they've got more money than most other teams in the Premier League. They spent a huge sum of money, but I don't know whether they're any closer now at the start of 2026, so three and a half years into Bluto's ownership, to winning the Premier League or the Champions League than they were in 2022. I just, I don't know if that's the case. They've got lots and lots of talent, and I think you could see them, you could see them maybe winning the Champions League. that doesn't feel impossible if they get a decent draw if maybe some of the other teams were better equipped and then fall by the wayside early you could maybe see Chelsea being in that second group of teams but I'm not convinced that they are it doesn't feel like Chelsea are building towards an obvious peak whereas the old Chelsea teams the Chelsea teams that David Luiz was part of it felt like they were either at the peak or very very close to it basically all of the time Enter the Liam Resignia era A gentleman, we talked about him on the Men in Blazers podcast on Monday, is hyper aware at the dichotomy that the footballing world sees between the new and the old Chelsea, running full speed into it.

27:44A little bit like David Luiz into a critical penalty kick. But there is a fine line to walk between totally divorcing yourself from club history and wallowing in the glory days, like a footballing Bruce Springsteen lyric. So as Rosinha takes on his first Champions League test, past his Premier League one, kind of. He faces David Luiz and pass whilst to enter. Luiz, almost like the ghost of Christmas past, that mock-top relic of Chelsea's glory day, stemming straight in the face. What could Rosina and this Chelsea learn from the Chelsea of old war? Are there lessons that overlap the two areas? Are we so far removed from the ideas, the context, the realities of football 15 years ago, that that past has almost been sealed over as a whole in time?