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“This is a team, it is a club, and we all go together hand in hand,” Xabi Alonso declared, possibly protesting a tad forcefully. “Being the manager of Real Madrid means you are always prepared,” he remarked on the morning before the English champions step back into the Santiago Bernabéu for a new instalment of a very modern classic. “I anticipate the challenge ahead, starting tomorrow—an opening to redirect the disappointment. Our minds are fixed solely on City. Football, for better or worse, is a game of swift changes.” A defeat and things could change immediately, and definitively: this moment is an duty, too.

Emergency Discussions After Desperate Home Defeat

Following Madrid’s desperately poor 2-0 home defeat on Sunday, Alonso revealed he had “reached some conclusions,” and he was in plentiful company. Late into the night, crisis talks continued, the club’s board drawing their own conclusions after a solitary triumph in five league games. Their assessments were different and while drastic decisions are being postponed, forbearance is running out, the names of potential replacements already circulating. “You have to face those situations but my head’s only on the game, things I can control,” Alonso said here

“For sure the coach had a good plan but, in the end we, the players, are the ones on the pitch,” Aurélien Tchouaméni said. “A 2-0 defeat to Celta indicates an issue that lies with us, not the manager.”

A Quick Descent After Initial Promise

City will be his 28th game in charge of Madrid and it could be his last at a club where a crisis is never more than a couple of defeats away, where even draws will not do, and there’s perpetually an alternative who can coach. Things have indeed shifted swiftly, even if the origins of the trouble were there from the start. Hailed as a systems coach, the ideal solution after a season of permissiveness and underachievement, Alonso was a cultural shock at a players’ club.

When Madrid secured victory against Barcelona in late October, they established a five-point lead at the top. They had triumphed in twelve out of thirteen competitive games, although the defeat was emphatic: 5-2 at Atlético. It also highlighted flaws. Substituted on 72 minutes, Vinícius Júnior stormed off down the tunnel, threatening to walk straight out the club. In a statement a few days later he apologised to everyone except Alonso. Institutionally, rather than supporting the trainer, there was silence.

Frictions Emerging

Internally, the verdict was clear: Alonso shouldn’t have taken Vinícius off. Asked here if he would make the same call, Alonso replied: “I am unsure of the purpose of that query. If, in the moment, I believe a decision is required on the field, I will make it.” Frictions had been exposed, a disconnect between trainer and a portion of the team. Federico Valverde too had voiced his discontent openly. The pieces weren’t fitting as they should. A common complaint began to surface about all the orders, the video analysis, the extended practices. Who did he think he was, the manager?!

More than a week after the clásico, Madrid were overcome at Liverpool, beginning a run of two wins in seven. When adopting a straightforward approach, they overcame Olympiakos and Athletic Bilbao but between those drew at Rayo, Elche and Girona. Belatedly, talks were held to repair cracks or at least cover cracks, to establish peace. Focus turned on the footballers for the first time.

A Fragile Rapprochement

In Bilbao, where they had been brought together a day early, it seemed some middle ground had been reached; Alonso accommodating their demands more than they did his. Rapprochement was staged when Vinícius hugged the manager as he departed. A couple of days' rest followed. A few days after, though, Celta beat them and so it disintegrates anew.

That it is public knowledge that Alonso’s future is on the line is as significant as the fact it is. If Madrid beat City, that can always be rebutted, but it is deliberate. Alonso knows that. He also knows, for all that he tried to talk about fitness issues and injustice, not even truly persuading himself, Madrid were terrible against Celta: an absence of character, a deficient mentality, an absence of tactical shape.

The Gaffer: The Simplest Fix

But the simplest fix, is always the manager, and Alonso’s future, more than the sporting matters, was the central theme to this game. However much the man who is still Madrid’s manager kept trying to bring it back to the match, which he did with virtually all his replies. The shortest answer he gave might have been the most revealing, had he truly believed it. Asked if he felt the whole squad was behind him, Alonso replied in a solitary term: “yes.”

“Managing Real Madrid doesn't involve transforming the culture; it requires fitting in,” Alonso stated. “We know the culture of Real Madrid pretty well; that is why it is the biggest club in the world. You have to adapt, learn a lot, interact with the players. Some days are good, some not so good. We have to face that with energy and positivity, that is the only way to turn things around.”

It was when he was asked if he felt by himself that Alonso talked of a team, a club, that goes together, and when attention was turned to the question of support or the lack of it from above, he answered: “Communication [with the hierarchy] is constant, and it comes from confidence, unity and affection. We’re all together in this. We’re mentally ready to face everything that comes: the team is united, convinced that we can win tomorrow, no one has any doubts about that. It is the Champions League. We are at the Bernabéu. The atmosphere will be special. That creates a different energy, including in the players.”