Real Madrid -Question Xabi Alonso must solve in front of the club’s World Cup

Florentino Perez can already see a new place in history. Of course, the Real Madrid president has seen all archive recordings of predecessor Santiago Bernabeu, who won the first European Cup, in 1956, and now wants to emulate him by winning the first club world championship. Perez has made magnificent proclamations about what suits Madrid’s greatness as they prepare for the United States.

To do so, however, he also had to meet the present and the future. He realized that Madrid had to change, and not just with regard to the manager’s identity. So did the team’s football identity.

Perez has long been firm at Carlo Ancelotti’s successor had to be Xabi Alonso, mostly on the guidance of his more sophisticated football hierarchy, such as Chief Scout June Calafat. Perez then became even more firm by the fact that Alonso had to take over before the club World Cup. If Ancelotti had run his course, Madrid had to make sure they were up and running in this unique moment in history. Alonso was willing to accept on a condition: Madrid had to secure certain signings this summer.

They have not all arrived yet, adding the challenge of having only three training sessions with his full team before the club World Cup starts.

Through all this, competition has gained one of its more compelling history lines.

It is whether Alonso can introduce a modern tactical ideology on a club that has traditionally been resistant to such thinking. Madrid has been anti-Barcelona in that sense. They have never been a manager club, so much less an ideology club. As a rival CEO said, “You almost get the feeling that they prefer not to have a coach.” Stars have always run everything on Madrid, and Ancelotti’s relief of them was the main reason why he became the longest server coach, after Bernabeu’s own appointment, Miguel Munoz.

It is perhaps instructive that Munoz, who himself lasted for 14 years and won two European cups, was also one of the club’s big players. He actually scored Madrid’s first goal ever in the European Cup, in 1955, and was properly part of the first masters.

Zinedine Zidane was another along these lines. Despite winning three Champions Leagues as manager, he was often dismissed as a “clap your hands coach”. In other words, he just activated inherent talent. Toni Kroos and Luka Modric were the ones who imposed an ideology. It is at least striking that their partnership completely coincided with Madrid’s Modern Champions League era, even though it was started with Alonso even in the Kroos role for 2014.

The 43-year-old is therefore not only a rare ideology manager that Madrid has appointed. He is a rare ideology manager with the playing stature to back up it.

This is both what is needed in this club to transform their football method and what this club always needs to succeed.

The 2024-25 season seemed to show that even Ancelotti’s classic approach was less effective, especially now that individualism is not entirely the characteristic advantage it used to be.

Some freedom returns to a minor dogmatic game. Alonso even typifies a new tendency to apply PEP Guardiola principles, but with greater pragmatism and adaptability.

He now has to customize a system to Madrid’s current stars, but at the time when it looks like a particular selfishness has returned to the dressing room and the team is poorly appropriate. The most obvious problem is that the two best attackers, Vinicius Junior and Kylian Mbappe, are also on their best in the same left-forward position.

Alonsos plan is not so much to bypass this problem. Training and analysis session so far indicates that the Basque wants to play a 4-4-2 who can switch to a 3-4-1-2.

Mbappe and Vinicius are intended to be the two. Therefore, Rodrygo will be available for transfer as there will no longer be a place for such a wide player. Alonso intends that the width should be delivered by full-backs, which is here the signing of Trent Alexander-Arnold makes even more sense.

If it potentially leaves the two at the back of the exposed, the idea would be for the central midfielder to come in. It is again why Madrid has become so frustrated by Arsenal moving on to Martin Zubimendi.

It is worse that he is considered the future of the Spanish national team. Madrid will probably have to work elsewhere.

While all this at least begins to make sense on paper, there is obviously so much more about Alonso’s approach than the arrangement of the players. What does this work is the rhythms, the exchange and the understanding that take time to introduce.

Ismael Garcia Gomez is a Spanish coach who is currently serving as Galatasaray’s assistant manager and is respected as one of the brightest analysts. He thinks it would have been difficult for Madrid to find someone better, especially in terms of what they are doing.

“I expect more tactical discipline and much more control over games,” he says. “Of course, the challenge is not only to win, but to impose a style that Madrid has never historically had. It’s more like Antonio Conte or Barcelona or Manchester City. Alonso wants a style that everyone knows to say” This is Real Madrid. “

The big question now is how quickly he can impose this on, and to what extent we actually see it at the club World Cup.

Maybe the necessary educational process – especially in a club that has not had this – even inhibits the chances of fulfilling Perez’s ambition?

It is the risk that the president has taken, which now requires even more calm from Alonso.

This is a unique moment in time. The manager must illustrate that he can have a unique effect.

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