Part 1 : Why the Xabi Alonso Era Ended Before it Truly Began

When the final whistle blew in Jeddah, the mood around Real Madrid wasn’t exactly ominous. The 3–2 Supercopa defeat to Barcelona was painful, yes, but it was not humiliating. Madrid had competed. They had moments of quality, and enough resistance to suggest that the project was bending, not breaking, at least with the available resources. In the immediate aftermath, the dominant reports were clear: Xabi Alonso would stay. The performance, while flawed, had shown fight.

That is what made the announcement the following day so jarring.

The club communiqué spoke of “mutual consent,” but even that phrasing did not capture the reality. Emilio Butragueño later confirmed that Alonso had resigned. The players, according to multiple reports, were not informed beforehand. The decision landed suddenly, not as the culmination of an obvious collapse, but as an abrupt full stop.

As a Madrid fan, that was the most unsettling part. Not that Alonso left, but how quickly certainty evaporated. One night, Madrid were competitive in defeat. The next morning, the project no longer existed.

That contrast matters, because Alonso’s departure was not necessarily triggered by what happened in Jeddah. It merely ended there. What followed that final was not an emotional reaction to a result, but the quiet conclusion of an experiment that had been struggling to coexist with its environment.
Much of Alonso’s Madrid tenure revolved around a simple but unresolved question: how does this team move the ball under pressure?

This is where Toni Kroos inevitably enters the conversation, but not as a symbol or soul of an era. Kroos was not Madrid’s identity; he was their reference point. He offered clarity in moments of uncertainty. When pressed aggressively, Madrid knew where to go, and how long to stay there.

After his departure, that reference disappeared. Not catastrophically, but subtly. Madrid could still progress the ball, but the process became noisier. More touches. More risk. More emotional decisions.
Alonso’s system, developed at Leverkusen, depended on controlled circulation from deep areas, not for possession’s sake, but to stabilize the team’s shape.

At Madrid, he tried to recreate that stability through structure rather than personnel. The build-up shapes were clear, rehearsed, and logical. The problem was not understanding, but execution under stress.

Without a natural controller, Madrid’s first phase oscillated between caution and urgency. Some matches looked fluid. Others unraveled quickly. High presses exposed hesitation. Vertical transitions became escape routes rather than weapons.

The club attempted to intervene through recruitment. Trent Alexander-Arnold and Dean Huijsen were meant to improve progression from deep, to solve the problem from the back rather than the middle. The idea made sense. The reality did not cooperate.

Injuries shattered continuity. Just as relationships began to form, they were broken. Alonso never had a settled defensive platform long enough to build habits. Matches were played with temporary solutions, and temporary solutions rarely produce long-term control.

Watching week after week, it became clear that Madrid were functioning without a reliable first gear. They could sprint, but they could not cruise. For a coach obsessed with structure, that absence was crippling.

If the build-up issues destabilized Madrid, the defensive situation drained them.

This was not a one-season problem, but Alonso inherited it at its most exposed point. Real Madrid have long resisted heavy investment in specialist centre-backs, preferring versatility and internal solutions. That strategy can work in stable environments. Under pressure, it collapses.

Injuries forced constant improvisation. Emergency partnerships became routine. Castilla players were asked to step into elite-level fixtures. Raul Asencio’s emergence was admirable, but it was also a reflection of institutional reluctance. Madrid were patching rather than reinforcing.

Publicly, the club expressed confidence in Alonso. Privately, the tone was different. Media leaks appeared whenever results dipped. Tactical decisions were questioned anonymously. Responsibility flowed downward.

The January transfer window crystallized the issue. No defensive reinforcements arrived. No acknowledgement that the squad was incomplete. The expectation remained unchanged: compete everywhere, fix everything.

As a supporter, it felt like watching a coach slowly isolated. He stood in front of microphones explaining absences and adjustments, while the structure that limited him remained untouched.

We know the tactical issues were visible and the structural ones were measurable. The cultural fracture, however, announced itself quietly, and then never really healed.

Xabi Alonso arrived at Real Madrid with clear standards and an unambiguous idea of professionalism. Training sessions were more intense, more detailed, and less negotiable than they had been under Carlo Ancelotti. Tactical meetings went deeper. Pressing triggers were drilled with precision. For many squads, this would have been a natural evolution. At Madrid, it was a disruption of habit.

Authority at Real Madrid has never been purely procedural. It is emotional, symbolic, and deeply hierarchical. Coaches do not simply instruct; they validate. Corrections are made privately, while protection is offered publicly. Alonso understood this intellectually, but he moved too quickly to institute this change.

The first La Liga Clásico of the season at the Bernabéu exposed that miscalculation. When Alonso substituted Vinícius Jr., the decision made sense in football terms. Vinícius was absolutely flying that night but the team needed greater control and defensive solidity(which frankly Vinicius was no longer offering at that point), and Alonso was responding to the flow of the game. Any coach, in theory, has that right.

But Madrid is not theory.