Xabi Alonso spoke defiantly at his press conference ahead of Real Madrid's Champions League defeat to Manchester City in December.
And why not? Once things reach this stage at the Santiago Bernabeu, you might as well go down swinging.
Madrid's sports pages were rife with speculation that a defeat to City in the league phase would see Alonso relived of his duties. At most other clubs, this would look like an absurd state of affairs but, for better or worse, Real Madrid — from the boardroom to the playing squad, to the relentless external noise of journalists and fans — are not most clubs.
"We are all on the same boat," Alonso said. "We have to go through positive and negative times.
"We need to believe the next game is an opportunity and tomorrow we have a very exciting game for all of us, and we need to keep our eyes open to have that energy so the Bernabeu enjoys what it sees. That emotional bond is very important tomorrow."
It's was no accident that Alonso talked about the Bernabeu as sentient and judgmental. The revamped old stadium and those inside it must enjoy what they see. There must be victory and validation or there will be the waving of white handkerchiefs — the traditional act in Spanish football stadiums when supporters have seen enough of the man in the dugout.
The boos that accompanied full-time in their 2-1 loss to City painted a foreboding picture. It turned out Alonso was on an extended stay of execution, no wrong moves allowed as dutiful Real Madrid Castilla coach Alvaro Arbeloa waited in the wings. Five victories in succession after the City reverse counted for nothing when a 3-2 defeat to sworn enemies Barcelona in the Supercopa de Espana final arrived on January 12. Within 24 hours, Alonso paid with his job.
Xabi Alonso and Real Madrid's unsolvable problem
The strange thing in Alonso's case is that, at the beginning of November 2025, the Bernabeu faithful were enjoying the work of a man who represented them superbly as a player between 2009 and 2014.
Madrid won El Clasico on October 26, beating Barcelona 2-1 to go five points clear at the top of La Liga. They hammered Valencia 4-0 on home turf the following weekend. Then, by a quirk of the fixture list domestically and in Europe, Madrid took on a schedule of six successive away games. They won two, drew three and only lost against Premier League champions Liverpool.
Those results caused murmurings of discontent, alongside a drip, drip, drip of stories that some senior Madrid stars — most notably Brazil winger Vinicius Jr. — had not warmed to Alonso's methods. Then came the December 7 defeat at the Bernabeu to Celta Vigo and Marca, AS and the rest effectively running their obituaries for Alonso, a dead man walking.
STREAM: Watch Alonso's decisive match vs. Man City LIVE on Paramount+ (USA)
It's a point of particular pride for Madrid, linked to the institution's impregnable sense of self-importance and superiority. Real Madrid do not lose at home to Celta Vigo; it's not the done thing. They are not supposed to lose at home to pretenders to their European dominance, either.
The fact Alonso won 13 out of 14 to start the season was suddenly neither here nor there. But other reasons mean the man who oversaw a historic undefeated title campaign for Bayer Leverkusen in the 2023/24 Bundesliga was always on a hiding to nothing.
What makes a good Real Madrid manager?
The man who got Alonso to sign on the dotted line and swung the axe seven months later has a huge influence over all of this. Florentino Perez, in his second spell as Real Madrid president, is the most shaping figure in the club's 21st-century existence.
Perez swept to power in 2000 after pledging the audacious signing of Luis Figo from Barcelona. This launched the Galacticos era, with Figo joined by the likes of Zinedine Zidane, David Beckham and Ronaldo.
The Galacticos posted a moderate return in terms of trophies and won only one Champions League in 2001/02. However, they were spiritually completely in tune with Madrid's great side of the 1950s that won the first five European Cups. Alfredo Di Stefano, Ferenc Puskas, Paco Gento and the rest were the first example of Real Madrid being the place for world stars.
Perez's first stint at the helm re-established that link. When he returned to office in 2009, he did so with the signing of another Portuguese superstar, Cristiano Ronaldo. The subsequent decade and a half have not always been days of plenty financially in Madrid, but the names trip off the tongue, from Ronaldo, Benzema and Bale to Mbappe, Vinicius and Bellingham today.
Madrid is where the superstars live. That has implications for managers with big plans, especially in this era of the superstar coach, of ideas, philosophies, analytics and playing models.
Such things are naturally seen as hindrances to Galacticos, before we consider the problem of Barcelona's association with all of this. When he helmed a dominant, transformative four years at Barca between 2008-2012, Pep Guardiola established another point of difference in the historical enmity with Madrid. The superstars in the capital were usurped by a team in thrall to the power of the collective, albeit with the help of the greatest individual of them all in Lionel Messi.
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After Guardiola, Messi was part of an unflinchingly all-star forward line with Luis Suarez and Neymar. Often, Madrid and Barca are more alike than they'd comfortably admit. Still, at the moment of departure, Alonso is more likely to be seen as the Guardiola disciple of his Bayern Munich days. Arbeloa is the faithful Madridista cleaning up the mess. Big ideas and big players don't mix.
Madrid's most successful head coaches since Vicente del Bosque cajoled the original Galacticos to their best performances have been Carlo Ancelotti and Zinedine Zidane: both shrewd tacticians, more so in-game in Zidane's case, but crucially pragmatists, flexible soothsayers, ego massagers. Zidane, having been one of Perez's original superstars, never lost sight of his place in the food chain.
The Frenchman has never coached any other senior team, partly through a seeming lack of interest on his part, but also because of a general perception that success in the unique setting of the Bernabeu is not transferable elsewhere. It cuts the other way for ideas men like Julen Lopetegui and Alonso. One of the main reasons for Arbeloa's hasty installation as the successor is that he's viewed as a Madrid man who gets whatever "it" is, largely unblemished by outside influences.
Ancelotti and Zidane, like Perez, each had two spells in their roles at Madrid and the trophies rolled in. Alonso felt like a necessary break from this, towards something more modern and sustainable. But it was never going to take much for Perez to reach for the comfort blanket and smother him.