Well, the Xabi Alonso era at Madrid is at an end. The Spaniard only managed the club for 34 matches, one of the shortest spells in the club’s recent history, with a shocking win percentage of just 70%, terrible for Madrid standards, and after the start of November, it went down to 53%. The Madrid club had won just 8 of 15 matches and was overall generally awful. However, the biggest problems weren’t even on the pitch; Alonso and the players clashed frequently, Vini was close to leaving, and the clique of Mbappe wasn’t even respecting his authority by the end of it. The end of the Alonso tenure was bookmarked in a shocking and honestly depressing video shot by a fan in the aftermath of the Supercopa final on Sunday. After Barcelona’s 3-2 victory over Madrid in the final, Kylian Mbappe and Rodrygo were seen waving the team off the pitch before the customary guard of honour that would see Barca players given their medals. Xabi Alonso was seen attempting to tell the players not to leave, but the majority of the team left anyway, leaving the Spaniard and the only player who still respected him, defender Raul Asencio. If you haven’t seen the thirty second long video, I recommend you do – it’s all over Twitter and is a great visual representation of how things were by then, and how it seemingly couldn’t continue. Before we get to Madrid, let’s talk about Alonso. Xabi was a great manager with an elite reputation as a manager up until his time with Madrid. After an illustrious playing career, his managerial career would start in 2019, coaching the Real Sociedad B Team. After three years, and doing quite well, his talents would be spotted by a Bayer Leverkusen side in the relegation zone midway through the 2022/23 season. By just the end of the following season, Xabi would take Leverkusen to honours never thought imaginable. Not only would he break Bayern Munich’s 11-year monopoly on the league, but he would do so unbeaten, something accomplished by just two other clubs in top five leagues this century. He would also win the DFB Pokal, completing the domestic double, and would make it to the final of the Europa League. Across all of that, the team’s only loss would be in that Europa League final against Atalanta. Reminder: 18 months ago, the club was in the relegation spots. After this, a 42-year old Alonso – practically a baby in managerial terms – would become Europe’s hottest managerial prospect. The Spaniard was wanted by Bayern after the sacking of Tuchel, Liverpool after Klopp left, and Chelsea after Poch was sacked. However, Alonso would turn down all approaches for what he saw as his dream job – the Bernabeu seat. It was rumoured that 24/25 would be Ancelotti’s final year at Madrid, perhaps before taking the Brazil job, and Xabi was willing to take the risks in order to get it. He’d spend one last year at Leverkusen, doing a good job but nowhere near his 23/24 exploits, and wouldn’t you know, Carlo did leave and in came Alonso. We all know how the rest went, and here we are. Nobody would blame Xabi if he wanted to take a sabbatical after what was likely the most hectic seven months of his life, similar to Xavi’s similar time off after two and a half years of drama and nonsense at Barca. However, the issue of his future managerial exploits will come to hand eventually, and it’s fair to say, he’s no longer the wonderkid of the manager world like he was in 2024. Despite many managerial sackings recently among big clubs, the only job that we know will be available soon will be the United job come the summer, and that may be the only job in the world worse for your reputation than the Madrid one. Chelsea, despite the recent sacking of Enzo Maresca, has now officially brought in Liam Rosenior on a six-year contract. The Bayern ship has well and truly sailed as Vincent Kompany has taken this team to arguably the world’s best, and his position may be one of the most secure in world football. The Spurs job may be open soon as Thomas Frank has been linked with a sack, but that isn’t a great looking job. Then you have bigger clubs like Liverpool and City, and while Arne Slot certainly isn’t safe, and Pep Guardiola has been rumoured to be stepping down soon for months, there’s the question of if they even want him. Despite his circumstances, being sacked after 7 months at the world’s most historic club after being expected to lead the new era doesn’t look good on the CV. Maybe the move is to take some time off, and get back to his roots, rebuilding his reputation with Real Sociedad after La Liga’s wannabe Ted Lasso, Pellegrino Matarazzo, is sacked. All I know is that the World Cup winner needs some time, just to regain his sanity. Now to Real Madrid. What now? These fans, in a rare showing of knowledge and competence, know that sacking Xabi won’t magically end their problems. There are no parties in the streets of Madrid, no celebration among fans, because they know as well as the rest of the world that their problems lie deeper. Almost immediately – eight minutes – after Alonso’s sacking was announced, Real Madrid announced the hiring of Real Madrid Castilla (B-Team) coach Alvaro Arbeloa. Arbeloa is a Real Madrid academy product, and spent four years in the academy, then a further seven in the first team, and has spent five years up to this point coaching the Madrid youth teams all the way up to finally getting the first-team manager role. Arbeloa is a head-scratching appointment. He wasn’t a Madrid star like Xabi was, being essentially the club’s 2010s version of Lucas Vazquez, and has no managerial CV to speak of. It will be even harder for the Castilla manager to earn the players’ respect, and practically impossible for Mbappe, who doesn’t even respect established managers like Tuchel, Poch, and Ancelotti. Therefore, I present my theory, my hypothesis if you will; Almost exactly 10 years ago, in January 2016, Rafa Benitez, who had taken charge of the club in the summer, was sacked with Madrid four points off the top of the league. An unproven manager came in to replace him, named Zinedine Zidane. Zizou would end up winning three Champions Leagues in a row with Madrid before leaving in the summer of 2018, and coming back for a worse spell from 2019 to 2021 that’s often overlooked just because of those three UCLs. It’s now 2026, and the exact same circumstances have occurred. I believe that this is the sole reason Madrid’s hired Arbeloa. This is all to say, however, Madrid’s trust in the La Fabrica product is limited, giving him just the ‘caretaker’ managerial role, whatever that means. It probably means Madrid is still looking at Zinedine Zidane, who’s still hesitant to take up any role due to the impending availability of the France job, or Jurgen Klopp, who still hasn’t made any indication of if he wants to return to club management. In my opinion, this is probably the right move. Arbeloa will come in for the rest of the season, likely won’t win much, but will give the youth some game time, such as Victor Valdepenas, Joan Martinez, Jesus Fortea, Thiago Pitarch and Jorge Celestero. This move could well just be Madrid waving the white flag on the season. It’ll just be interesting watching how this team play under Arbeloa, as I have no idea on his tactical style, or how good he’ll be as manager. I just don’t see how he’s the man to fix Madrid’s problems. There goes your latest update on Real Madrid, and the ever-ongoing media circus that is that club. As for the future, we’ll have to see how Arbeloa does, if he even has a sniff of winning the Champions League with so many massive, laser-focused, streamlined clubs in the way, and if they can even peg back Barca in the league, who are red-hot right now. It’s all to be decided at the Bernabeu.