Xabi Alonso will not be starting his time at Real Madrid with the Club World Cup title, as PSG were far too strong in the semi-finals. Even if things could have turned out a little differently.
Real Madrid proved more than once last season that it had lost some of its healthy grounding and touch with reality. But even the Royals probably didn’t think that after Xabi Alonso’s first visible moves, they would be back to reaching for the stars.
Their new coach certainly didn’t, aptly summarizing the current situation in comparison with the reigning Champions League winners after the 0-4 defeat: “Paris has grown over time. We are only at the beginning tactically.”
Real largely beat themselves in the first nine minutes
The second aspect was particularly significant on Wednesday. Although two major blunders in the first nine minutes, such as those by Raul Asencio and Antonio Rüdiger, could have thrown any team off balance, Madrid would probably have had a tough time even without them. Even before Asencio’s next mistake – after conceding a penalty in the first group game and receiving a red card in the second – the overwhelmingly dominant PSG had created a clear-cut chance.
From Real’s point of view, the absence of Trent Alexander-Arnold was particularly unfortunate, while Dani Carvajal was not yet fit enough to start. Xabi Alonso was forced to break up his central midfield and move Fede Valverde to the right, which meant that the Basque coach also abandoned his newly rehearsed formation. His 3-5-2 became a 4-3-3 that was certainly too loose.
In itself, that should not be an excuse in a competitive clash between two European heavyweights, but the situation at Madrid is currently different. The Royals are in the early stages of a change in their style of play, and Xabi Alonso’s ideas are still relatively fragile. The structures in pressing and in the rest of the defense, for example, were almost completely lost against PSG due to the loss of the basic order.
Given the difference in class, it was ultimately a shame, even from a neutral perspective, that Real were unable to field the same personnel and formation as in their previous three games, when the faltering giants made a really good impression for long periods against RB Salzburg, Juventus Turin, and Borussia Dortmund. This was just as he was beginning to successfully eradicate the helplessness he had shown in his tackling and defending, especially in the back line.
Even if advancing against what is currently probably the best club team in the world would have been very unrealistic, and even if all the mitigating circumstances cannot distract from the looming question mark that Xabi Alonso must find an answer to in a timely manner – one that may not be so pleasant.
The problem with Vinicius Junior and Mbappé
Do Vinicius Junior and Kylian Mbappé really work together? In direct interaction, but also more generally in a more contemporary system in which aggressive ball work is required and the collective should take precedence over the individual player?
With a healthy dose of realism, that’s pretty hard to imagine at the moment, which is a pretty tricky situation for Carlo Ancelotti’s successor. However, Xabi Alonso was directly confronted with proof that positive football brainwashing is at least possible in East Rutherford.
