Zinedine Zidane wanted able to assemble an army of players to perform in the way that he desired and new Real Madrid head coach Santiago Solari is looking to discover his new batch of soldiers, players who will pull in the same direction in the hope of silverware.
It was one of Zidane's great strengths that he had a squad of players who were committed to the cause, and the 46-year-old gave plenty of attention to those players that needed their ego stroked as others were put on alert.
Some players who had fallen out of favour before Zidane, under Rafa Benitez, became more prominent and that is occurring now with Solari in the aftermath of Julen Lopetegui's reign.
There is a regeneration process that goes on, too, and this resulted in James Rodriguez falling out of favour under the Frenchman, while Isco appears to be that player for Solari.
The aim is to refortify a squad that was performing under expectations and one way in which Zidane did this was by providing a platform for Casemiro, Lucas Vazquez and Marco Asensio to perform, as well as reinforcing the leadership in the side with Sergio Ramos and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Zidane prioritised the group, work and loyalty, yet he was still able to achieve good performances from those who had been marginalised, such as Pepe, James and Gareth Bale, and now Solari may be about to go through a similar situation with Isco.
Players like Marcos Llorente, Vinicius Junior, Alvaro Odriozola, Sergio Reguilon, Javi Sanchez and Federico Valverde have all been given a chance under Solari as he looks to find the new recruits for his army.
Having performed excellently in his start against Roma in the Champions League, Llorente is at the front of this group and Solari will no doubt look to add him to his most loyal soldiers, like Bale and Lucas Vazquez.
The match against Roma is a point of departure for the new rules that govern Los Blancos.
gaiyos
159
lopetegui use his own tactics and he got fired. .....if you want to win you need to learn from the best so let him use Zidane tactics
SilvaMAN
92
Of what you have to take care of Solari is Ramos, I think Isco is more bearable and if you get motivated will have a good partner. The Sevillian however is very dangerous because he is believed to be the owner of the club. I think Ramos has the goal of money, once he has known the resources inherent in football that he learned from Cristiano's environment, he wants to take it to the end. He wants to score goals to make himself worthy with respect to marketing, when the ideal would be to focus on defending, the veteran has not made him know how to direct the defense. Ramos has more fame now than before but every time he defends worse. The challenge for Solari is that he does not abandon his place in the defense, since Lopetegui has gone to the front every time he wants and it has been for his area that Madrid have scored most of the goals, also disconcerts his fellow defense, the one who suffers most is Varane.