Xabi Alonso fired by Real Madrid: all the details

Xabi Alonso is no longer Real Madrid coach. That’s it. It’s official. A story that began with a fairytale melody ends with nightmarish violins. An agony for almost everyone involved. Untenable.

“Real Madrid C.F. announces that, by mutual agreement between the club and Xabi Alonso, it has been decided to end his time as first-team coach. Xabi Alonso will always have the affection and admiration of all Madrid fans because he is a Real Madrid legend and has always represented the values of our club. Real Madrid will always be his home. Our club thanks Xabi Alonso and his entire coaching staff for their work and dedication during this time, and wishes them the best of luck in this new chapter of their lives,” the club announced in a statement.

There were 29 matches, 30 if you include the friendly in Tyrol. Just 204 days in charge. Six months. Xabi leaves with 20 wins, four draws and five defeats. A record that, on the surface, does not look alarming. But there is a catch: the team’s performance declined sharply.

Until the match against Valencia on 1 November, the assessment was almost flawless. Seventeen wins in 20 matches, top of the league with a five-point lead, and a perfect record in the Champions League. Forty-one days later, the picture was completely different. And that is the point.

That Real Madrid, the one that won 13 of its first 14 matches, with only the Metropolitano acting as a sprain in the sprint, collapsed. Since 1 November, Chamartín has been shrouded in darkness. Just three wins in the last nine matches. A collapse. A mayday.

It all started in Liverpool. That defeat, that image. Then came Vallecas, Elche, Girona, Celta and City. In between, Athens, Bilbao and, finally, last night in Vitoria. This run dealt a fatal blow to the project. A team that went from leading the pack to the brink, four points off the top of La Liga and on the verge of dropping out of the Champions League top eight. A worrying trend. But that was not all. Not by a long shot.

Xabi Alonso was not dismissed solely because of the results. It was also about the feeling. For several weeks, doubts had been growing within the club’s hierarchy. A sense that he had not found the right formula, that he had not connected with the dressing room, and that the physical preparation was falling short.

Criticism of the players is legitimate and has been voiced openly. Now, it will likely be even louder. But the deeper issue remained. The feeling was that the team simply was not performing, even when giving everything. That diagnosis was confirmed last night against City. Xabi was not working. He was not going to work. And there was no time to lose.

Patience ran out last Thursday. Xabi Alonso was hanging by a thread, like a king dodging checkmate with no pieces left. Clinging to something closer to a utopia than a miracle. One path could save him: win all three matches in 2025 and convince. Even just a little. Improve the image.

A win accompanied by a bad feeling would still have meant dismissal, because the diagnosis went beyond results. The margin he was given was meant to allow for a reaction. It never came. One setback followed another. The dilemma was resolved. End of story. Dismissed.

‘Real Madrid DNA’

Ultimately, this is the essence of Real Madrid’s DNA. The club’s demands are non-negotiable and stand above everyone else. Players, coaches, legends. It is the supreme rule of a club with an atmosphere that is extremely difficult to handle.

Whoever comes to Madrid sits on the most demanding bench in the world. Perhaps that is another word for impatience. Perhaps, at times, it leads the club down the wrong path, or at least prevents it from taking longer ones. But it is also undeniable that this is the formula that has taken Real Madrid to the summit of the sport. To a museum of museums. To an unparalleled history. Names do not matter. Only performance.

Was it really Xabi?

Xabi Alonso’s Real Madrid was not working and so Xabi Alonso left. These are the rules of football, the opposite of the navy: the captain is the first to abandon ship when it is sinking. He is not solely responsible, but it is the accepted procedure.

And yet, a question lingers. Was he truly himself until the very end? Did he gradually ease off as the months went by? Was he always playing by his own rules, as Guardiola would put it?

From June to December, more than nuances, there were divergences. The intense high press seen in the United States and in the opening weeks of the season faded over time. Less and less voracious. More and more negotiable.

Then came the controversial, yet personal, decisions. Substituting Vinicius, even playing him on the right, as in New Jersey. Using Valverde at full-back for the good of the team. Rodrygo went from being vetoed on the right to returning there. Gonzalo, the great gamble of the Club World Cup, was gradually sidelined.

It is not easy. In fact, it is extremely difficult. But the doubt remains. Was Xabi 100 per cent Xabi? The question is inevitable.

So ends the Real Madrid chapter of the man who orchestrated something historic at Bayer Leverkusen. Perhaps unrepeatable.

He arrived there in October 2022 with the team flirting with relegation. On the brink of collapse. That season, he not only saved them but also secured Europa League qualification. It was merely a preview. In 2023-24, he won the Bundesliga, the first in the club’s history, lifted the German Cup and reached the Europa League final. All of it underpinned by a phenomenal run of 54 unbeaten matches.

That résumé did not just attract Real Madrid’s attention. It overwhelmed it.

His arrival in Madrid was urgent. The signing was announced on 25 May, just one day after Ancelotti’s final match. There was no time to lose and neither side wanted to. The Club World Cup was looming, with over $150 million awaiting the winner. Contracts were signed and work began.

On 9 June, his first day, he arrived at Valdebebas at 7:30 a.m. He spoke of “the bug”, a term he had popularised in an interview. “I’m coming now because it’s an opportunity to get things moving, to get to know each other, and because of the chance to fight for another title. It’s the first Club World Cup and the ambition is sky-high,” he said at his presentation. He had doubts about taking the job in June. But he did it.

The adventure, despite the setback against PSG, a night marked by two uncharacteristic and uncontrollable individual errors, was initially fruitful. So was the first half of the new season. But then everything began to unravel.

Time passed and his ideas failed to take hold. The dressing room’s all-or-nothing response came too late. Inside the club, the feeling grew that by December the team was not in good physical condition. That the dynamic, combined with the results, was unsustainable. That the project had reached its end.

Two hundred and four days. Twenty-nine matches. Just 18 per cent of the contract completed. And that was that.