Real Madrid Move to Sack Zidane Would Be Florentino Perez's Most Absurd Move Yet
It didn't take long: The first rumours have surfaced that Real Madrid are taking steps to prepare for life without Zinedine Zidane.
Italian outlet La Gazzetta dello Sport have reported (h/t AS) that Real president Florentino Perez wants to lure Juventus boss Massimiliano Allegri to the Santiago Bernabeu in the summer—if Zidane doesn't lift the Champions League for the Spanish side this season.
Not quite two months to the day after being appointed as Rafael Benitez's successor, the former France international is only nine games into his tenure, still getting to grips with being the main man and not really having had the chance to change things around in a tactical and personnel sense.
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Giving Zidane the ultimatum of having to win the Champions League at the first time of asking would rank among Perez's most absurd and unattainable demands of his time at Real Madrid—while it could happen, it's unrealistic and has little basis in the job that Bernabeu legend is actually capable of doing.
Zidane's path
Before taking over as a head coach in his own right, Zidane spent a season as assistant manager to Carlo Ancelotti at Real, making the transition at the club from being on the pitch to standing on the sidelines.
From 2014 he was involved with Castilla, as either assistant or head coach—leading to calls for his suspension as he didn't have the qualifications required at one point, before Zidane gained his UEFA Pro Licence.
While player development rather than promotion and results is the prime focus of the Real Madrid B team, there were question marks over Zidane's inability to guide the team out of the third-tier Segunda B, despite being top in January—they eventually finished sixth.
Zidane ended 2015 by drawing 1-1 at home to Talavera, before then drawing 2-2 away to La Roda on the same day as Benitez attained the same result at Valencia—his final game in charge.
Days later, Zidane was on the podium being introduced as the latest new head coach of the first team and has since faced the likes of Deportivo La Coruna, AS Roma and Atletico Madrid.
Quite the step up.
Problems deeper than coaches
If only it was as simple as changing the man in charge.
After nine managers in the past 10 years, you'd think someone at Real Madrid would realise that particular approach wasn't working too well. Particularly as it has yielded just three league titles in that period—just one in the last seven, which will inevitably become one in eight as Real are already well out of the title race this season.
Benitez was sacked after a run of one defeat in seven matches and left Real Madrid with a 68 percent win ratio to his name. Zidane currently has a 67 percent win rate.
Clearly simply changing the man at the helm hasn't had a magic-switch effect on the team—Perez hires and fires according to whim, reputation and perception rather than on any solid foundation of progress or contextual decision-making.
The president takes the same approach to team building.
Incoming players are not primarily picked for their ability to fill a tactical gap, to increase competition in key areas or to give the head coach a long-term project—instead they are shirt-sellers, the in-vogue name or a display of wealth and ability to attract players ahead of rivals. Likewise, those leaving aren't sold on for much reason beyond making room for a new "fashion-accessory" player or to raise funds for newer prospects.
Breaking up a Champions League-winning midfield, for example, wasn't exactly conducive to helping Ancelotti prolong the success he initially brought the club.
Two other points have to be mentioned too and, though they are football-wide in occurrence, at Real Madrid they are both more prominent than anywhere else.
Firstly, the fans are never happy. There seems to be an absolute expectation that every player is a 10-out-of-10 performer every time they take to the field. That every player should be able to score, create and protect the defence, if their role demands it. That every player should be the best in La Liga, the best in the world.
It's unrealistic and bears as little resemblance to reality as Cristiano Ronaldo's post-game "if team-mates were on my level" speech—it's irrelevant as there aren't 11 players on his level.
The fans don't particularly like any player unanimously, and the same goes for coaches. They didn't want Benitez. Why? He remains the last manager to win La Liga with a club other than Real, Atletico Madrid or Barcelona. He's a Champions League winner. Not good enough for the fans.
There's never an unconditional showing of support, never an agreement over the direction to take each rebuild in turn.
On the pitch
Secondly, there's the players themselves. Player power has grown swollen and abused over the years and is now as fundamental a part of the game as sponsorships or endorsements, but Real's squad have taken it to a new level. They simply refuse to perform for a coach they don't like, or take every opportunity to publicly belittle him. Benitez wasn't the first and won't be the last.
In any other industry, indeed most other sports, those players might be chastised, fined and/or banned. At Real they are pandered to and given their wishes—and Zidane hasn't been able to alter things with a squad of players with a weak and unprofessional mentality.
There are small differences in the roles that certain players have filled, and there has been more tactical consistency from Zidane—which hasn't necessarily been a good point—but the players fail to work as hard as is needed to challenge for the top prizes.
The derby defeat to Atletico Madrid rammed home that point: Atleti ran more, worked harder and had a better plan for the match, and took the deserved victory as a result.
Zidane has had two short months to work with the players, not just tactically but on their mental state.
He—or any manager—needs far longer to establish dominance over players, to shape them to his will on the pitch and in training, not to mention bringing in a few in the transfer market to his liking, something else Zidane has not yet been afforded the luxury of.
Expectation vs. reality
Real Madrid are the biggest club on the planet, but that doesn't make them the best. They want to be the best, and thus their approach in the transfer market, in commercial activities and on pre-season tours align the club name with that desire, but the reality is that they lag behind others in delivering success.
They try to sign the biggest name at times—see James Rodriguez or Gareth Bale—but it doesn't make them the best in each position. Shoehorn them all into the same XI and it doesn't make them the best team either.
Now the manager's position is the same: Zinedine Zidane is a huge name, but that doesn't make him a managerial genius.
Real Madrid's squad might win the Champions League this season, but they need at least three better teams to surprisingly fail en route to the final for that to happen. Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Atletico Madrid are all better prepared, have better depth and are more consistent.
Juventus can be added to that list—perhaps it's small wonder that Allegri is the man tipped as Zidane's replacement if he fails to succeed in a task he cannot possibly hope to complete within six months of becoming a top-flight manager.
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