Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
I'm Gab, he's not Jules. That's right, making his debut, we have Sam Tai. Welcome aboard, Sam.
You're like a taller, bearded Jules. Wow, that's quite the compliment. That is a compliment. And I'm glad you're in because what a week we have, what a show we have. Manchester United now have a manager. How about that? Paris Saint-Germain lose a game. We had the League Cup semi-finals. We have Inter extending their lead in Serie A.
We have Munich 11 points clear at the midpoint of the Bundesliga season. There's news. But we have to start at one place, the Bernabeu. Xabi Alonso is no longer the manager. He's been, you can put whatever, he's departed the club. No, he was fired. Álvaro Arbeloa is now in charge. And in their first game, they lose the Copa del Rey to Albacete. But let's start with the big one.
Conventional wisdom is that Xabi Alonso is gone because they're second in La Liga, they're five points back, they lost the Supercopa final to Barcelona. Conventional wisdom is that Xabi Alonso is a system. This is what Jules and I have been saying all year. I want to hear your take.
He's a system coach, and this is a team that in recent years, certainly in the Galactico era, has really only had success with man-management coaches who trust the players more and kind of let them do their own thing. I'm thinking of Ancelotti, of Zidane. Rafa Benitez had a nightmare. He would say he's a system coach. For sure.
Yeah, I mean, the coaches that tend to succeed at Real Madrid these days and in recent history have empowered player personality and almost empowered player power and let the likes of Vinicius Junior and Jude Bellingham dictate what happens. Carlo was the master at putting some semblance of a structure in place and then allowing those very talented players to solve the problems on their own.
which is exactly how these players are used to being treated and exactly how they want to be treated. They want to be given that autonomy. So Alonso came in with some pretty big ideas. We know that he wants to press and counter press. He wants to work from the front and backwards.
Clearly Madrid at some level bought into this at the high, at the higher levels, because they've figured that after last year they needed to change the Their style of play was looking quite outdated. Alonso was quite an extreme version, I thought.
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Chapter 2: What led to Real Madrid parting ways with Xabi Alonso?
And over the course of the season, it feels like he's taping his ideas back a little bit as he's made concessions. Clearly didn't quite make enough concessions because he's bitten the bullet six months in.
I made the point that he kind of tried to thread the needle. Cause look, Tommy Alonso is a really bright guy. Yeah. He was part of the galactical era under Jose Mourinho. He gets it.
Chapter 3: How does Álvaro Arbeloa's appointment impact Real Madrid's strategy?
Um, I think he tried to thread the needle between the two. Um, but yeah, There were obviously certain obstacles that he couldn't overcome. Although that said, I read a piece in The Athletic where they have one of those analytics and tactics buffins. He made the point that actually he was starting to take screenshots of the screens.
Chapter 4: What are the implications of Real Madrid's recent Copa del Rey loss?
He shows average positions and he says he was implementing some things. And actually Real Madrid's XG difference this season is the best in La Liga. It's substantially better than Barcelona's.
Sure. I mean, so I think Alonso tried to install certain things, but it's a big task here, right? You pick it up in the summer, which reportedly he didn't want to do. Didn't want to do the Club World Cup, wanted the fresh slate into pre-season. Don't know how that really works because the Club World Cup took quite a while.
Chapter 5: How do player dynamics affect coaching decisions at Real Madrid?
They got quite far. So how much of a pre-season would he have got anyway? So I don't really understand that logic. But what I think he managed to do was install the counter press at least, right? So as soon as you lose the ball, press for six seconds and try and get it back. I thought there were certain players that did that really well. Mastantuono was really good.
Shuumeni was huge in the centre of the midfield, mopping up all those balls. And I watched them score several goals because Shuumeni had intercepted. And then three seconds later, the ball was in the net. The problem is it never got much further than that because installing a proper press with proper triggers is really hard. It takes time. It takes a full preseason at least.
And doing it with Vinicius Jr.
and co. Yeah, I knew the V word was going to come out at some point.
But he's a huge character in this. He is a central part of this whole story.
Regular listeners know how I feel about him, know how Jules feels about it. How is he a big part of this story?
Well, it feels like all of the cracks of the Alonso era started to form when Vinicius Junior decided to remonstrate with Alonso quite publicly during a Clásico win, which is supposed to be one of the highlights of Madrid's seasons for obvious reasons. And despite the fact that they were 2-1 up and the job seemed done and they just needed, what, like 15 minutes to see out?
Why not freshen things up? Why not bring on fresh legs? to close the ball down and to try and see out the game. I think that's fair logic. And Vinicius decided that that wasn't acceptable. And the public remonstrating and challenging of Alonso there on the sideline was then not punished by the club. It was effectively backed by the club. And that put Alonso's position into serious danger.
And you mentioned it earlier, right? Like he was the one who was supposed to be able to bridge the two worlds because he was a world-class player and a Madrid player. Champions League winning player and an up-and-coming top tactician. If he can't do it, who can? Who can do this? And Vinicius, I think, sowed the seeds here. This was the starting point, and it's only really got worse.
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Chapter 6: What changes are proposed for the offside rule by Arsene Wenger?
That in this game, maybe he was trying to send a message. And obviously they had a bunch of people who were out and tired and whatever. But like I said, Sestero, Jimenez start. He brings in a couple other kids. Palacios, presumably these are guys he worked with at Real Madrid B, presumably. When he was a child, he remembered La Quinta del Buitre and Michel and Butragueño all being promoted.
And Martin Vasquez promoted into the first team. And Manolo Sanchez, of course. And turning everything around. I don't know, but... It sounds like you're sort of playing with fire when you instantly do that. And he got burned. I'm assuming we probably won't see this again because it's just Champions League and La Liga. They do not want to suffer the indignity of finishing third.
Villarreal, if they win their game in hand, will be a point back. What do you expect his lineup to be? Is it going to be kind of... The same as before, but just with slightly more loosey-goosey tactics?
I mean, I can imagine the conversation was, Alvaro, do you remember how we used to do it under Carlo? Yes. Can you do a bit more of that, please? Yes. You're hired. I really feel like they're just going to peel it back and try to effectively just combust on what they've tried to achieve this season and just go back to what they were.
And they might win the Champions League and Barcelona might.
It might be great, but obviously the first look we've had was terrible because this was a terrible game of football from Real Madrid's perspective. It was chaotic. It was nasty. It was a joke, really, towards the end. The last eight minutes, so frenetic. And I appreciate that coming off the back of the news and the Supercopper loss, like it's hard. The stadium was right up for it.
They could sense something big happening. Fine. All that said, the nature of the goals they conceded, bad. The last one was horrendous.
Andrea Lunin, yeah.
And it's terrible from Lunin on two parts because Hefte, the man who scores the goal, he takes one of the worst touches you will see in the next month or so in football, punts the ball 40 yards up the pitch by accident. Lunin should come and sweep that up. That's the first thing that should happen. That chance should never happen. Somehow...
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Chapter 7: How do recent managerial changes reflect on club strategies?
Okay, all right.
What do you think?
I maybe played amateur proctologist. I don't know. But what I find hilarious, and by the way, there is a case of this before, I think it was in the Copa America, involving a Chilean player. I don't want to name him because I'm not 100%. I'm 99% sure I know who it was. This rings a bell for sure.
I find it hilarious that they're so stuffy and like, oh, no, we have to say highly invasive and violating rather than saying what actually happened. The funny thing is this guy said it was accidental. I'm like, how do you accidentally twice invade somebody's private parts? That's really difficult to do.
It is, especially given presumably this was like at a corner or something and you get quite close to people with a lot of pushing and shoving and maybe some other things that are happening too. I mean, this guy's 33 years of age and I assume that he has played more than one football game at this point. Exactly. So I think he knew what he was doing. I would not say it was potentially accidental.
And before you speculate and wonder, as I have, maybe these guys were actually into it. They were not into it because they went, both of them complained to the referee. One of them said he was so upset he couldn't talk. which makes you wonder how he actually said it. But anyway, I'm done reading FA disciplinary reports.
Yeah, fair enough. Well, look, you may or may not have noticed, but Microsoft have signed a back of shirt sponsorship deal with Manchester United for all of their cup games. Unfortunately for them, that is not looking like great value for money, is it?
No, it's to do with Microsoft's AI product, Copilot. And of course, they ended up only getting two games out of it because they lost in the League Cup and then they lost in the FA Cup. Incidentally, Copilot, in the news again, recently in your neck of the woods as a Villa fan, remember the whole story about Maccabi Tel Aviv was supposed to play Villa.
The police recommended that they should be banned. There was something to do about it. They used some false information there. Apparently they did because they relied on Copilot to find the history. This is reportedly, by the way, to find the history of Tel Aviv fans away.
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