Xabi Alonso’s Departure from Real Madrid<\/p>\n
By Fernando Kallas<\/p>\n
Reasons for Dismissal<\/p>\n
MADRID, Jan 12 (Reuters) – Coach Xabi Alonso has left Real Madrid by mutual agreement a day after their 3-2 defeat by bitter rivals Barcelona in the Spanish Super Cup, the LaLiga club said on Monday.<\/p>\n
Impact on the Team<\/p>\n
“Xabi Alonso will always have the love and admiration of all Real Madrid fans because he is a Real Madrid legend and has represented the values of our club at all times. Real Madrid will always be his home,” the club said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Future of Alvaro Arbeloa<\/p>\n
They added that second-team manager and former defender Alvaro Arbeloa will take over the first team job.<\/p>\n
Real Madrid parted ways with Alonso a little more than seven months after appointing him, following a poor run of results in all competitions.<\/p>\n
Former Real midfielder Alonso, who was handed a three-year contract in May after an impressive stint with Bayer Leverkusen, saw his tenure at the Santiago Bernabeu quickly unravel.<\/p>\n
The former Spain international had guided Leverkusen to a historic unbeaten campaign to win the Bundesliga title in the 2023-24 season, along with a German Cup triumph and a Europa League final appearance, prompting Real to bring him back to the club as manager.<\/p>\n
However, Alonso’s return failed to replicate the success of a fellow former Real Madrid midfielder, Zinedine Zidane, who famously led the club to three consecutive Champions League titles.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His tenure was marred by internal discord, with reports of clashes with senior players, including co-captain Federico Valverde and winger Vinicius Jr.<\/p>\n
Real’s poor performances under Alonso included humbling losses to Paris St Germain in the Club World Cup, to Atletico Madrid in LaLiga, and Liverpool and Manchester City in the Champions League.<\/p>\n
Arbeloa will take over the job immediately and will be on the sidelines on Wednesday as Real visit second-division side Albacete in a Copa del Rey round of 16 tie.<\/p>\n
After leading LaLiga earlier in the season with a comfortable five-point advantage over old rivals Barcelona, Alonso’s Real collapsed and are now second, four points behind last year’s champions Barca.<\/p>\n
Alonso’s appointment was initially seen as a long-term project, but his dismissal signals the club’s impatience with Real falling short of their high standards.<\/p>\n
The 44-year-old, who made 236 appearances for Los Blancos as a player between 2009 and 2014, won a LaLiga title, two Copa del Rey trophies, and the club’s long-awaited 10th European crown during his years in midfield.<\/p>\n
Alonso also began his coaching career at Real’s academy, managing the Under-14 side to league and tournament success in the 2018-19 season, before progressing to Real Sociedad’s reserve team and then Bayer Leverkusen.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Chiranjit Ojha in BengaluruEditing by Tomasz Janowski and Christian Radnedge)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Xabi Alonso’s Departure from Real Madrid By Fernando Kallas Reasons for Dismissal MADRID, Jan 12 (Reuters) – Coach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[170788,170784,49,48,170786,170787,170785,170789,168436,561,169832,82,74857],"class_list":["post-405165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-alonso-coaching-career","tag-alvaro-arbeloa-takeover","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-coaching-changes","tag-football-management","tag-laliga-performance","tag-real-madrid-legend","tag-real-madrid-news","tag-soccer","tag-spanish-super-cup","tag-sports","tag-team-performance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}