"Saying it is one thing, doing it another, doing it successfully something else entirely, and a month and day after being offered that advice, handed that defence, Alonso was gone. On Monday afternoon, not long after landing from Saudi Arabia, a meeting was held at Valdebebas and then came the statement, short and unsentimental. He was a legend as a player, but no longer coach at Real Madrid."
"Even then, neither position was held quite as enthusiastically as it should have been; even the courtship had been unusually cold. The challenge now is to build a team, to get the potential out of all those players and ensure that we all work together as one, Alonso said. Because if we do we will have a strength that is I'm not going to say unstoppable, but very powerful."
Pep Guardiola told Xabi Alonso to do it his way, but that approach rarely endures at Real Madrid. Alonso was dismissed a month after receiving that advice and being given responsibility for a fragile defence. A meeting at Valdebebas followed his return from Saudi Arabia, and a short statement confirmed his exit. His tenure lasted seven months, beginning earlier than planned with the Club World Cup and ending after the Spanish Super Cup in Jeddah. The appointment featured a cool courtship, expectations to build cohesion and unlock player potential, and tensions between a systems coach at a players’ club and a president-led structure.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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