The curious case of Real Madrid and Julen Lopetegui

Julen Lopetegui has been sacked by Real Madrid. It was not much of a surprise, eh?

I am gonna compare this to mixing oil and water.

Julen Lopetegui had a system which was based on possession football, if it was possession football which was based on having no specific intention then that was not going to work, because when football players pass the ball around, even their natural instinct is to pass it with a specific intention, now this intention may not necessarily be to score. But the intention needs to be to have a specific plan which causes a reaction that affects the opposition. There were Real Madrid fans who were saying that hiring Lopetegui would be a great thing for Isco and Marco Asensio because they fit the Spain National Team so well. But then here is the major difference, Real Madrid’s strength is playing fast paced, counter attacking football. This was the style which worked when Jose Mourinho was managing the team from 2010–2013. And then this team gradually transformed itself into a team which overpowered every other team by not having a clearly defined system. Carlo Ancelotti did what he did, continued the good work because he is a continuity specialist before the wheels come off. He was unfairly sacked by Real Madrid.

Then they hired Rafa Benitez, who on paper seemed like a half decent choice but then the more conservative nature of his style of play made the Real Madrid fans turn on him despite him not doing so badly.

Rafa Benitez gets sacked, Zinedine Zidane gets hired. Now the thing about Zinedine Zidane is that he had a halo effect in a positive way on the rest of the squad. Players just instantly respected him, he was a Real Madrid, Juventus and a France legend and he won things at the elite level of football. So obviously, those players wanted to see what he was all about, got on with their job and stepped up to another level in the process.

They won one Champions League after another, they seemed pretty invincible in knockout games. It is like a gambler cashing in a load of money making all the right moves and judgements and winning the jackpot. Now here is the problem, there were flies in the ointment. Real Madrid’s league form was quite indifferent in the 2017–18 season. They sold and loaned out good players who could make an impact off the bench, the most notable ones being James Rodriguez, Pepe, Danilo and Alvaro Morata that season and the lack of squad depth cost them.

In the end they won the Champions League the previous season against Liverpool but that only papered over the cracks. The reality is that these players relied on their individual ability rather than establishing an identity.

Zinedine Zidane then did what appeared to be the unthinkable. He resigned as Real Madrid manager. It is usually the Real Madrid president Florentino Perez that sacks managers, sometimes even after winning the Champions League. But this was an outlier, where Zidane managed to stay on for two and a half seasons and left on his own accord.

On the face of it, this may have looked like the most absurd decision to leave Real Madrid when things were going well for him. But he saw something different.

The squad was an aging squad and the team needed a new identity and philosophy not just to make sure their opponents don’t figure out their style of play but because this strategy of relying on individual brilliance over a proper system was unsustainable, where the incredible form was the exception and not the norm.

In came Julen Lopetegui after Zinedine Zidane’s shock departure. A lot of managers were considered to succeed Zinedine Zidane. Managers like Mauricio Pochettino, Arsene Wenger and Antonio Conte were some of them. Succeeding Zinedine Zidane was always going to be a very tough task. The issue with Lopetegui being hired was not the fact that he was hired. It was the way in which it happened.

This was done a few days before the Spain National Team’s first 2018 World Cup match. The timing at the very least seemed to be very odd to hire Lopetegui and he did not help himself either. A more appropriate response towards being offered the Real Madrid job would have been to stall negotiations until the World Cup was done.

Real Madrid is a club which has “an offer you cannot refuse” kind of allure to it for even the most settled managers at clubs or national teams.

Julen Lopetegui had a monumental task, even that is an understatement.

First he had to cope up with the departure of Cristiano Ronaldo who for the past nine seasons scored at least 45–50 goals every season. Secondly, the board bought Thibaut Courtois to supposedly upgrade the goalkeeper position (What a way to ruin the confidence of Keylor Navas, who helped Real Madrid win three Champions League titles in a row) and thirdly, leaving Lopetegui to work with an inadequate and inexperienced attack.

Mariano and Vinicius Junior are players who need to be slowly eased in at Real Madrid rather than thrown into the deep end and Real Madrid needed two or three new attacking players to compensate for Ronaldo’s goals at least, because his mentality is irreplaceable. Karim Benzema is not good enough to start games for Real Madrid anymore and Gareth Bale is too injury prone even though he is a game changer. So this looked like a recipe for disaster from the start. So Real Madrid started quite well which was a bit surprising and the defense held its own. The system appeared to be working and things were looking rosy and it looked like there was a seamless transition. But then even though it appeared that way, the one constant this season was that there was a lack of attacking threat even though things were going well in the beginning of the season. Things slowly started to unravel, then the Levante loss happened which pushed Lopetegui towards the exit door and after that the infamous El Clasico where they lost to Barcelona 5–1. In that one off game, it gave the impression that Barcelona were more ready to cope up with Messi’s absence than Real Madrid were coping with Ronaldo’s departure. The writing was on the wall and Julen Lopetegui was sacked.

In the end, it was the case of the wrong manager at the wrong time at the wrong place. All is not lost for Real Madrid though, they can still recover if they get the right manager and give him the time provided that he gets the necessary results after the expectations have now been lowered to a great extent. The craziest thing that can happen is Real Madrid somehow winning the Champions League yet again even after this complete shit show that has happened in the past four months.

Real Madrid’s case could be one of short term gain for long term pain, but only time will tell.

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