At the end of a disappointing season, Carlo Ancelotti leaves Real without a big title. His designated successor, Xabi Alonso, meets a sloppy star ensemble and is supposed to raise the stumbling giants again.
Carlo Ancelotti loves metaphors. In his biography, the son of a dairy farmer wrote about his love of eating that he “Sling like a horse”. When Ancelotti was asked at a press conference on his early departure as a coach of Real Madrid on a press conference on Tuesday (13.05.25), he said: “If someone had told me beforehand that I would win eleven titles in four years, I would have signed with blood.”
With these martial words, “Don Carlo” fights for his legacy. Ancelotti is one of the most successful coaches in the history of the club, but because Real will not win the Champions League, the trophy or the championship this year, nobody is interested. “Ancelotti ends his term in an unsightly way”the Madrid sports newspaper “Marca” judged after Real’s fourth defeat in the fourth Clasico this season.
Real emits unworthy picture
Particularly unsightly because arch -rival FC Barcelona is now considered the ultimate of beautiful football. The reporters from the “AS” relentlessly criticized: “Barca stands for football and heart, real was a bunch of lonely wolves.” Nobody could write what these “lonely wolves” thought about the humiliation. Club boss Florentino Pérez has been prohibiting all interviews for his players for weeks. He argues with the league for a new media contract.
That fits a season that was far too rare about football. There was the boycott of the balloon d’Or because Vinicus Jr. only finished second in the election. There was the red card for the same Vini JR because he slapped an opponent. And there was the cup final against Barcelona, before which Real tried to discredit the referee Ricardo de Burgos Bengoetxea.
The fact that Real’s German central defender Antonio Rüdiger was blocked for six games after the game for an attack on Bengoetxea. The undisciplined team made a total of nine red cards this season.
“Fantastic Vier” only on paper
This is one of the allegations of Ancelotti: Again and again you could read in the Spanish media that he lets his players too many freedoms. Perhaps the Italian thought that he only had to keep his team happy and then Kylian Mbappé, Vinicius Jr., Jew Bellingham and Rodrygo would already. The quartet was already in the press before the season “The Fantastic Four” christened.
In reality, their interaction often seemed unbalanced. Vinicius Jr. and Mbappé both feel comfortable on the left and stood in the way. Bellingham lost his goal because, unlike in the previous season, he played much deeper and had to work more against the ball. And Rodrygo is so dissatisfied with his season that he wants to leave the club in summer.
A lack of balance costs dominance
Not only Real’s attack was unbalanced this season. In midfield, calm and passport security were missing, especially in the big games against Arsenal in the Champions League and Barcelona in the other competitions. Real did not control the games, but attended an open exchange of blows and pulled the shorter one.
This was also not due to the gaping gap that Toni Kroos’s resignation in Real’s headquarters left. With Eder Militao and David Alaba, two players were missing in the injury -plagued defense, whose qualities are particularly in the game structure. 37 goals from 35 league games so far have been the worst value in seven years. They can primarily be explained by the fact that the lack of balance between the unstable team parts was not enough to dominate games.
Alonso should make miracles possible again
“This team can have no miracle”criticized “Marca” after the Champions League off to Arsenal. Ancelotti’s designated successor Xabi Alonso should make them possible again. After all, even the incredible at best is sufficient. With Trent Alexander-Arnold, Alonso gets another world-class player for this mission, which fits perfectly into the preferred 3-4-3 system on the right.
His past as a strategist in Real’s midfield and the successes with Bayer Leverkusen made him a desired coach to Florentino Pérez. And Alonso already has the blessing of Ancelotti: “He has all the tools in his hand to be a great coach in the future.” One of them could prove to be particularly important: in Leverkusen, the friendly Alonso was not afraid to punish undisciplined players.