Xabi Alonso commissioned Real Madrid after a Titelle season. The team is still looking for Konstanz – and there are hard personnel decisions.
With a little delay, the royal ones start the La League season. For example, while Archrival FC Barcelona has to compete on Saturday (16.08.2025) at RCD Mallorca, real only gets up three days later: the game on Tuesday against Osasuna (9 p.m., live ticker at Sportschau.de) is the end of the first match day in Spain.
Twice vice and demonstrated by Arsenal
The short extra time will use Xabi Alonso to study the shape of his opponents, but also to continue to fine -tune his own team. Real has a lot to work up – and it is precisely these expectations that immediately increase the pressure on Bayer Leverkusen’s master coach from the 2023/24 season.
In the past season, Real was four points behind Barca Vizemeister, in his own perception the first of the losing table. To this end, the Carlo Ancelotti team also wasted the final around the Copa del Rey against Barca with 2: 3 after extra time. In the Champions League this was already sealed in the quarter -finals, the Arsenal FC had shown Madrid twice in phases.
The rebuild is therefore overdue. In terms of personnel, however, it is not as serious as it was often the case after a title season at the proud capital club. Xabi Alonso received new staff for defense. For the headquarters, the Spanish-Dutch super talent Dean Hujsen came from FC Bournemouth for 62.5 million euros, and both defensive outer lanes are re-equipped.
Trent Alexander-Arnold came from Liverpool for 10 million euros, from Benfica Álvaro Carreras was brought back for 50 million euros-he comes from the youth of Real Madrid. The only well -known reinforcement for the Attack department is right wing Franco Mastantuono by River Plate, for which 45 million euros were invested.
Modric went to AC Milan
Association icon Luka Modric (to AC Milan) went, but the 39-year-old hadn’t played a big role in sports last year. Otherwise, all A-celebrities have remained, the entire income of the Madrilenen has so far amounted to 2 (in words: two) million euros for spare strikers Alvaro Rodriguez, who went to FC Elche. With a transfer balance of minus 165 million euros, Xabi Alonso is now going into the new season, in which he advertised for time and patience, “until my team plays Xabi-Alonso football”.
Time is the Primera division relative, patience a foreign word. Of course, Xabi Alonso has a great real past and therefore you will hardly be seriously questioning it again if the start of the new season should be slow. In several test games and previously at the Club World Championship in the USA, a trend was already clearly recognizable: Real is increasingly showing passages and approaches that are reminiscent of ball gains, which he had installed at Bayer, especially in the Leverkusen year of Leverkusen.
What was missing was the consistency. At the club World Cup, Borussia Dortmund almost made capital out of it in the final phase before Madrid got away with a narrow 3-2 victory. In the semifinals there was a sobering 0: 4 against Paris St. Germain for Xabi Alonso.
Loose 4: 0 in Innsbruck – but what will become of the oldies?
Now with the dress rehearsal for the league start at WSG Tirol in Innsbruck there was a loose 4: 0 (2-0) on Tuesday, in which Carreras was first used. The German international Antonio Rüdiger initially sat on the bench, he came into play after an hour. Eder Militao (10th), superstar Kylian Mbappé (13th/59th) and Rodrygo (82nd) met with the cheers of the 15,732 fans. David Alaba in particular was celebrated in his homeland.
But especially with Alaba, but also with Rüdiger and Eder Militao, Xabi Alonso will be in demand in an area in which he does not always show the best hand in Leverkusen. He has to make hard personnel decisions and also moderate them well. At Bayer, for example, he had not succeeded at Patrik Schick, Victor Boniface or Jonas Hofmann.
Now in Madrid he has the order to change, he should bring young players forward. But especially on the defensive, he has a explosive selection between the established and the expensive new new ones. How he can do this becomes almost more exciting than the question of when his team plays Xabi-Alonso football consistently.