Xabi Alonso may have just bought himself a few more days as Real Madrid’s manager with a 2-1 win at Alaves on Sunday, even if the stylistic clashes that have loomed large over his employment status were still very much on display.
The game felt like a push-and-pull between Alonso’s envisioned look for the team and one reportedly preferred by the higher-ups, the manager perhaps obliging his bosses by giving each of Kylian Mbappe, Vinicius Junior and Rodrygo a start for the first time in league play this season. In some ways, it was the best of both worlds – first came Alonso’s version, in which frequent starters Jude Bellingham and Mbappe combined for the game’s opening goal in the 24th minute. The flourish with which Mbappe scored against Alaves, with a long run down the flank and a sharp finish from the edge of the box, offered a clear reminder that he is the greatest beneficiary of Alonso’s arrival thus far. His underwhelming first season in the Spanish capital is officially a thing of the past, 27 goals now under his belt across all competitions.
The second goal, scored eight minutes after Alaves’ equalizer in the 68th minute, was a welcome sight for Alonso – and for Vinicius and Rodrygo. The Brazilians partnered for Real Madrid’s game winner, equally impressive to Mbappe’s strike. Vinicius and Alaves’ Jonny Otto both fervently ran for a loose ball but it was the former who won the battle and got his head on the ball, pushing the ball just far enough for him to outrun Otto. He cut his way into the box and noticed Rodrygo making a well-timed run to his right, with Rodrygo wasting no time with a clinical finish in front of goal. A few short days after snapping a 30-plus game goalless run, Rodrygo had a second to cap off a strong week from an individual standpoint.
Alonso’s meet-in-the-middle approach was perhaps to be expected, and not only because he sits on the hot seat. Real Madrid’s stars have an impressive hold on the club’s culture, an outlier in a period where teams are defined more by the systems their managers set. Alonso seemed to have the support to redefine the club’s cadence when he took the helm six months ago but before Wednesday’s loss to Manchester City in the UEFA Champions League, the manager seemed to make the concession that he was the one who needed to make an adjustment.
“Being Madrid manager is not about changing [the culture]; it is about adapting,” Alonso said on Tuesday. “We know the culture of Real Madrid pretty well; that is why it is the biggest club in the world. You have to adapt, learn a lot, interact with the players. Some days are good, some not so good. We have to face that with energy and positivity; that is the only way to turn things around.”
A look at Sunday’s result alone suggests that Alonso can and should find the best of both worlds, since it may have bought him at least a few more days of employment. A deeper look at the performance, though, is more discouraging – four days after a very encouraging performance against City, signs of Madrid’s improvement under Alonso were not exactly easy to spot. If it was not for three stoppage time shots, Los Blancos would have ended the game with just 1.19 expected goals from 10 shots, less effective than the 1.33 expected goals Alaves managed from six attempts. The expected goals tally would have been their third-worst in La Liga this season and uncharacteristic for Alonso’s Madrid, the manager steadily increasing their attacking output from 1.76 non-penalty expected goals last season to their pre-Alaves average of 1.99 per match.
Letting the stars run the show may have bought Alonso time, which may be the right strategy as he tries to instill a brand-new method of operations at a club seemingly reluctant to embrace it. How sustainable the approach will be, though, is a question that has lingered long before Alonso’s arrival – and one that even justified his hire in the first place. If Sunday’s performance is anything to go by, though, the star-focused strategy can only afford the manager so much more time and reinforces the fact that this is still a mess of the higher-ups’ making, not Alonso’s.
