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Having started this season at Real Madrid with 13 wins from his first 14 games, Xabi Alonso could be forgiven for thinking he was on to a good thing in his new role of Kindergarten Cop, tasked with instilling discipline among the spoilt and unruly brats in his care. While this excellent run was punctuated by a tonking at the hands of Atlético and a diva strop thrown by Vinícius Júnior, Alonso seemed to have pulled off the unthinkable by introducing something approaching a work ethic into a group of players who had previously been powered on ego and vibes. It wasn’t until November that the passengers on board the Madrid wagon began to unscrew the wheels, when a series of poor results led to revelations that all was not well in the camp. Leaks suggested the squad was split between the few players who were entirely sold on the 43-year-old’s ethos and the apparent vast majority who took exception to this José Come-Lately’s tyrannical demands that they turn up on time, run around a bit and occasionally sit through boring tactical presentations that lasted longer than a FaceSpace Snap.
With Alonso’s job security less secure than unsecured wifi at a Black Hat convention, matters finally came to a head on Sunday when Madrid lost the Spanish Super Cup final. Played in the traditional Spanish footballing hotbed of Jeddah, this five-goal white-knuckle ride went the way of Barcelona and when Alonso tried to summon his beaten players to reciprocate the post-match guard of honour afforded them by their bitter rivals, he was pointedly ignored. An act of outright insubordination that more or less summed up the futility of the beleaguered manager’s reign, the writing could not have been more clearly written on the wall if Kylian Mbappé, who led the revolt, had picked up a spraycan and daubed “Adiós, Mister” in neon paint. Back in Madrid the following morning, Alonso received an unwelcome summons of his own.
