# Real Madrid New Year's Resolutions

An episode of [The Real Deal: A Real Madrid Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1807821669), 1 Jan 2026, 19 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/103607aa8/podcast/play/113371281/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-0-1%2F415325126-44100-2-349adc4764116.mp3

Jarod Hector and Siddharth Ramsundar discuss the major details Real Madrid must resolve to get right next season.

## Transcript

[0:01] Hello, welcome to the Real Deal in Real Madrid podcast with me
[0:04] Jerrod Hector. I am joined by Sid Ramsumdar.
[0:07] Happy new year, Sid. Happy new year, Jerrod, how's
[0:11] how's your winter break been away from Real Madrid?
[0:14] Fantastic time without thinking about this club on a weekly
[0:19] level as far as matches are concerned.
[0:21] Has been very good because this year started out well for us.
[0:25] Sid, as we all know, but then turned for the worst around
[0:30] November and then into the into the holiday break.
[0:32] So it was nice to sort of separate from this club and, you
[0:35] know, always remind yourself that as much as we love sports
[0:39] and you know, this is not real life.
[0:42] Like, you know, like, and, and these, these teams and these
[0:46] clubs and these players should not dictate our moods and how we
[0:50] feel and how we're able to interact with the larger, our
[0:53] larger community in the world in which we live, right?
[0:55] Like be happy, be sad at in the immediate and the results and
[0:59] after that whatever right 'cause it ultimately has no actual
[1:02] bearing on your life. Yeah, that's something I think I
[1:06] get better at every year. I get older and like being 26
[1:11] now, it's nice. I think each Champions League
[1:14] makes it easier, too. It's like I got my fix.
[1:17] I'm good now. But it for a lot of people who
[1:20] got their first year second, they're so hungry for more and
[1:24] their moods is still rising and falling.
[1:25] I saw some crazy tweets on Twitter where people are like,
[1:28] I'm ready to suffer again and I'm just like, wow.
[1:33] That's so wild where you're signing up for suffering, right?
[1:36] Like it's, it's so crazy. Well, what is the new year, Sid?
[1:39] And, you know, New Year's resolutions are something that,
[1:41] you know, my God, they've been around since time immemorial,
[1:43] right? New year, new you, all these
[1:45] things. What am I going to do
[1:46] differently in the new year? By the way?
[1:48] I hate to break it to most people, New year same you most
[1:51] people don't change. You're going to do the exact
[1:53] same thing you did the prior year for the most part.
[1:56] Why? Because as we know said, change
[1:58] is hard and it is difficult, right?
[2:00] You do you for actually think about to have a complete
[2:04] paradigm shift and change in the ways in which you operate and do
[2:08] things that requires concerted effort, time, energy, mental
[2:13] resilience, emotional resilience, and the ability to,
[2:18] in the face of it seemingly not looking like it's going well,
[2:21] stay the course. All right?
[2:23] We're human beings and we are creatures of habit.
[2:25] Whether you're an elite professional footballer or
[2:27] there's some dude that just hangs out in their parents
[2:29] basement, it's all the same, right?
[2:31] Like we like the same routine all the time.
[2:33] That's just who we are as, as, as less sentient beings.
[2:36] And so when you're talking about change, it's hard to do and
[2:40] resolutions are changed, right? And we thought it'd be really
[2:43] cool to each of us come up with a New Year's resolution for Real
[2:48] Madrid. We each have to.
[2:50] Also, I, I do want to add, you know, these are idealistic and,
[2:55] and, you know, it's just funny because you're talking about how
[2:57] the change doesn't matter. I was just thinking the changes
[3:00] that really stake are from people who realize that they
[3:02] can't wait till the New Year's Day and usually start making
[3:05] them in the weeks. Like I've been making a lot of
[3:07] changes in my life, but I've been rolling them out since
[3:10] October, like little by little. I can't just wait for a day and
[3:12] then do it all at once. And the reality is if Rihanna
[3:15] Madrid was going to implement these things, we would have seen
[3:17] it already. Like, for example, if we had a
[3:18] clear idea of this is what we want from the coach and don't
[3:21] want, they would have sacked the coach already if they really
[3:24] knew what they wanted. But you know, if like change is
[3:29] change isn't easy, but if you're really serious about change, you
[3:31] don't wait for the new year. It's just.
[3:33] Something oh 100% right. And it, it's something that is
[3:38] if you are an individual who is obsessed with learning and
[3:45] getting better and constant improvement, you, you don't to
[3:48] this point, you don't wait till January 1st.
[3:50] This is your life. You are constantly learning it.
[3:53] And it doesn't mean you jump at every new fad that comes out and
[3:56] you follow that. It's not what it's about.
[3:58] It's about whatever your ambitions and goals are.
[4:01] What are the things that are going to help me get there?
[4:03] Hey, here's a way in which I can do better as it relates to my
[4:06] diet and exercise. That's proven and has a ton of
[4:09] research and data behind it, right?
[4:11] It's not just anecdotal like 5 people, people told me this is
[4:13] what they did and it worked for them, right?
[4:15] I know through it works. OK, cool, let me implement that,
[4:19] right? Whether it's reading a new book,
[4:20] whether it's, you know, learning how to code differently,
[4:23] whatever the situation may be, right?
[4:25] This is constant and that's who we are as humans, right?
[4:27] We should never stop learning, right?
[4:29] The day you stop learning is literally when you are dead,
[4:31] right? That's when learning should end
[4:33] is when you're dead, right? Because there's so much to take
[4:35] in. And so again, it's also then
[4:38] being smart enough to to discern what do I need to filter in and
[4:42] what do I need to filter out? That's just noise and nonsense.
[4:44] Stay away and let me do what do I have to do?
[4:47] So as I said, all that shit is not easy.
[4:49] It takes a lot of ability to be self critical honesty, right?
[4:53] It's #1 like being able to be true to yourself, like in real
[4:56] moments. Like I was thinking about this
[4:58] dude. Like, you know, it's a common
[5:01] thing that we do as human beings.
[5:02] You're in school, right? And you get ready for an exam
[5:05] and you know, you didn't prepare the best for it, right?
[5:08] And so you get a poor grade as a result.
[5:11] Well, the excuse is already baked in because, you know, you
[5:13] didn't prepare, right? Well, I didn't prepare, so I
[5:16] know I'm not going to do well on it, right?
[5:18] Yeah, because you didn't do the steps necessary to be prepared
[5:21] to do well on the on the exam, right?
[5:23] So you knew it was coming, right?
[5:24] Versus no, I'm going to actually prepare and prepare.
[5:29] But with this, with the chance that, but I still may not do
[5:32] well, right, It's it's that it's that hedge like I prepare, but I
[5:35] still may not have done well and being OK and living with that,
[5:38] knowing I've done everything I could possibly to prepare and I
[5:42] didn't perform well right. That's what sports.
[5:44] That's what athletes live with all the time, right, because
[5:46] life isn't perfect. It these games are imperfect.
[5:49] Shit just happens sometimes, right.
[5:51] You have a dude hit a 50 foot step back, whatever, just 'cause
[5:54] he can, right? Like, well, you can't really.
[5:56] Shit just works out that way sometimes, right?
[5:58] And so all that to say that for Real Madrid, as Sid mentioned,
[6:03] these are ideals, but they're also, if this club is honest
[6:07] with itself and truthful, right? These are the things that they
[6:10] should be looking at. So, Sid, why don't you check off
[6:11] with your first? All right?
[6:13] I'll just go on with the order we had them listed.
[6:16] The first one you had less on me, more on we.
[6:18] I mean, that's just the theme even of one of mine kind of it's
[6:21] just, but I don't know if that's happening.
[6:24] But yeah, like, right now it feels like we're operating as a
[6:27] set of individuals that are operating for what they want,
[6:31] like a president who wants to succeed with elections, coach
[6:34] who's just trying to appease the players and president players
[6:38] who want money. So yeah, if we could get back to
[6:41] like, figuring out what it takes to win.
[6:42] And I mean, even just the way like Mbappe plays for himself,
[6:46] then he plays for himself. Bellingham is just the one who
[6:49] embodies this. But yeah, I mean, this, this is
[6:51] a no brainer. And we've totally lost a plot
[6:54] when it comes to this for sure. So it's going to take some time.
[6:58] It it's, I mean, it is so I mean, do we even need to look
[7:02] any further than Killian Bape's current injury, right?
[7:05] So he's going to be out for what looks like at a minimum 3 to 4
[7:08] weeks and. Another difference from Ronaldo.
[7:10] Ronaldo wasn't getting injured when he was breaking like he OK,
[7:13] he was. That's The funny thing.
[7:14] He was actually getting injured breaking the records, but it was
[7:17] like after he'd run when he was on track to win more.
[7:21] We're in the middle of limbo here and this is happening.
[7:23] So it looks really bad, like we were not in you run a limbo
[7:26] season in the middle of a good era when Ronaldo was, when this
[7:29] was happening to Ronaldo you. Look at a player like Mbappe who
[7:33] and we talked about this in one of our last shows Sid right this
[7:36] push towards the most goals for Real Madrid in a calendar year,
[7:40] which, as you and I both agree, is a made-up nothing record like
[7:44] who cares like great in a calendar year you scored sixty
[7:48] goals congratulations like we won zero major trophy.
[7:50] So what? What does that actually matter?
[7:52] But because Killian was so obsessed with that record and
[7:55] remember in that Guillen Balligate piece that he that he
[7:59] wrote, Carlo Angelotti told Javi Alonzo before he took over, here
[8:05] are some of your problems. 1 Killian is obsessed with his
[8:08] records, right? Again, ambitions a good thing as
[8:11] Sid and I talked about, but when ambition bleeds into agenda, it
[8:14] hurts the collective, right? So he's obsessed with I have to
[8:19] play every match that I have to get this goal scoring record.
[8:22] So you are playing against a Segunda B team, right?
[8:26] Copa, a Copa del Rey match, knowingly already injured,
[8:29] right, Furthering your chance to get injured more.
[8:32] OK Sid, he got the record, congratulations.
[8:35] But guess what now? Now he's out for a month.
[8:37] So you now hurt yourself in terms of potentially Pachichi
[8:43] Balindur, whatever, right, because you're going to miss a
[8:46] full month of matches and as we all know, and then you come
[8:49] back, you're not going to be ready right away.
[8:50] You got to ramp up to get your timing back and all the things
[8:53] right. So you're going to be behind
[8:54] everybody else. 2 or really one you hurt, I'll flip them one,
[8:59] you hurt the team, right? Because now it's number one goal
[9:02] scorer is going to be out for a month, right?
[9:04] Which is a minimum eight matches, seven matches,
[9:07] something in that in that regard, right?
[9:09] So everyone gets hurt here, the club and you, right?
[9:13] And so this is what I talk about when I say less on me, more on
[9:16] we I, I use example all the time.
[9:19] But it's kind of apropos now because he's on a bit of a
[9:21] heater with the Clippers. Kawhi Leonard when Gregg
[9:26] Popovich was asked when did Kawhi get it?
[9:28] When did he turn into the killer and Terminator that we know now
[9:30] when we drew up plays in the huddle and he realized it's not
[9:33] about me scoring. It's about we us scoring right
[9:37] and subjugating that individual ambition for what is good for
[9:43] the collective. That is where that's what we
[9:46] have is out of balance in in that particular instance.
[9:47] But as you mentioned, that goes to Florentino, that goes to Jose
[9:50] Angel Sanchez, that goes to members of the board, medical
[9:53] staff. It's everybody who's just
[9:54] focused on themselves as opposed to the collective.
[9:57] Yeah, and obviously Alonzo maybe could have pushed back and
[10:00] benched him, but I think in general Billion needs to play
[10:05] more for the team. And I'm just going back to the
[10:07] Ronaldo clips. Ronaldo's ball movement was just
[10:09] better. Like he just so many sequences
[10:12] where he he would know what to do and move the ball.
[10:14] And you just don't see that from Imapi.
[10:17] Like Ronaldo's first touch was significantly better.
[10:21] Like Imbapi. That's what always kind of made
[10:24] like made me hesitate about him. Like his dribbling's good, but
[10:27] dribbling like the second, third touch on the move, anyone can do
[10:31] that. But like the first touch, tight
[10:32] space, keep the sequence alive. That's the skill of like the
[10:35] most elite footballers. Benjamin Ronaldo always had that
[10:38] played together with it. But the other thing is like, I
[10:42] think Alonzo was playing him because he's stuck in a battle
[10:45] between the board and players. And so that brings us to the
[10:48] second resolution. Treat the coaches, the
[10:50] nutritionist, these people in between who are not paid as much
[10:53] as the players. Treat them as humans backbone,
[10:55] kind of give them a platform that just ties into like, so
[11:00] much has gone wrong. And Alonzo has definitely been
[11:02] at fault, not playing Hendrick. But at the same time, there's
[11:06] like no backing for him when he's winning games and the
[11:09] players are complaining. So I think it's not really a
[11:13] salvageable situation as far as if the coach can't go yell at
[11:16] the players, get them to defend then.
[11:19] And if he can't, like, bench them because he needs to
[11:21] preserve like January, what are you going to do?
[11:24] Like, the players are going to get their way.
[11:26] So I think besides the president just like operating less for
[11:30] himself, I think he needs to take responsibility for these
[11:33] people because it feels like the players get what they want
[11:35] anyways. Yeah, we have a quick message in
[11:38] here on the chat. The microphone sound is weird.
[11:39] Do you mean my microphone or Sid?
[11:41] Sid, did something change in your in your mic?
[11:45] No, it's the same. You're 1 100% correct Sid.
[11:52] Look, what is the point of hiring someone to and
[11:58] effectively run your multi billion dollar organization or
[12:02] project or company in its field of play?
[12:06] If you're not going to empower them, then do it yourself,
[12:09] right? What are like, what are we doing
[12:11] if you have no desire to let this again, the thought process
[12:15] is that you hire this person is because you believe and they are
[12:18] the best person to bring you to a new era, right?
[12:21] When the board and the president agreed to bring in Javi Alonso,
[12:24] they they're not dumb, Sid, right?
[12:26] They all knew he was going to be different than Carlo Ancelotti,
[12:28] right? It was said they wanted more
[12:31] discipline, more structure. And right, OK, a a clear
[12:35] difference into at least what was outwardly presented by
[12:38] Ancelotti. Well, if that is what she
[12:39] wanted, you have to empower him to do that.
[12:43] And so when the players come and buck back and say we don't want
[12:46] to do X, right? And as we know, Sid, they go
[12:48] around the coach and go talk to the president and certain
[12:51] influential members of the board or leaks up to the media.
[12:53] You as the people in church have to be like, no, this is our guy.
[12:58] We back him. And if you don't fit within what
[13:00] he wants to do, we will find a way to move you somewhere else
[13:04] to it's best an advantage for us, right?
[13:06] We'll think about you as well. But what's best for us, and
[13:08] we'll get players in here who do.
[13:10] And that's not what they've done.
[13:11] They have not given him that, right?
[13:12] They've essentially neutered him, right?
[13:14] They cut him off at the knees. So, So what is the point, right?
[13:17] If you're not going to allow this man to do what he wants to
[13:19] do again, you might as well just do it yourself.
[13:23] Again, I think they just need to go to back.
[13:25] It goes down to having a philosophy of what succeeds.
[13:28] You don't need to always back the coach in every circumstance,
[13:31] is not what we're saying. I think that's a big
[13:33] misconception, the idea that like you need to blindly back
[13:36] Alonzo. That's not what we're saying.
[13:37] It's the idea that you've seen how he succeeded Leverkusen,
[13:40] you've seen where football's trending, you've seen where this
[13:43] team is trending. So you've determined that
[13:44] backing a coach is the best way to succeed at this moment, like
[13:47] you did with Mourinho? Well, well, we thought like you
[13:50] did with Maurineo. Clearly you didn't think it
[13:51] through like Marino, you're not desperate, your rivals not
[13:54] winning trebles with Lionel Messi there.
[13:56] And I hate to say it, but Mbappe seems like he's going to press
[14:00] more for his goals than for the right profiles to get at it.
[14:02] But that's why it's on the club to have this philosophy.
[14:06] And so and and the most obvious thing is bring us players who
[14:09] can handle the ball. It's really embarrassing
[14:11] watching this team without like ball handling, without play
[14:14] making press resistance. And I think that's that's what
[14:17] happens when you don't have a philosophy like the game evolves
[14:20] and then your strategy of just going after prospects that work
[14:24] commercially fall short when suddenly you're missing a
[14:27] profile because you don't recruit for profiles.
[14:29] You you recruit for commercial opportunities.
[14:31] Then the profiles missing and you look stupid.
[14:33] You look like you literally look like you're from the prehistoric
[14:36] age as a football team, that's how we look right now.
[14:38] So we talk about. All the time.
[14:41] It's not even like intense pressure.
[14:42] Forget about what the best pressing teams do against us.
[14:45] That's obvious. We look like dog shit when
[14:47] mediocre to average teams press us, we still look like dog shit.
[14:52] Like it, it's unbelievable, right?
[14:54] Like, guys get the the slightest bit of pressure and disaster
[14:58] comes and it's like, guys, this is supposed to be pros here.
[15:01] And to your point said, this is what happens when you we'll just
[15:04] sign a galactico who works commercially.
[15:06] He's going to get us jersey sales and whatever.
[15:07] Yeah, OK, great. But our profiles now don't match
[15:10] and we don't have a club that works.
[15:12] Right. And so then it comes down to the
[15:15] last New Year's resolution, which is like, can we lean into
[15:19] the reality of like process analysis and being honest with
[15:22] ourselves instead of the mythology of the club and this
[15:26] idea that we're destined for success because that's what's
[15:29] gotten us here. I think it's really important
[15:34] that at every level of the club, they realize that the reality is
[15:38] that we have to work for the to rebuild the myth like the
[15:41] galacticos of the 20 tens did. And yeah, I mean, we can talk
[15:46] all about that, but all, you know, everything we've said
[15:48] about repeatable success, not not trying to repeat the last
[15:52] era of success because it was so reliant on Cortois.
[15:55] Cortois looking like, you know, I think he made the most scenes
[15:58] of any goalkeeper in 2025. New Year's resolution has to be
[16:01] to not pretend that like Cortois as a result of the club myth you
[16:04] got like you signed Cortois, Cortois elevated as an
[16:07] individual. Cortois don't grow on trees.
[16:10] I don't believe there's some magic philosophy to find the
[16:12] next Cortois. Even if there is, you can't like
[16:15] rely on one generation of peace leading like you need.
[16:18] You can't. That's one point of failure.
[16:19] You need to have like 3 generational controllers in the
[16:22] pipeline, 3 generational strikers, 3 generational
[16:24] goalies, and you only do that if you realize reality is more
[16:28] complex than this myth. You said yourself but I don't
[16:31] know if that's happening. Do you think that's happening or
[16:33] do you think we're like on a decade long slow slide or
[16:36] something? Oh, we are slowly descending
[16:38] into the abyss. I mean, or, or it could be more
[16:42] rapidly now. I think we talked about on our
[16:43] last show where we could see a prolonged period of yeah, we
[16:47] might get lucky here or there, but overall, in terms of
[16:50] sustained success that's repeatable.
[16:53] I don't see the foundation of the things in place it and I
[16:55] think this is it, right? This is my resolution about
[16:58] mythology versus PR. The most dangerous or one of the
[17:01] most dangerous phrase in the English language is well, this
[17:03] is how we've always done things. That is problematic beyond
[17:07] belief because when you when that is your fall back, well,
[17:10] this is how we've always done things.
[17:12] It closes you off to not just new ways of thinking, new ways
[17:17] of improvement and evolution. It also closes you off to the
[17:21] reality of what is happening around you, right, because you
[17:25] think the real world and what's happening doesn't exist for us
[17:28] because we are X, because we do things right and we've done XY
[17:31] and Z and one the most champions that anybody in history this,
[17:33] that and the third. But as this pointed out, as I
[17:35] pointed out, if you look at the history, yes, the most, but
[17:38] there are gaps in there. We have not won for decades,
[17:42] right? It's in there, right.
[17:43] And so this idea of and in those gaps performing poorly as a club
[17:48] during, during, during that time period that that should not be
[17:52] the case. The reality is, is that as a
[17:55] club, enjoy the the fact that you are the most successful and
[18:00] all that and the most of the biggest football brand in the
[18:02] world, Yes, but don't let that be something that allows you to
[18:05] rest on your laurels and not do anything right.
[18:08] Continued. As we always say, innovate to be
[18:10] better. You know it's not the divine
[18:12] right of kings, right? We're not ordained and destined
[18:14] to be Champions League winner just because we're Real Madrid.
[18:17] No, you have to be good to win, right?
[18:20] And have to be elite at so many levels.
[18:22] And right now that piece of the club is missing.
[18:24] We are not elite at those levels.
[18:25] We're elite at myth, at myth making right, and mythology and
[18:27] PR, but we're bad at the process.
[18:30] Agreed. Agreed on that note to close
[18:33] out. Happy New year, everyone.
[18:35] We are still checking on the audio right now.
[18:37] It's complex technical setup. So apologies if my audio is not
[18:41] better, but we're working on it. We're going to work on it after
[18:43] the episode. I know a lot of you tune in on
[18:46] Spotify, Apple, YouTube, everywhere.
[18:49] You know we're we're working on everything.
[18:51] Please get leave a like. Please subscribe Jerrod if you
[18:54] want to leave any words here as we close.
[18:56] Yeah, for sure. As always, guys, like this video
[18:59] right now. Subscribe if you haven't done so
[19:00] already. As Sid said, share it.
[19:01] Apple, Spotify if you wanna listen to it later, and we'll be
[19:04] back with more awesome content. Social media, of course, as
[19:06] well. Follow us there.
[19:08] We're on Twitter, we're on Instagram.
[19:10] So yeah, please give us a follow.

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