# How Will Xabi Alonso Transform Real Madrid?

An episode of [The Real Deal: A Real Madrid Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1807821669), 16 May 2025, 44 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/103607aa8/podcast/play/102773750/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2025-4-16%2F400432305-44100-2-659fdf6c019eb.mp3

Loconte joins Sid to go over Xabi Alonso's arrival as coach and what to expect at Real Madrid. Will he marry positional spacing with relationist spontaneity to create a new revolutionary style of football? Or is that all tactical hype from twitter tacticos? Tune in.

## Transcript

[1:03] I've been waiting for this day ever since Alonzo became a youth
[1:08] coach Leconte, so I'm excited. Are you excited?
[1:14] Actually. Like actually not like, not like
[1:18] smiling, not cast telling people we're excited.
[1:21] Nah, Nah, Nah, I'm actually excited.
[1:23] I can't wait for this horror to end two more games.
[1:27] Yeah, facts and all. Where do we begin?
[1:30] Oh, let's, let's just just a background.
[1:33] When he was brought as a youth team coach, I think the
[1:36] excitement with Zabi was like, you know, every generation of
[1:39] player, they're getting coached by the next generation of
[1:41] coaches. So when the new generation of
[1:43] players becomes coaches, they then have better, maybe more
[1:47] sophisticated ideas than the generation before them.
[1:49] And with Alonzo you, he's played under Mourinho in a deep block,
[1:54] he played for Rafa Benitez and then he's played under Guardiola
[1:58] and broke the Bundesliga touch record in his first two games
[2:01] and he has seen a deep block. He has played in transition, he
[2:05] has played in a more advanced team with Guardiola.
[2:08] And so even before he became a youth coach, the idea was this
[2:12] guy is not going to be rigid, He's not going to stick to one
[2:14] thing. He will adapt to what a team
[2:15] needs him. That was the hope.
[2:17] Where would you begin there? I think that's been the case in
[2:22] general looking at this Leverkusen for the most part,
[2:25] right we're talking about I don't think he's Lal youth team
[2:30] was impressive. I don't think that he was able
[2:32] to get the ideas across. But then again he draws the line
[2:35] between youth football and professional football.
[2:39] Maybe he's not the best at managing the youth and his ideas
[2:43] might be might be a bit more complex with them.
[2:45] But then when he went to a tough flight team he literally took a
[2:50] relegation by Liverkusan side into European football and then
[2:56] only like a year into his job they were title contenders to
[3:01] even win it by the end of it. So that's some incredible job in
[3:05] a month and 1/2 from him I gotta say.
[3:09] So there were 1720, yeah. And this, the the best case
[3:12] scenario for Alonzo coming into this club was surpassed.
[3:16] I think like you, you get a new player who's a coach, you hope
[3:20] he can be the best. Sometimes they're not even good.
[3:22] Sometimes they're maybe Frank Lampard, you or Yes, or Steven
[3:28] Gerrard. Solari is our Lampard.
[3:30] That's a great comparison. But yeah, yeah, makes the guys
[3:33] run. Doesn't do much but inspired us
[3:35] briefly did something that maybe sparked us but.
[3:39] Yeah. So where when we go to a
[3:44] Leverkusen 17th, you stabilize them that season, then you win
[3:49] the Bundesliga. Is that like the best case
[3:52] scenario for a rookie coach is like how many rookie coaches
[3:55] have done better? The closest I would say is
[3:57] Guardiola. When first season at you team
[3:59] promotes the team, second season brings you team players wins
[4:03] travel at as a first team coach and like is this close to #1 as
[4:08] far as like rookie debuts for a coach.
[4:11] I mean it is, but if we're looking at the youth side, then
[4:15] Zidane wouldn't really qualify for it because he wasn't
[4:17] impressive with the youth team of Madrid.
[4:20] But Zidane won the Champions League and if you want to count
[4:24] the period when Rafa Benitez was sacked, when Zidane took the
[4:28] team, Real Madrid were first in La Liga.
[4:31] He also he did the double right First year or just the Champions
[4:36] League? I'm not sure actually.
[4:39] My memory is blanking there. Zidane has to be there.
[4:42] Zidane did just the Champions League the first year, I
[4:44] believe, yeah. Just the seamless league, Yeah,
[4:46] we were all the thing that got us disqualified from the coma.
[4:52] Del Rey with Rafa Benitez. Yeah, Alonso, but Alonso is a
[4:57] better coach in my opinion. Coming in EU team.
[4:59] I think it is a data point. Like the moment Sidon stepped
[5:02] foot into the Bernabeu office to take charge, January 2016.
[5:07] He was not as experienced or as sophisticated in what he knew to
[5:10] do as Didon had a vision. I'm not saying he didn't have a
[5:12] vision, but how to implement it, he had no idea.
[5:15] Compared to Alonso now, he had no experience.
[5:18] It took him a while. It took him a lot as to be
[5:21] honest, you know, on the second stance.
[5:23] Zidane seems to be one of these trial and error type of coaches.
[5:26] Alonso is more like adaptive on the spot, comes up with a
[5:30] solution even with his liver cousin.
[5:32] As you can see, he just finds a way to make the team better.
[5:36] I Remember Me and you had an episode in the past and I said
[5:41] that I'm not fully sold in it. But as the season went on, I did
[5:45] see a lot of changes coming from Alonso, which I really liked.
[5:50] Even though the results weren't fully there, the changes that he
[5:54] was making all the time were impacting the team positively
[5:57] and I think those translate well into a coach.
[6:00] So let's yeah. So let's first talk about what
[6:04] did he do so big that went them, made them go from relegation to
[6:09] contending. And I know they made some
[6:10] signings like works probably gets healthy during that time.
[6:14] I know he had an ACL issue at some stage or whatever.
[6:16] Like guys come back. What else does he do?
[6:19] Is it the three at the back? See like 3 at the back in itself
[6:22] isn't revolutionary. It's how you do it, right?
[6:24] So it's not like like Conte plays Antonio Conte, nobody, we
[6:28] don't want him. Why?
[6:31] It's not really about like it's is it a 343352, 3231, whatever,
[6:38] 11, whatever. It's not really about those
[6:41] numbers, right? On a general scheme of things,
[6:43] he saw the team at that stage, what they were good at, what
[6:47] they were bad at. Keep in mind that Leverkusen is
[6:50] totally say a flawed team. All the players there aren't
[6:53] really going to be like exceptional talent that can fill
[6:57] in a lot of holes. So those holes are being filled
[6:59] by coaching. So Alonzo is just coaching those
[7:03] players into at least they're ceiling.
[7:07] I want to say with the likes of Jeremy Frimpong as example, they
[7:11] were playing above their level or Alandro Grimaldo for example.
[7:15] Those players are like key components to players that are
[7:20] completely over performing what they are really as players.
[7:26] So yeah, with Frank Ponto, lesser sound, with Grimaldo,
[7:29] definitely he's not as good as he's been under Alonzo.
[7:33] So that's credit to the coach. It goes to show that he can
[7:37] limit a player to his strengths while while minimizing the
[7:41] weaknesses. That's really key integral.
[7:45] When we're speaking about like a coach on the way how he's going
[7:48] to play for Madrid, that's a different story on itself.
[7:52] But his liver Kuzen stent is impressive because of how much
[7:56] he was able to soak in or at least use from the whole squad.
[8:01] And that's not really something that you'll get often,
[8:05] especially not with such a young coach like you.
[8:07] Mean the bench players too. Alonzo is 44.
[8:10] You mean the bench players too? Like when they come in, they
[8:12] know what to do. Yeah, even the rotations that he
[8:18] does like every player in a certain way outside of the back
[8:21] three, I want to say, feels like a starter.
[8:24] And of course Florian warts because he's a superstar, but
[8:27] feels like a starter because they know what to do.
[8:30] They can go in, they do, they have to do that job.
[8:33] And it's never the same. The team switches in accordance
[8:37] to the player profiles rather than OK, we're going to keep the
[8:40] same identity, so every single player needs to fit this
[8:43] identity. And he takes the players from
[8:45] the key and he picks the profiles and depending on the
[8:48] match up, like if you're playing Byron away.
[8:52] So if you're playing Byron away, just a question like I've read
[8:55] what he does is you he starts somewhere.
[8:57] Maybe he goes to Byron away and he he starts pressing.
[9:01] Maybe with more position players, guys who can get on the
[9:03] ball, more ball centric. Maybe they play rigid and build
[9:07] up and then they associate in the final third.
[9:09] Then once you take the lead, deep block, bring on a winger on
[9:11] for a midfielder. Is that, is that what we're
[9:13] going to get? It's very hard because Laver
[9:19] Kuzma and Madrid are two different things.
[9:22] But if you go to like his Laver Kuzma stint on the big games,
[9:26] you'll see that you'll get a pattern of he hasn't analyzed
[9:30] the team. You know that he's watching the
[9:31] film, unlike the current coach. You know that he's actually
[9:34] doing like all the homework, probably twice.
[9:38] He notices usually the weaknesses and he tries to
[9:42] exploit them. There are a lot of cases like
[9:45] you mentioned where he will press high to try and get that
[9:48] lead and then instead of wasting energy, he actually has a very
[9:54] good deep lock, a very good one. Unlike her current coach
[9:58] already. He's good at covering the
[10:01] players up. So those are like some key
[10:04] integrals which I think will translate well into the next job
[10:08] yes Ben mini would have been like a good case because first
[10:11] game he played like a very nasty.
[10:14] You couldn't break it down D block second game he didn't
[10:17] allow Ben mini to get out of their home this season.
[10:19] Anybody let's watch this season. Oh.
[10:21] That was crazy because the first game I'm like, oh, what did
[10:23] company do? They couldn't do anything.
[10:25] Like Leverkusen created nothing and then the second game
[10:27] flipped. I I think that is what I'm
[10:29] excited for. We're not losing, we're not
[10:31] shipping for every game because we're doing the same thing.
[10:33] Yeah, exactly. You're not just trying to like,
[10:38] puzzle the pieces together like in the middle of the game.
[10:41] You actually know what you're getting before you enter the
[10:44] game. Is it always going to be good?
[10:46] No, of course he's a human, makes mistakes.
[10:49] But is it something that exciting?
[10:54] That's for sure. Like that's for sure.
[10:56] He has all the tangibles shown to be successful and him getting
[11:01] a three years contract to even start shows that the club has
[11:04] seen very good. Thanks for him to trust with the
[11:08] three years contract. Somebody not a very often case
[11:14] here because if you need to sack them, they're going to have to
[11:17] pay a lot more. So they are very careful with
[11:21] money. So Alonzo is definitely getting
[11:23] the full support of the board, which is good news to begin with
[11:28] because a lot of there's that fear of all a puppet, all this,
[11:33] all that which we know how it is, right?
[11:36] 100 percent, 100% and I'm I'm just taking notes because
[11:39] honestly, like I want to put it on a graphic at the end.
[11:41] This is everything we need in a coach now.
[11:44] The the main question that I think would arise is like why
[11:48] haven't more coaches done this before?
[11:49] And also why did his second season go worse?
[11:52] So the first season was perfect. He sets up this back three
[11:56] system where Frimpong goes up and up and down.
[11:58] You got Wart's playing his connector.
[12:01] Boniface was ridiculous, but they were, as you mentioned in
[12:03] the show, they were good with or without him.
[12:05] Like they they figure it out even without him.
[12:07] And his stats were ridiculous as all.
[12:10] He was getting a lot of chances and you have to attribute that
[12:12] to him, Alonzo himself this summer, this last summer, they
[12:17] get Alex Garcia. You were saying he was
[12:19] struggling to combine the back three with the midfield where I
[12:23] could fit Garcia. Then you don't have as much
[12:25] support around him. What changed?
[12:27] What was this year after that? I don't think that he was able
[12:32] to integrate Alex Garcia so that if we want to do a Madrid
[12:37] connection, that's where like I'm not really buying into.
[12:40] The club is looking into a controller type.
[12:43] I don't think that Alonso is that type of coach that will
[12:46] most certainly need that controller.
[12:48] That player, he doesn't really need it.
[12:50] He's going to be just fine with the players that he's got.
[12:52] Presumably they remain fit. That's also with this fitness
[12:56] staff in terms of like Alex Garcia, that could also be look
[13:03] attributed to the coach, but it can also be just the player
[13:06] struggling with the intensity of the Bundesliga football.
[13:12] He just couldn't find himself in at any point.
[13:16] There is a 5050 there. Do I think that Alonzo would
[13:18] have done a bit of a better job at utilizing him?
[13:21] Yes, But that also comes into the price of after switch a
[13:27] winning team up. I don't think he wanted to do
[13:29] that. So he ended up dropping him for
[13:32] a while. Alesh came back, but just
[13:35] nothing spectacular. Not the guy that we saw in La
[13:37] Liga for Hirono. So if there is that, it's not
[13:44] that he can't use that profile, it's mostly that that profile
[13:48] most likely I would say didn't fit the teammates after having
[13:51] was done a lot more and deeper post when we first spoke about
[13:56] Alonzo. So yeah.
[13:58] How much do you think the restriction was just that you,
[14:01] you have to play the five at the back with the quality of players
[14:03] and profiles at Leverkusen? And so you you just can't play
[14:06] the three man midfield. If you try to optimize for that,
[14:09] it won't work. But at a club like this, you
[14:11] have your Trumanis who really should be good on and off the
[14:14] ball. So like actually I was comparing
[14:17] Trumani to Zabi himself as a player.
[14:19] Now, Zabi was more maybe better at the crazy long passes, but in
[14:23] terms of technique, like, like Trumani has technique and range,
[14:28] yeah. Yeah, yeah.
[14:30] Like technique and range is there if you like as Adm who has
[14:32] the range to shoot from distance and pass it along, you can do
[14:34] it. Does he do it as often?
[14:35] No to press resistant. Maybe not as press resistant as
[14:38] the absolute number one in history at their position, but
[14:41] still plenty to work with. And I also feel Alonzo in my
[14:46] opinion was much, much, much worse than Cruz on the ball when
[14:50] he was at Real Madrid. I feel in terms of the when the
[14:54] old Barcelona teams pressed us, they had a lot of success
[14:57] against him individually in my opinion.
[14:59] And when Cruz came in, our style shifted to a more ball centric 1
[15:04] and he went and kind of learned what that entails at Bayern
[15:06] under Guardiola. So I feel some of his so-called
[15:11] coaching. Thing, yeah.
[15:12] Yeah, his positional and in possession education, I feel
[15:15] like it came after his time at Realmetered almost if you go off
[15:17] the screen at Realmetered him before like like this squad, you
[15:21] could build a very 1314 style team, right?
[15:24] 20/13/14 with that Di Maria, Alonzo Madrich midfield for them
[15:30] that day. Camavinga 2A many, you know like
[15:32] you could do it. Camavinga shuttling up and down.
[15:34] He's not gonna cross, but he moves and.
[15:37] Yeah, he moves pretty well. He's just like execution.
[15:40] He's just not there yet. So that can be taught.
[15:44] So we, we have, Long story short, we have way more talent
[15:47] than Leverkusen. So I and like you were saying,
[15:50] he doesn't have to do this perfect job and get every game
[15:53] right the way he did at Leverkusen in unbeaten season.
[15:57] Yeah, that that's a good thing, right?
[16:00] Because look, he this season he was under the pressure of AB to
[16:04] deliver, unlike last season, I guess Because last season, let's
[16:08] be real, nobody saw them to win the league.
[16:10] If you predicted them that they were going to win the league
[16:12] against two goals, bare mini and you're a genius, I don't know
[16:17] what to say. Going and beat them was on the
[16:21] cherry on top. But Alonzo came with a lot of
[16:25] expectations this season and I still think he lived up to them.
[16:30] Winning the league with Leverkusen is pretty much like
[16:32] saying old Cholo Simone has failed at that late because he
[16:36] wasn't able to retain the league.
[16:38] It's not really the same. We're not talking about the same
[16:41] things like you're you're playing against like a
[16:44] hurricane, somebody that's going to give you like 40 goals a
[16:47] season. That can bail out coaches to
[16:50] begin with. I think that company is decent
[16:54] and best coach, but Alonzo did pretty well with them.
[16:56] I know that the battering on the Champions League happened, that
[17:00] that in itself has to do with the mentality of the team, has
[17:05] to do with the fact that he didn't really have the players
[17:08] that he wanted to have for those ties.
[17:10] And he kind of misjudges the first time.
[17:12] So the second time was just a dead end basically.
[17:16] So he did make mistakes there. But as we spoke already, he's
[17:23] allowed to make mistakes there. I mean, for the love of God, our
[17:26] coach makes our current coach makes mistakes every single game
[17:30] and he still gets bailed out and he's the coach with the most
[17:35] trophies in club's history and he makes 10 mistakes again.
[17:39] Literally let it be the Subs, the starters, how the team is
[17:43] shifting. They are mistakes even though
[17:46] and and even though we win, they are mistakes.
[17:48] That's what people miss. And, and Zabi could make more
[17:51] mistakes than he did in both his years combined and still win way
[17:54] more trophies for us. It's easy here.
[17:56] And it is easy to the point where when we get a coach who
[17:59] just doesn't, whose default isn't getting everything wrong,
[18:01] it's gonna feel so good. Like the default isn't, you
[18:05] know, build up. Yeah, yeah.
[18:07] It's not gonna be like, we won't need four months to start
[18:10] building up. Dude, I'm sick of this shit.
[18:11] Like every year it's like, oh, like, hey, wanna come podcast
[18:14] about Real Madrid. Oh, yeah, it's it's September.
[18:16] Like, it's not gonna be good till February, guys.
[18:19] It's not gonna be beautiful. You're you're always caveating
[18:21] that crap. Yeah, and guess what?
[18:24] They're not going to be able to build off of back at all.
[18:27] So make peace with that and hope that Jude can win those aerial
[18:31] duels so we can we can transition.
[18:34] I do. I do think with our new signings
[18:36] on the way, which we'll we'll talk about later, not not on
[18:38] this episode, I think our signings will help.
[18:40] But in general, you don't think, I think with the same players,
[18:43] dude, Alonso gets to build up way better.
[18:45] I think the same set of players, I think we will build up.
[18:48] I think true and many will finally become the six who can
[18:51] dominate games that we want. I think we called.
[18:54] The World Cup, basically. Yeah, World Cup, France.
[18:57] True of many. I mean, I've been waiting for
[19:00] him the whole time and like, I've been waiting for him since
[19:03] that one. Classico.
[19:04] He gave us a hint of it, the first Classico he played with
[19:05] us, remember, We won. All his first few months were so
[19:10] nice, but yeah. And then then everything, you
[19:14] know, first few months he comes into a team used to playing with
[19:17] Casamaro that is entirely reliant on socio effective
[19:21] relationships and so the relative effect is good.
[19:24] Then months later everything decays.
[19:25] Carlo doesn't do anything. The socio effective
[19:27] relationships collapse and you don't feel the difference
[19:30] anymore. Yeah it feels like the time from
[19:32] when true many improved our build up to when we had no build
[19:35] up would happen so quickly and I'm excited to get back there.
[19:39] You think we played three at the back and.
[19:41] Or what? Not at all.
[19:43] I don't think it's even in contention.
[19:46] Interesting. Where do you think all the?
[19:49] Reporting you might play a three at back at times when required,
[19:53] but it's not going to be a default thing at all.
[19:57] Doesn't have the for that, doesn't have the team, just
[20:00] doesn't have the tangibles for that.
[20:03] I agree they could keep Aliba and say hey, he I mean they
[20:07] might just say hey, Aliba's an option like because we can't
[20:09] sell him and tell him hey, if you want to play it back three,
[20:12] you got Aliba, Militao coming back, Rudiger coming back,
[20:15] Ascentio Horton. Who else?
[20:18] It's 5 I'll send to. You hoisen Mandy, I guess you
[20:23] could deploy us. Left Santa Mandy.
[20:26] Mandy is apparently Mandy might not be healthy as long as his
[20:29] contract exists or whatever. If you read like he is, it's
[20:31] it's feared to be a much more medium term injury now and we
[20:34] brought him back to play in 10 minutes.
[20:36] I I mean, The thing is that Mindy got crippled, if you
[20:41] remember, on 2 thousand 2122 season and ever since then he
[20:45] hasn't ever been able to sustain any level of physical work.
[20:50] So I don't know what the club was thinking with that exception
[20:54] being honest. Well, he, he sustained it for
[20:56] six months and then they gave it to him.
[20:58] He sustained it last year during the end the home stretch because
[21:03] last season's just so weird because we had to bring him off
[21:05] the team and bring camo wing on in the first in the first class
[21:08] to go to win the game. But by the end of the season,
[21:10] Mandy was our go to guy and you know, he was even leading.
[21:14] He was top five in Europe in like fields gained per
[21:17] possession, lost because he was playing next to Cruz and.
[21:20] Yeah. It was very silly.
[21:22] I think Mandy has very little place on this team because
[21:25] Alonzo seems to love his wing backs and I think we're
[21:28] officially getting back wing play, right.
[21:31] Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're getting, I don't think
[21:33] you're going to get wing backs as much as you're going to get
[21:37] wingers. Venicius back to where he
[21:39] belongs. Like that's probably the most
[21:43] exciting thing for me is basically Venicius being back to
[21:46] where he belongs. None of this.
[21:48] He can play 9, he can play 10. He can be like second striker
[21:53] bullshit that Ancelotti tries to do, limit in him beyond means.
[21:57] Venicius gets to be Venicius again, which funnily enough that
[22:01] was under Carlo. But it's just things that he's
[22:07] trying to do just now. You'll get like proper profiling
[22:10] here, which I'm really excited about.
[22:13] Like that's the most exciting thing for me.
[22:15] It's not. Does he play 3 of that four of
[22:16] back? It doesn't really matter for as
[22:18] long as he's profiling the players the way how they should
[22:21] be. For example, you had Jude
[22:24] Bellingham, one of the best players in the world between the
[22:27] lines. Now utilize that because you
[22:29] never play centrally. So it's just a lot of coaching
[22:33] issues. I think that you never play like
[22:37] centrally. Year has to do with Angelotes a
[22:39] little bit. I don't want to say cowards, but
[22:44] he's a bit of that. He he has shown me this season.
[22:48] He just didn't have the balls to have any sort of central
[22:52] progression without crows unless he really needed to, which was
[22:57] the El classical coma Del Rey as example, where we just have to
[23:02] go central or it's lost. We actually played one of the
[23:06] best households of the season just because we're going more
[23:10] central, they're pressing a bit better, we're earning up the
[23:13] ground. And that second-half, a lot of
[23:17] people were impressed. And I'm like, that's not even
[23:19] like 3040% of what you're going to get with Alonzo on consistent
[23:24] basis. Because if that guy has one
[23:26] thing is the fact that he's not afraid to progress centrally to
[23:31] use every possible tool to win the game, Does it or does it
[23:35] not? Again, it's a different story,
[23:37] but every game you can see the intentions are clear, the team
[23:41] has something bad to fall back. Yeah.
[23:43] And that I'm so excited about that because like, like, we
[23:47] don't need to go all the way to Guardiola, as we talked about at
[23:49] Real Madrid. We don't need full positional
[23:51] play, but we we need it will never be that football is too
[23:55] complex, though, to win where you can just roll the dice.
[23:58] Carlo Angelotti says, hey, guys, like line up however you lined
[24:01] up at the celebrations like at the pub last year or do whatever
[24:04] you want. Like, I don't know what he sells
[24:05] him. He's like, like, talk with
[24:08] yourself. You guys decide who's standing
[24:09] where. He's like playing Eye of the
[24:14] Tiger on the locker room and going like, let's go, we can do
[24:18] it. It's just.
[24:20] But with him, it's so bad now what the main thing is like
[24:25] there, it almost feels too old to be true that we could mix
[24:28] relationist functional do what you need to do to win football
[24:32] with positional pre planned structured control the game
[24:36] football. And I feel the you know,
[24:38] sometimes people ask which coaches have actually kind of
[24:41] married that gap well. And I'm sure there are a lot of
[24:44] coaches who are outside the real metered sphere, in the real
[24:46] metered sphere, I think like, or the top Champions League sphere,
[24:50] like the sometimes the German coaches kind of get there.
[24:53] They don't quite play on that dichotomy like a Jurgen or
[24:55] Flick. They kind of play their own way.
[24:57] But I think in some ways Zidane was, I know he may be a little
[25:01] more, much more positional than Carlos.
[25:02] So it's easy for us to look at that and say, oh, he's
[25:04] positional, but he wasn't as positional as like a Guardiola
[25:07] maybe second spell at points when we had no attacking talent,
[25:11] when we had the only way to score was to pay.
[25:14] Yeah, yeah, no choice. It's like, OK, our only chance
[25:16] is to like, make sure we don't concede, so let's play
[25:18] positional defensive football, which I get now here.
[25:23] Like why hasn't any coach really done this before is a big
[25:26] question. And I think it's because I think
[25:29] in the past, most coaches who are structured were always
[25:32] structured defensively. And so like Mourinho, only in
[25:36] the last 1015 years has overstructuring the offense
[25:39] become of high priority. So a lot of our coaches like
[25:42] this wasn't even on the radar until the last 10-15 years.
[25:44] And my point is, the only coach who's really married,
[25:47] functional, relational and the way we want maybe would you say
[25:50] it's Julian Naglesman where every 20 minutes, if he wants to
[25:54] change the formation, change something, he presses a button
[25:57] almost and they change everything and everything is
[25:59] different. I feel like Alonzo is a less
[26:01] experienced attempt to be a lot like Naglesman.
[26:03] That's the future of football where you run like 10 minutes of
[26:06] a set play almost every time. Like the game is like 5-6
[26:09] different plays you're running and they feel completely
[26:11] different each each phase. Adapting to the momentum, right?
[26:15] Adapting to the momentum. So if the other theme has the
[26:18] momentum, you need to adapt to it.
[26:20] Like you saw that Borse were unable to do it against Inter as
[26:24] example, but the Nagel Swan team is adaptable.
[26:29] For example, the way how we beat PSG with his by many right?
[26:34] Didn't let them score a single goal.
[26:36] That's a messing Neymar and Mape attack that when I say didn't
[26:42] let them score a single goal, he didn't even allow them to get
[26:45] the chance, let alone score. He didn't even let them get the
[26:49] chance. That's like how a coach should
[26:53] really be in my opinion. I don't agree with the extremes
[26:57] of two sides, which would kind of be like Nicola Arteta and
[27:00] Colin Cholotti is the extremes in my eyes.
[27:05] So now you're blending that in with your Nagels Mons.
[27:09] Pep is kind of going in that direction too.
[27:12] Not fully, of course, because it's Guardiola, but you have
[27:15] seen that when he he added a little bit more pragmatism and a
[27:19] little bit more freedom, he potentially created one of the
[27:23] greatest City teams of all time when they were, when they buried
[27:27] us alive, basically, that was a team that had a lot more freedom
[27:32] but was executing the things as it should be done rather than
[27:36] players having to figure out everything.
[27:39] It's fine if you allow superstars to figure one or two
[27:41] things out, right? But across multiple years,
[27:46] that's just going to be burned out.
[27:47] And that's what happened to us. So now you've got a new coach
[27:54] that's going to be adding a lot more, you know, than just hey,
[27:58] Vinny, you can get the ball and lead on progressive carries by
[28:03] like more than three times to the second guy over the last
[28:06] three years because that's the only way that I can get the ball
[28:08] to the final foot. You're not going to get that
[28:11] anymore. I want Vinny to still be high
[28:14] usage. I think he will be, but I don't
[28:16] think he's going to be to those extreme extents that Ancelotti
[28:22] got him to. I think it's gonna be a lot
[28:24] more. He's gonna have his freedom, but
[28:28] he's also gonna be limited in a few ways to where he can be more
[28:32] efficient whenever he gets the ball rather than being a fully
[28:35] blown high usage. Like Ronaldo when he went from
[28:39] United to us, how Ronaldo got better, he went from 35 to 60
[28:43] goals and. Like, yes, that's what you want.
[28:46] Basically, that's what you want. You know that it's there, but
[28:49] you need to unlock. Yeah.
[28:51] And you want that really from both Vinnie and Mbappe.
[28:53] You want whatever you want to cut both their touches down by
[28:56] equal proportion, so. I don't think you want eco.
[29:00] You still want Vinnie more on the ball, no?
[29:02] No, what I meant is if you cut Vinnie's touches in half, you
[29:05] cut Mbappe's in half, but you want Vinnie to have more.
[29:08] Yeah, but like, if you're, if we're cutting Vinnie's touches,
[29:11] we also don't want Mbappe. Like, if you're outside the box,
[29:14] bro, just make a run. Like, like don't come ask for
[29:17] it. Don't come like point down to
[29:18] your feet. Like get away, go, run.
[29:21] It's fine if he does that for as long as there's cohesion with it
[29:25] because normally if a bubble drops, normally by Ancelotti
[29:29] standards, Jude should be like that, right?
[29:32] Or maybe the right winger. But no, you just get that clock
[29:36] fast because everybody wants the ball to their feet and then not
[29:39] really willing to sacrifice. I told him if you want it, go
[29:43] get it. Carlo doesn't tell him to
[29:44] sacrifice. He might ask, but.
[29:46] He doesn't tell them go fucking sacrifice or I'll bench you.
[29:49] He doesn't. He's not going to tell Baba yo,
[29:51] look, you see that space? He probably did for a classical,
[29:55] to be honest. But yeah, you see that space.
[29:57] Well, whenever you see it, attack it, bro, because these
[30:00] guys can find you. That's not really happening.
[30:04] It's just guys put things together, you know, like guys
[30:09] figure this one, guys figure that one out and it's like there
[30:14] isn't much tactical coaching going there.
[30:16] I'm not saying that there is no tactics at all.
[30:18] I don't claim that. I think that Angelotti has his
[30:21] ideas, but his ideas are just outdated.
[30:26] His ideas of football are not really up to standard to sustain
[30:31] like long term success and that's why his cycle was done.
[30:35] But now you get a coach where I don't know how long his tenure
[30:39] is going to be. But I'll say one thing.
[30:42] When I first spoke about Alonzo in October, and the Alonzo that
[30:47] I'm speaking right now is much better one and that space of
[30:51] like months where I've seen this coaches grow and attempt things
[30:57] and have the balls to do that because there's a lot of
[31:01] pressure on him. Now he has to deliver.
[31:03] He was the unbeaten coach, so he has to deliver.
[31:07] He can be playing Europa League. He can be falling onto the
[31:09] Champions League group stages. There are a lot more games added
[31:13] for them. And he's just like, yeah, he
[31:17] delivered still. Like, imagine you're giving a
[31:21] relegation team, you're telling them, hey, you have 1/2 later or
[31:25] 2 1/2 years later, Sorry, you're going to be in a second place to
[31:29] bear money. You think that better
[31:31] recruitment fans wouldn't have taken it?
[31:33] And it's not only second place, right?
[31:36] It's constantly 2nd place. It's not like there is any
[31:40] contention there. He's he's like 11 or 9 points
[31:44] ahead with one game to go in Bundesliga and he's been losing
[31:48] games basically because there's nothing to play for for a while.
[31:52] For a man, so we feel like he we almost got a good deal, like we
[31:57] lost this year, but we got a decent deal where he gets to go
[32:00] make some mistakes and realize like, OK, maybe my assumptions
[32:03] of what will work don't work in reality.
[32:05] And Carlo, obviously, you know, he, he he thinks things will
[32:09] work in ways that they never do. And if they work, he'll focus on
[32:12] how you won and he'll ignore all the moments when his plan didn't
[32:15] actually come to fruition when they gave up by chances.
[32:17] Like like you said, when we I'm excited to actually defend in
[32:21] big games. So I'll make a note there too.
[32:23] Like we will actually like you remember in Zadan, we played big
[32:26] games fine. They were a little boring
[32:27] sometimes, but we defended. So I'll take that.
[32:31] I'll take it. Like I'll take a trade off
[32:32] figuring out what we're going to do attacking, then just go turn
[32:36] it on and know, Oh my God, this is bullshit.
[32:37] Like just where you know, if we win, it's a joke and if we lose,
[32:41] it's just probable. Like no matter what, it's a
[32:44] joke. And if we win at that point,
[32:46] you're just there for the mean. Like, you know, it was bullshit.
[32:48] Like like 2022 and 2024, we knew that was bullshit.
[32:52] But like aren't you're not going to not enjoy it.
[32:54] It's just not going to work, I think we think.
[32:56] The win is the win, right? Yeah, it just.
[32:58] Doesn't work long term. All that stuff like the goalie.
[33:01] It's not sustainable. On that note, I think every
[33:06] attacking player on this team, honestly, I think every, it
[33:09] seems sounds like every player on this team will attack and
[33:11] defend better because they'll know what to do on the ball.
[33:14] And it, it really doesn't sound like he's the type of coach
[33:16] who's going to go restrict them too much.
[33:18] Sounds like we'll find they get phases of 1015 minute pressing
[33:21] that I've been wanting my whole life.
[33:22] I don't want a pressing team. I want a team that presses 1015
[33:25] minute phases and converts energy.
[33:27] You know, that's the smartest way to play football.
[33:30] There's no use playing 100% battery and like going all out
[33:33] all the time. I think on that note, Guler,
[33:37] Truameni, Camavinga and maybe Fede, but especially these
[33:41] three, Oh my God, I, I don't think we even know who they are.
[33:44] I think we're going to realize that we actually signed
[33:46] generational players now. I think.
[33:48] I don't think our own game knows how good they are.
[33:51] Especially Germany, like a lot of Madrid finances underestimate
[33:55] that guy and his skill set. As I said, if there's one guy
[33:59] for the throne of best defensive midfielder or pivot is that guy.
[34:04] And I think it's finally time to get it.
[34:08] And I think this is the coach to make him that.
[34:11] He's not far from it anyways, but this is the coach to help
[34:15] him solidify that, Yes, but I believe it's going to be better
[34:18] than the current Balandor holder.
[34:21] Yes, I do believe that. Yeah, I I mean, I think his
[34:26] ceiling is crazy. I don't know if he'll ever be as
[34:28] offensively impact though. But two way like you don't get
[34:32] long legged DMS that can head the ball, have that technical
[34:34] range. You still defend, you just don't
[34:36] get him. Usually if you get a true of
[34:37] many, the guy can't pass the ball like you like and I know
[34:43] yes, you get a Castamiro and I know he hasn't passed the ball
[34:45] at points. And that's where I think it's
[34:47] atrocious. Like how do you take a guy with
[34:49] like elite stats at Monaco or whatever and then make him
[34:51] regress as a ball player at Real Madrid?
[34:53] How bad do you have to be? What are you doing?
[34:56] But, and that's over. That's that.
[34:58] We can be excited now. Yeah, he really regrets showing.
[35:01] Like he was the guy that I wanted.
[35:03] You have no idea how happy I was, especially when the news is
[35:06] Casimir was being shipped to. I'm like, who?
[35:09] Finally, a difference who can pass the ball, You know, like
[35:13] finally. And it's like he starts that
[35:16] way, breaks lines good with the ball, can carry it.
[35:20] He gives you everything, you're happy about it.
[35:22] And then you just slowly see that the team is starting to
[35:25] progress and he's regressing alongside it, you know, and
[35:31] let's have the fact that he started using the guy at center
[35:34] back, which he's not really sorted for.
[35:38] He can do the job there, but he plays center back like he's a
[35:41] defensive retailer. Like that's the reality.
[35:44] Like I don't think he's ever gonna adapt to that position
[35:47] unless maybe somebody like Alonzo makes him.
[35:50] But I would highly doubt it. Why would you lose that much
[35:53] quality on midfield to play him at center back?
[35:59] So that's why I like 3 at back. Talk is just completely out of
[36:03] the window for me. You might build with a three at
[36:05] back, you might defend with the three at back by pulling Shawn
[36:10] Mini back a little bit. But for the most part I don't
[36:13] see like I don't see you starting with like these fully
[36:16] wide wing backs getting into the box or maybe crossing it, load
[36:21] driven passes. So maybe pulling it back as
[36:24] we're trying to pull sequences together.
[36:26] I don't think you're gonna see that.
[36:27] You're gonna see a normal team, basically what we're used to
[36:31] seeing, just executing things that much higher level rather
[36:36] than having a complete overhaul. I don't think you're having a
[36:38] complete overhaul with Alonzo. I just think they think that
[36:42] some of the good things that we do other Unsolo T, which aren't
[36:45] many, they're going to be amplified and some of the bad
[36:49] things that we do with Unsolo T are going to be minimized.
[36:53] So basically he's not really going to have to mask, rather
[36:56] he'll just have to utilize the players of the this world.
[37:01] This would be my best way to describe what I expect out of
[37:07] Javier. Loans for tenure as well 100.
[37:09] Percent that's facts like minimize the bad that happened
[37:12] anyways without Carlo whether we won or not amplify the good that
[37:15] happens sometimes and make it more consistent make it week to
[37:18] week yes is there a. Consistent thing. 100% is there
[37:23] like a yeah, so and yeah and like we talked about Nagles man
[37:27] is like the only other evolution of this kind of and to some
[37:29] extent Zadan. Zadan had a worst team where he
[37:32] had to play a very defensive style.
[37:34] I would love to see what Zadan does after Alonzo 3 years finish
[37:37] his cycle. Would love to see another coach.
[37:39] I would love to see him back here at some point just because
[37:42] tactically off so much in that second spell and I don't blame
[37:46] him for not getting Vinnie to become a thirty goal per season
[37:49] player in that context and that time.
[37:51] You know, it took a couple years, but I'm, I'm just so
[37:55] excited, like Nagle's meant, like I'm just wanted a coach who
[37:58] is up to date for so long. We've we've been dealing with
[38:01] Carlo for so long. It's been frustrating.
[38:03] And not only that, it's nice to see the club feels the same way
[38:07] as us, where they're like, hey, Carlo, maybe we'll sign him.
[38:10] The squad is complete. Alonzo, who do you want?
[38:12] Like, I got you. I'm, I'm, I'm going.
[38:14] I'm on the phone with the club right now.
[38:15] It's a big difference, Yeah. Exactly what was the position
[38:18] that he needed all this? OK, don't worry.
[38:21] Before, before you even step here.
[38:23] We love that. So yeah, like that's how the
[38:25] club be a player, literally. And so it's exciting.
[38:30] Any final thoughts here on what to expect from him?
[38:33] I think we're going to win. I think we will win a Champions
[38:36] League within three years, no doubt on that one.
[38:39] No doubt. No.
[38:41] Doubt. No.
[38:44] Doubt I'll say this. It's going to depend on where
[38:48] the big teams are next year, but I wouldn't be shocked at all
[38:52] because there's too much talent on this team to not compete at
[38:57] all like this season. Maybe he doesn't win at all.
[39:00] Maybe. I definitely expect the league.
[39:03] It's Alonzo is a very good for that, like very good.
[39:09] If he does half as good as a job as he did at Liverpool in the
[39:12] league is going to be like probably our best spell since
[39:16] that Zidane's 2016 run. Six months run or or. 21/21 or
[39:24] 20/19/20 when we were locked in 10 in a row during the pandemic.
[39:27] I think we're going to get something like that where we
[39:29] just churn. Yeah, that was very boring.
[39:32] Yeah, yeah, for sure. Where's team?
[39:33] Where's team? Yeah.
[39:34] Yeah, no, no, no, I I get it right.
[39:37] But that was like very boring that yeah, it was result driven.
[39:41] You think it's a bit more dominant, you expect more
[39:43] dominance. Yeah, but I expect that this
[39:46] team is, look, German football will translates well in Libya.
[39:50] This was something to write it up like German football
[39:53] translates well in Libya. Look, look at Flick or Andoni
[39:57] Raul in the past. German football will translate
[40:00] well. In La Liga, because they address
[40:04] the intensity problems that you get in lake and they exploit it
[40:10] and Alonzo is definitely going to do that for next season.
[40:13] Do I believe Rahladre wins the league?
[40:15] Yes, not only because of the coach, but we literally have a
[40:18] forty goals a season player to just sit in there and probably
[40:23] going to win the Golden Shoe at this point with a very disabled
[40:27] team. Sorry for saying that if I'm.
[40:31] We frankly just came off one of the worst coached seasons
[40:33] relative to talent and expectations in the history of
[40:35] football after seeing two of the craziest seasons wins relative
[40:39] to expectations. So it's like how much ever we
[40:41] exceeded expectations with the results we underwhelmed in terms
[40:44] of the underlying process and responses last year.
[40:46] It like made-up for it, almost. Yeah, so it's just look, you
[40:52] have a forty goals a season player where could be 40 in a
[40:56] league. To be honest, I wouldn't put
[40:58] pass it. I know that everybody's going to
[41:00] pull Lily gets to defensive this and that.
[41:03] Well, he's literally making those rules himself.
[41:07] And I'll add the coach that's going to amplify those
[41:10] opportunities because you're you're going to have more of the
[41:13] ball, at least in meaningful ways.
[41:16] When I say you're going to have more of the ball, I don't
[41:18] necessarily mean that your possession stats or pass stats
[41:21] are going to look better than this season, but and.
[41:24] They probably will, and they probably will.
[41:26] Yeah, yeah. But even if it doesn't happen,
[41:30] you just, you already know that it's more meaningful way of
[41:33] holding the ball, It's more meaningful way of shifting it.
[41:36] It's more meaningful way of attacking.
[41:38] So you're going to get that. It's probably going to be a more
[41:42] transitional team because Vinnie, Jude Boppe, that's going
[41:47] to be your core Rodriguez probably gone.
[41:49] That's my opinion. So I think that is going to be a
[41:53] more transitional team. They're going to try to
[41:55] facilitate the artificial transitions and they should be
[41:58] very successful. So it's more about like, can you
[42:02] make them to just do the right thing at certain moments?
[42:08] There's a shit load of film from the season where our players
[42:12] have failed to execute the simplest passes because, again,
[42:16] they're not taught that. So I would expect that Alanso is
[42:19] going to use it. So yeah, Lunzer's going to use a
[42:22] lot to tease these players, a little bit of what to do on what
[42:26] scenario. He's not going to block them.
[42:28] He's not going to take away full freedom.
[42:30] Don't expect that to happen at all.
[42:32] I just think he's going to put them in better position to
[42:35] deliver a little bit better, especially Venie.
[42:38] Venie is the guy that needs this move the most out of all of
[42:42] these players. Agreed.
[42:44] I mean I see it's just crazy how many of them need it the most of
[42:47] all these players. Vinny needs it bad.
[42:49] Jude needs it bad. Guler needs it.
[42:51] Jude and Manny needs it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[42:53] But. He needs it.
[42:56] I'm. Talking like from all the
[42:58] superstars, Vinny's the guy that's going to benefit the most
[43:01] by far. He's going to benefit the most
[43:04] by far. Interesting.
[43:06] Well, it'll be fascinating to see what he does.
[43:10] Le Conte. It's been fun talking about
[43:12] Alonzo. Yeah.
[43:14] And yeah, we'll, we'll be back with more content this summer.
[43:18] We're, we're developing things, we're building our website.
[43:20] But yeah, we'll, we'll definitely be back with more
[43:22] content talking about Trent Alexander Arnold, our new center
[43:25] back from Bournemouth and more. So thank you all for tuning in.
[43:31] Thank you all of that. Make sure to subscribe.
[43:33] And I hope that we didn't have the same audio problems that we
[43:36] had last time I appeared. Apologies for that.
[43:38] So yeah, that's right.

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