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“This is a team, it is a club, and we all go together hand in hand,” the Real Madrid coach declared, maybe affirming somewhat excessively. “When you’re Real Madrid coach you’re ready,” he continued on the morning before the English champions visit once more the Santiago Bernabéu for the latest meeting of a contemporary rivalry. “I anticipate the challenge ahead, starting tomorrow—an opening to redirect the disappointment. Our minds are fixed solely on City. Football, for better or worse, is a game of swift changes.” Failure and things could alter for good, and definitively: this opportunity is an imperative, too.

Urgent Meetings After Poor Loss at the Bernabéu

Following Madrid’s woefully inadequate 2-0 home defeat on Sunday, Alonso said he had “reached some conclusions,” and he was far from the only one. Into the early hours, urgent meetings persisted, the club’s hierarchy drawing their own conclusions after a single win in five league games. Their diagnoses were not the same and while radical changes are being postponed, tolerance has limits, the names of potential replacements already circulating. “One must confront such circumstances, but my focus is solely on the match, on elements within my power,” Alonso commented

“Undoubtedly the manager prepared a solid strategy, but ultimately, we the footballers are the ones performing,” the French midfielder stated. “Losing by two goals to Celta points to a deficiency in our performance, not the coach's planning.”

A Quick Decline After Early Success

City will be his twenty-eighth outing in charge of Madrid and it might be his final one at a club where a crisis is always just two losses around the corner, where even sharing points is insufficient, and there’s perpetually an alternative who can coach. Things have indeed shifted swiftly, even if the origins of the trouble were there from the start. Sold as a systems coach, precisely the required remedy after a season of laissez-faire and failure, Alonso was an anomaly at a players’ club.

When Madrid triumphed in El Clásico in late October, they established a five-point lead at the top. They had won 12 of 13 competitive games, although the loss had been heavy: 5-2 at Atlético. It also highlighted flaws. Substituted on 72 minutes, Vinícius Júnior stormed off down the tunnel, seemingly ready to quit the club. In a statement a few days later he said sorry to all but Alonso. At the executive level, rather than backing the coach, there was a conspicuous quiet.

Frictions Emerging

Within the dressing room, the assessment was clear: Alonso ought not to have substituted Vinícius off. Pressed on the issue if he would make the same call, Alonso replied: “I don’t know what that question is for. If I see in the moment that I have to take a decision on the pitch, I do.” Strains had been laid bare, a separation between manager and certain squad members. Federico Valverde too had made his frustrations public. The puzzle pieces weren't aligning as they should. A typical grievance began to surface about all the instructions, the video analysis, the long sessions. Who did he think he was, the manager?!

More than a week after the clásico, Madrid were defeated at Anfield, starting a sequence of two wins in seven. When adopting a straightforward approach, they defeated Olympiakos and Athletic Bilbao but between those drew at Rayo, Elche and Girona. Belatedly, talks were held to repair cracks or at least paper over the issues, to establish peace. Focus was directed at the footballers for the first time.

A Fragile Truce

In Bilbao, where they had been gathered a day early, it seemed some middle ground had been reached; Alonso meeting their needs more than they did his. A thawing of relations was staged when Vinícius hugged the 44-year-old as he departed. Two days off followed. A few days after, though, Celta beat them and so it disintegrates anew.

That it is known that Alonso’s future is on the line is as significant as the fact it is. If Madrid beat City, that can always be denied, but it is intentional. Alonso knows that. He also knows, for all that he tried to talk about player absences and injustice, not even truly persuading himself, Madrid were terrible against Celta: a lack of style, no attitude, no structure.

The Manager: The Most Obvious Solution

But the most vulnerable point, is always the manager, and Alonso’s future, more than the sporting matters, overshadowed the preparation to this game. However much the man who is still Madrid’s manager kept trying to bring it back to the match, which he did with nearly each answer. The most concise reply he gave might have been the most revealing, had he truly believed it. Asked if he felt the whole squad was behind him, Alonso replied in a solitary term: “yes.”

“Managing Real Madrid doesn't involve transforming the culture; it requires fitting in,” Alonso added. “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.”

It was when he was asked if he felt isolated that Alonso talked of a team, a club, that goes in unison, and when attention was turned to the question of endorsement or the deficit from above, he answered: “Communication [with the hierarchy] is constant, and it comes from confidence, unity and affection. We’re all together in this. We’re mentally ready to face everything that comes: the team is united, convinced that we can win tomorrow, no one has any doubts about that. It is the Champions League. We are at the Bernabéu. The atmosphere will be special. That creates a different energy, including in the players.”