They lost the league much earlier than the 3 points gap suggests. All whilst on paper having a squad with superior depth to what Madrid had to offer.
Zinedine Zidane | Resigns
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Nah. You can discredit Zidane by saying he only won the league because Barca couldn't beat Alaves and Getafe. By YOUR logic, not mine. I gave credit to both Luis Enrique and Zidane for winning the league btw. Leagues are won by the best team almost every single time, and such was the case in the last 3 years with Barca two times, and Madrid this season.
Barca relaxed because of the huge lead they had at some point and was close to bottling it. They pulled themselves together when they had no margin of error anymore and won the double. Deservedly. There was no luck involved. Just premature relaxation on their part.
Funny how you mention luck, but don't say anything about the last CL when Zidane won the title on penalties (as lucky as you get in football) with an offside goal and a missed penalty by Atletico. Do yourself a favor and don't talk about luck as if it applies to some, and not to others.
I like Zidane the manager, he has a calming presence and seems to have the right balance between pragmatism and entertainment, the players seem to enjoy playing with and for each others.
What an absolute winner. I had no idea what to expect from him seeing as he was just another ex player coming in. He has an own idea of how to play with a pragmatic view totally different from his style as a player. Now with Barca being in a vulnerable situation he can become an all time great.
Delighted it is working out for Zizou,Legend.
Going to win 3 CL in a row.
More titles won than losses suffered in his time as manager. Mental.
He's the Real deal
He's doing a good job getting this team working well, but for me a sign of a great manager is turning a not so good team into a great team.
RM were already fantastic when he took them over, for me to consider him 1 of the best he needs to continue this over a long time period, or join a worse team and really improve them.
Same reasons why I doubt Guardiola really, whenever the going's got tough he's left.
RM were already fantastic when he took them over, for me to consider him 1 of the best he needs to continue this over a long time period, or join a worse team and really improve them.
Same reasons why I doubt Guardiola really, whenever the going's got tough he's left.
I know he wasn't there an awful long time (5 seasons) but pretty crazy that that era of the Galacticos with some of the players they had and the money they were throwing about only won x1 La Liga and x1 CL.
Brilliant to read the comments in BBC's live feed the night Rafa was sacked and Zizou hired. Love it when experts and pundits get it so fecking wrong!
Which is simply ridiculous. It's almost destroying the elusive legacy of the competition itself.
They weren't already fantastic though.
They got smashed 4-0 at the Bernabeu under Benitez and were looking dismal under him. Zidane came in and improved them right away.
When he has to do a proper rebuild job at Madrid is when we'll see what he's truly made of. When you have players like Modric, Isco, Ronaldo, Benzema, Marcelo ect. Instantly at your disposal, can you do a lot wrong? Especially with Barca falling off a cliff.
Well they clearly didn't want to play for Benitez, but the squad was already there. He's got them playing better but I wouldn't say he's "built" this team.
If Zidane stays passed this generation and creates a new team then I will believe in him more.
I agree he hasn't necessarily built the team, but he came in and improved them a lot. He was the one who finally figured out how to maximize Kroos-Modric together after both Ancelotti and Benitez failed to do so.
Deserves a lot of credit imo.
Don't he'll ever be given the chance to build a team in the way you caftards seem to mean. He's never going to do anything more than give input and opinions on transfers
Ancelotti had the Modric-Kroos duo dominating games in a way not seen since Barca in 2011. Modric lost more than half of that season to injury
I don't even really mean to rebuild everything, I just want to see what happens when thing start to go wrong. Can he drag them back up? or will it all collapse.
He's at a golden age right now, more trophies than losses? that's just not just his coaching, you've got a fantastic team.
Once the losses start and the pressure raises can he continue, that's the true measure of a great coach.
He took over a squad that the two managers before him had as well and is significantly more successful. What else do you want a manager to do?
These discussions are so weird. Nobody in their right mind would doubt that real has a world-class squad. Yet that alone doesn't mean that you have to actually win stuff. Teams underperform all the time.
Zidane is not making it about himself, while some managers do. He changed their lineup/tacrics significantly and create great team spirit but he doesn't brag/rant about it. If anything it shows that most of the talk of managers is just that: talk. PR.
These discussions are so weird. Nobody in their right mind would doubt that real has a world-class squad. Yet that alone doesn't mean that you have to actually win stuff. Teams underperform all the time.
Zidane is not making it about himself, while some managers do. He changed their lineup/tacrics significantly and create great team spirit but he doesn't brag/rant about it. If anything it shows that most of the talk of managers is just that: talk. PR.
This. Ancelotti was definitely the one that solved Kroos-Modric. Also for me the one who designed the tactical model which this side still broadly follows.
But you can't take away from what Zidane has done. Despite all their money and the relative comfort of their league, they weren't achieving this sort of dominance before and now they are.
I'd like to see what he can do with building the team in the future, of course, but I don't think we should underestimate what he's done with building the team already. There've already seemingly been changes in the way Real have been doing their business and I'm pretty sure that Zidane's known aversion to getting a new layer of gold paint while selling the engine has something to do with it.
And while it will be interesting to see how he handles a run of poor games, he's already handled the pressure very well. After a slightly poorer run last season people were ramping up the pressure on the team but he just kept calm and carried on with what he was doing. And it's hard to see how he'll face a intense situation than the one he started in. People were ready to tear him down immediately.
And although it's true that Barcelona are in difficulties, those difficulties are partly caused by Real Madrid and how well they're playing. In a similar way to the problems at Real five years ago being partly caused by how well Barcelona were playing at the time.
And while it will be interesting to see how he handles a run of poor games, he's already handled the pressure very well. After a slightly poorer run last season people were ramping up the pressure on the team but he just kept calm and carried on with what he was doing. And it's hard to see how he'll face a intense situation than the one he started in. People were ready to tear him down immediately.
And although it's true that Barcelona are in difficulties, those difficulties are partly caused by Real Madrid and how well they're playing. In a similar way to the problems at Real five years ago being partly caused by how well Barcelona were playing at the time.
Yeah, that's why the majority of posters were saying he was going to get sacked in x months after he took over...
If he failed it would have been normal as he was a bad appointment but now that he is doing a fantastic job we'll hear more and more that nobody can fail with a squad like that. Some people just can't win.
Good post, agree completely.
It's more like some people can't admit they're wrong.
He's been a great manager. What a human being!
Delighted for him, if only for the fact that the experts on here (and in the press) were so certain he was going to fail and he'd get fired (well there's still time for that). Hope he gets to test himself in other leagues.
The most surprising thing about his time as manager his attitude. He has been down to earth and kept himself and his squad away from becoming the source of public entertainment and has kept Perez at a distance. Their fans must love him and need to make sure they get fully behind him when they go through a rough patch.
Ancelotti was successful in Madrid, but his system was very different from that of Zidane. He frequently used Kroos as dm, which was very much part of the problem.
Zidane didnt radically change anything, but he introduced a proper DM from day1 and now he shifted towards isco in a free role and plays a very differently system. They also put much more emphasis on crossing the ball, which works great for them.
He isn't just following Carlos blueprint. Additionally he is making great use of the squad, which gives the team consistency and keeps everyone happy. We also know that real is a notoriously difficult place for a manager. Big egos everywhere. Zidane is doing a great job. That won't last forever but that's also just normal.
Someone like him is the perfect personality when it comes to being a Real manager. Huge egos around the squad and Perez for president means they need a guy who commands respect and Zidane is as big as it gets in that regard. Always believed that no matter how good a tactician you might be, you need a big personality to get anywhere at Real.
Give some credit to Benitez for Casemiro.
I feel sorry for Benitez. Did the players ever give the guy a chance to prove himself?
The first time i have seen madrid, with a sense in higher hierarchy in management since decades.
The most surprising thing during his tenure as a manager is shift in transfer policy, Real are signing talented young players rather than superstars. Is he responsible for this or something has changed at Real. Maybe some of the Real fans can give an insight on this
Maybe an acceptance that the pure Galactico model alone doesn't work. Although it seems that they can do no wrong with transfers lately.
Also the man-management and keeping everyone happy and involved thing is something he learned from Ancelotti. Zidane is doing all the things Ancelotti did that worked, while improving on the few problems of the Ancelotti era(mainly, fitness and approach to games)
He's doing about as well as it is possible to do with what he has.
And to say that we need to see him build the team, well, he never will at madrid, he'll oversaw the changes, and then we'll see about that. But considering the B team(the more coachable in terms of tactics and sacrifice) last season played was better than the A team...
Uhm, no. Ancelotti's problems were working with a hand tied behind his back(because perez), modric's injury, and a short bench. Zidane is very much following ancelotti's blueorint in terms of playing style and man-management, but he's got a better bench and Perez listens to him and allows him to do what he thinks it's best. Zidane didn't play Casemiro from day one, he started playing him after losing the derby at home. He was never forced to make kroos-modric-james-bbc co-exist. He's doing an even better job than Ancelotti in certain areas, but overall a big reason why he's been better is that he doesn't have to deal with Florentino messing with his job
We'll never know what would've happened had Modric not got injured and Florentino wasn't forcing Ancelotti to play the BBC and James all the time. The lineup of death was the best i ever saw, right there with barca in 2011. That team was like the football equivalent of a tsunami
@barmyarmy Asensio was signed in 2014. Zidane has a lot to do with us not splashing the cash on big targets in favour of giving continuity to the team over the last two summers(he's the main reason we haven't signed de gea for example), but he doesn't set the club's transfer policy. That's just Florentino finally understanding that football is not about collecting stars
Wasn't it Benitez who first played Casemiro? Correct if I am wrong but there were reports of Benitez having a run in with Perez because of it too?
Wasn't it Benitez who first played Casemiro? Correct if I am wrong but there were reports of Benitez having a run in with Perez because of it too?
Yes, it is a big advantage Florentino seems to trust Zidane a lot and follow his advice. He was brought back to work in the club by Florentino to begin with to give him advice and then he started getting more involved in managerial positions within the club and providing further advice in some of the signings. He's also respected by the players because of his status while they couldn't care less about someone like Benitez trying to micro-manage them.
He also seems to put a lot of trust in the younger players and he has also brought some players he knows from Castilla into the first team so I do think he has influenced in the transfer politics.
He also seems to put a lot of trust in the younger players and he has also brought some players he knows from Castilla into the first team so I do think he has influenced in the transfer politics.