Barcelona vs. Real Madrid – Game Highlights (1:14)Watch the Game Highlights from Barcelona vs. Real Madrid, 01/11/2026 (1:14)
“We have to move on, as soon as possible,” Alonso told Spanish TV. “It’s the least important of the competitions we play. Now we have to look forward, get [injured] players and our morale back, and carry on.”
It’s true that this week, Real Madrid are moving on, but without Alonso. Less than a day after that 3-2 loss to their biggest rivals, the club announced that he was leaving. A short statement, released just after 6 p.m. Spanish time on Monday, read: “By mutual agreement between the club and Xabi Alonso, it has been decided to bring his time as first team coach to an end.”
Just 233 days after being appointed, Alonso — a Madrid legend as a player, and one of the most highly-rated young coaches in world football — was gone. On Monday evening, his coaching staff were already collecting their things at the club’s Valdebebas training ground. Alonso’s successor had already been confirmed: his former teammate, friend and coach of reserve team Castilla, Álvaro Arbeloa.
The situation was not viewed as sustainable. Alonso’s departure was agreed. And now the post-mortem of his time in charge begins.
The strength of Alonso’s position as Madrid coach had one significant drawback from the start, club sources told ESPN. His arrival as coach had not been instigated by Pérez. Instead, Alonso’s champion was José Ángel Sánchez, the club’s popular director general. He spoke to Alonso when his Bayer Leverkusen team came to Madrid in January 2025, to play Atlético in the Champions League.
Sources within the club, and close to Alonso, said there was never the same degree of connection between Pérez and Alonso that had been there, at times, with Ancelotti or Zinedine Zidane. Alonso himself felt that Pérez had not completely bought into his methods, while some players felt Alonso’s decision-making was limited by a lack of support from the president. It was a major, eventually fatal handicap for the Alonso era, and one that was built into its foundations.
Alonso’s appointment was confirmed on May 25, 2025, with a formal presentation the following day. The coach had not wanted to take charge before the FIFA Club World Cup, believing it would be more advantageous to begin a new project with a more conventional preseason. The club had other ideas.
Alonso struggled to hide his feelings. “These are the circumstances,” he said at his unveiling, showing little enthusiasm for the summer tournament. “And as it’s like that, I see it as an opportunity.”
In the team’s time in the United States, the first fault lines between Alonso and senior members of the squad developed. Multiple sources close to the dressing room told ESPN that Alonso’s handling of Vinícius Júnior upset the player. Alonso first considered experimenting with Vinícius on the right wing, and then planned to drop him for Madrid’s semifinal with Paris Saint-Germain. Only a late reshuffle, forced by injury, changed his plans. The episode badly damaged the pair’s relationship.
Alonso had the misfortune to succeed Ancelotti, a genius at squad management and perhaps the coach best-qualified to deal with Madrid’s star-studded, ego-filled roster. Despite his success at Leverkusen, and his past as an elite player, it was a challenge Alonso had never faced.
It would be unfair not to recognise the high points of Alonso’s brief reign. There were early signs of change and improvement in the team’s play at the Club World Cup. When 2025-26 started, Madrid won 13 of their first 14 games. The season peaked with a 2-1 Clásico win over Barcelona at the Bernabéu in LaLiga, on Oct. 26. A year earlier, Ancelotti’s Madrid had lost the same fixture 4-0.
It felt like progress, but a result that should have served as confirmation that Alonso’s Madrid were heading in the right direction was undermined by one, headline-grabbing moment: Vinícius Júnior’s furious reaction at being substituted in the 72nd minute. “Me voy del equipo” (“I’ll leave, shall I?”),” TV images appeared to show Vinícius shouting as he left the field and headed down the tunnel. “Mejor me voy” (“Best that I leave”).
Just as damaging for Alonso was the reaction in the days that followed, as Vinícius apologised to everyone — except his manager. Sources close to the locker room told ESPN that other players, already unhappy, now sensed weakness in Alonso and his lack of support from within the club. In his first real crisis, the coach hadn’t received the backing he needed; instead, his decision to substitute Vinícius had been undermined.
“There’s a process, an interaction with the players. Some days are good, some days are not so good, but in every game we take steps. We’re in this position now, and we have to face it with energy and positivity.”
Alonso urged journalists to “keep calm” in his last words before the Christmas break, suggesting he expected to remain in charge. 2026 began with a 5-1 win over Real Betis, and then the Supercopa. Madrid were fortunate to beat Atlético 2-1 in the semifinal, and then competed against Barcelona while adopting a pragmatic, defensive approach.
In the aftermath of the Supercopa, his position was viewed as fragile, but intact, with even journalists close to Pérez confidently writing that Alonso had bought himself time. As it turned out, it was just a few hours.
A number of issues had hindered the team, sources said. Alonso felt some players were not looking after themselves properly, citing concerns with their diet. The coach was also concerned with the number of dressing-room leaks appearing in the media, a feeling shared by some of the players who backed him.
Sources close to the coach pinpointed an influential, vocal minority of players who had been unwilling to take on board his ideas. They named three senior players: Vinícius Júnior in particular, but also Jude Bellingham and Federico Valverde.
A source told ESPN that Bellingham had been reluctant to accept Alonso’s tactical vision, although — unlike with Vinícius — those differences had not played out in public. Bellingham denied reports of dressing room unrest this month, saying the squad were “all behind” the manager and that claims of behind-the-scenes issues were “fabricated” and “exaggerated.”
“It didn’t go as we would have liked,” Alonso posted on social media on Tuesday. “Coaching Real Madrid has been an honour and a responsibility. I leave with respect, gratitude and pride that I did my best.”
There were disagreements with the club, too, over squad planning. Trent Alexander-Arnold, Dean Huijsen, Álvaro Carreras and Franco Mastantuono were signed last summer. None of them were the tempo-setting midfielder Alonso wanted. Martín Zubimendi, who joined Arsenal, had a close relationship with Alonso, having worked with him at Real Sociedad. The club didn’t believe such a signing was necessary, pointing to the squad’s existing midfield options. Sources close to the coach told ESPN that Alonso felt that decision had significantly hindered the teams’ possibilities of success this season.
Locker-room sources told ESPN that early in the season, Alonso — a man with clear ideas, determined to implement them — gave the players little leeway. He wanted to change various features of the players’ daily routine, and their habits. He wanted to see an improvement in punctuality. He wanted to see fewer outside figures — people close to players, but not part of the squad and coaching staff — present at the training ground. It was a change which was not well received by some in the dressing room.
Alonso had already omitted the Brazil forward from the starting XI for games against Real Oviedo and Marseille. His management of the player, starting at the Club World Cup, had raised eyebrows inside the club, with senior executives questioning the wisdom of Alonso’s approach, with Vinícius’s contract renewal — his deal up in 2027 — in the balance. Now, Vinícius’s reaction, in the most public setting possible, a packed Bernabéu, the biggest game of the season, had laid bare the extent of the tension.
There was little sign of that energy and positivity on the pitch, but Alonso survived until Christmas with three wins in a week against Alavés, Talavera and Sevilla. Sources told ESPN that most of the squad supported the coach, and the players were willing to accept some of the features of Alonso’s management style — such as an increased emphasis on video analysis — which they had rejected at first. However, there was also a recognition that at Real Madrid, when the team is on the kind of run they faced in November and December, the usual outcome is that the coach loses his job.
At board level, there was frustration at various aspects of Alonso’s management, with injuries, and the coach’s handling of Vinícius, two of the main concerns, as well as one, inescapable reality: the team had not been playing well, consistently, for months. One club source said that Alonso’s downbeat demeanour at the training ground in recent weeks had not gone down well with executives as the coach tried, and failed, to unlock the team’s potential. In the end, the club reached the conclusion that it wasn’t going to happen.
Barcelona vs. Real Madrid – Game Highlights (1:14)Watch the Game Highlights from Barcelona vs. Real Madrid, 01/11/2026 (1:14)
– Alonso wasn’t perfect, but sacking him ignores Madrid’s real problems – How Alonso’s Madrid tenure compared with Mourinho, Ancelotti, Zidane – Arbeloa, Alonso’s successor, will bring a bit of Mourinho back to Madrid
Additional reporting by ESPN’s Rodra and Rodrigo Faez
Sources close to the coach told ESPN that Alonso leaves Real Madrid disappointed on multiple fronts: disappointed with the contributions of some key players; disappointed that, unlike at Leverkusen, he had not had the freedom to implement his ideas; disappointed with himself, believing he could have handled certain situations differently.
Watch the Game Highlights from Barcelona vs. Real Madrid, 01/11/2026 (1:14)