Why do Real Madrid coaches often favour stars over style?

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When we talk about Real Madrid, we tend to celebrate players more than coaches, with more focus on individual brilliance instead of inspired ideas perfected on the training ground.

It is a deep-rooted trend that dates back at least to the 1950s — the decade during which then-Madrid president Santiago Bernabeu went out to sign the best talents around, including Alfredo Di Stefano, Ferenc Puskas and Raymond Kopa. It gave rise to the club’s first golden era, with Madrid winning five consecutive European Cups between 1956 and 1960.

From that time to the present day, the same mantra can be traced, up to and including the strategy of current president Florentino Perez, who always says in public and in private that he has followed in Bernabeu’s footsteps.

But it has not been a constant theme. There have been periods of contrast, managers who wanted to go against the grain. The appointment of Xabi Alonso as Carlo Ancelotti’s replacement is another example of the cycle turning. Already, we have seen his different approach at the Club World Cup, where Madrid reached the semi-finals before being knocked out with a 4-0 defeat by Paris Saint-Germain.

So why have Madrid so often preferred to rely on the leadership of their star names over that of their managers? And what does it mean for Alonso as he shapes his new-look side?

Perhaps the best illustration of Madrid’s preference for individuals over tactics comes from taking a look at their most successful coaches.

“The last seven European Cups were won with (Vicente) del Bosque, (Zinedine) Zidane and (Carlo) Ancelotti, who are not particularly tactical coaches,” Jorge Valdano, the former Madrid and Argentina striker who also served as the club’s general manager, tells The Athletic.

“I remember that on one occasion within the club, they asked Zidane how he liked to play at the back, with four or three players, and Zidane answered that it was not the important thing.

“For him, the relationship between the great players was important, above all that an atmosphere of communion between all of them would generate the competitiveness that every coach seeks. Method was always placed below the talent of the players.”

Historically, Madrid’s directors, and especially its presidents, have played a key role in the club’s sporting decisions. Their argument is that coaches come and go, while those executives can provide a stable, long-term project.

But one of the consequences is that coaches have less room to make decisions than at other clubs. It means those who have been selected for the Bernabeu dugout have often stood out for their diplomacy rather than any grand ideas.

All that has been reflected in Madrid’s style of play, which is regularly based on players’ characteristics rather than any one coach’s vision.

During his second spell at the club from 2021 to 2025, Ancelotti’s staff emphasised that players became better by sharing the pitch with their team-mates. They argued that the team’s members then had the freedom to flourish collectively while also shining individually.

Ancelotti’s staff emphasised the importance of players learning together on the pitch (David Ramos/Getty Images)

Not that this approach has always worked — sometimes the directors have regretted conceding so much ground to the players.

After Perez’s first exit as president in 2006 (he was re-elected in 2009), he famously said he had “brought up the players (the galacticos he had signed) badly”, which featured on the front cover of Spanish sports daily Marca. That was the second season in a row Madrid had finished without any silverware despite having stars such as David Beckham, Zidane and Ronaldo.

Fabio Capello took the reins at Madrid that year for a second time after spells at Milan, Roma and Juventus.

“It was important to have a different style of play,” the former England manager tells The Athletic of the 2006-07 season. “When I came to the team, I worked a lot tactically, I understood that the whole team had to move together up front and behind to have balance. It was not a conservative style.

“Now everyone who talks about football talks about this — that you have to run, that you have to help each other — but that’s just what I used to do. It’s very simple. I decided to sell Ronaldo — he was out for two and a half months because he was injured.

“I tried to make the team more collective than individualistic. Both times, I came from two periods when we didn’t win much (in 1995-96, Madrid finished sixth in La Liga and were trophyless). The most important thing is that everyone was a collective.”

Capello’s approach helped Madrid win La Liga for the first time in four years, although they exited both the Champions League and the Copa del Rey at the round of 16. The Italian was sacked 11 days after that league win — interestingly, then-sporting director Predrag Mijatovic said “we always have to look for people who can give us more than just results” when announcing the decision.

Capello wanted to make Madrid more of a collective (Adam Davy – PA Images via Getty Images)

Alonso has implemented a different approach since arriving before the Club World Cup. In an interview with DAZN after Madrid’s round-of-16 win against Juventus, he said he had listened to Ancelotti during the season when talking about problems of balance with the team’s four star forwards, Kylian Mbappe, Vinicius Junior, Rodrygo and Jude Bellingham. Alonso has stressed to the players that they should make an effort to defend and work equally.

One source close to a player in the squad wondered whether such intensity and specific instructions would be “sustainable” in the long term, and above all whether well-established players would have the humility to accept all of Alonso’s ideas.

In a way, that is what happened in the 2012-13 season, Jose Mourinho’s third and final year as Madrid coach, when Alonso was a player at the Bernabeu.

Mourinho had moulded the team in his image: putting pressure on rivals, playing an extremely direct style and exerting total control over the dressing room. But despite winning the league the previous season with a record-breaking 100 points and 121 goals (the points total was equalled by Barcelona the following season), the Portuguese coach’s demanding methods eventually led to a dressing-room rift.

Mourinho’s methods were not universally popular at Madrid (Gonzalo Arroyo Moreno/Getty Images)

Sergio Ramos, Pepe, Cristiano Ronaldo and goalkeeper Iker Casillas did not agree with Mourinho’s methods and distanced themselves from the coach. That was clear in the Copa del Rey final they lost against Diego Simeone’s Atletico Madrid — the final game of Mourinho’s tenure, when he was sent off in the 75th minute. The players appeared to be managing their team-mates from the bench after that dismissal.

Another clear example was Rafa Benitez, two years after Mourinho’s departure.

One of the anecdotes that best defines the situation was when the Spanish press published reports that Benitez had insisted to Luka Modric that he should not hit the ball with his instep — supposedly because it was not an effective pass.

In 2023, Benitez denied that in an interview with radio station Cadena Ser: “I simply told him that he didn’t have to hit the ball like that in three-metre movements because the ball comes to the receiver with spin. He hits it sensationally with the outside of his boot, but on 15, 20 or 30-metre shots.”

The Spaniard did not last long and was quickly replaced by Zidane in 2016, promoted from the ‘B’ team, Castilla.

So how have the players responded to Alonso’s methods?

Mbappe and Vinicius Jr were the two players who seemed to struggle the most with off-the-ball work last season. Both showed some signs of change during the tournament in the United States.

The club’s board described the arrival of the Basque coach as a “change of cycle”. Alonso, meanwhile, said exactly what fans wanted to hear in his unveiling press conference when he described how his team would “transmit energy and emotion”.

“As football is becoming more and more tactical, we have arrived at this Real Madrid where Xabi Alonso is a coach with very, very clear ideas, undoubtedly influenced by his time at Bayern Munich and by his time with Guardiola’s team (he coached Alonso at Bayern from 2014-2016),” says Valdano.

“All the teams that have been trying to impose themselves on the international scene lately end up giving more importance to the coach than to the players. Xabi is going to have to compete with Mbappe, Vinicius and other big names who have a lot of stature. But hiring Xabi means hiring more collective influence.”

The signs seemed to be promising before that semi-final drubbing by PSG. And Madrid need the project to work after finishing a season without any major trophies for the first time in four years.

But whether Alonso’s approach leads to him joining Zidane, Ancelotti and company on the list of Madrid’s great coaches — or going the way of Mourinho or Benitez — remains to be seen.

(Top photos: Alonso and Zidane have contrasting management styles; by Getty Images)

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