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Los Blancos are in utter disarray, the majority of the squad barely
on speaking terms with Zidane’s predecessor Rafael Benitez. No one –
not fans, players or journalists – believe this catastrophe of a season
can be rectified. President Florentino Perez has only turned to a club
legend, with just 18 months’ third-tier experience as head coach of
the club’s reserves, because he knows the 1998 Ballon d’Or winner will
at least unite a fanbase that is increasingly calling for his own head.
He is, at least according to the crows of Barcelona-based sports
paper Mundo Deportivo, “a plaster”.
And all Zidane can contemplate from this impending car crash of
a campaign is winning. Everything.
Eighteen months on from that promise, his team have won seven of
the 10 competitions contested, including La Liga, two UEFA Super Cups
and both Champions Leagues. They became the first team to defend
the latter since 1990 and the only side to do it since the tournament’s
change of format in 1992-93. Real Madrid’s 2016-17 double of La Liga
and the Champions League was the first time they had won both in
the same season since 1957-58.
“No one expected ‘Zidane the manager’ and I include myself in
that,” he admitted earlier this year. “When you stop playing, you think
about things and take advantage of spending time with your family,
but my idea was being on the pitch. I’m from the pitch. I really
wanted this.”R
eal Madrid’s new manager is 25 minutes into his
first press conference on January 5, 2016. The
assembled press pack has tossed up the usual
questions without much in the way of a standout
quote emanating from the latest coach to climb
aboard Los Blancos’ tritutador de entrenadores, ‘the
manager grinder’ that gobbles up and spits out
coaches with relentless regularity.
One question, though, has just piqued the newbie’s
interest. He stiffens in his chair, scratches his balding
head and then adjusts the microphone in front of
him. Finally, he shakes his head and fixes his steely
gaze firmly to his left and the origin of the question.
What would Zinedine Zidane be happy with at the
end of the season?
“Ganarlo todo.” ‘Winning everything.’ He goes on. “Our objective is
to win. We have two titles to win and by the end of the year, we want
to have won both.”
Third-placed Real Madrid are four points behind the leaders (and city
rivals) Atletico, have lost the first Clasico of the campaign 4-0 against
Barcelona and have been dumped out of the Copa del Rey for playing
an ineligible player, Denis Cheryshev. On the horizon is a tricky-looking
Champions League tie with Roma.122 The Managers FourFourTwo.comZIDAn E