Xabi Alonso was officially dismissed as Real Madrid head coach on Monday, with former club defender Álvaro Arbeloa appointed as his replacement after working with the club’s youth teams. While the decision angered a large section of the fanbase, it also sparked intense debate and criticism across Spanish media and among former Real Madrid players.
Spain’s most widely read sports daily, Marca, dedicated a lengthy front-page feature to Alonso’s departure, headlined:
“The day Xabi fell and everything went to hell: ‘I didn’t know I was coming to coach kindergarten kids!’”
According to the report, that single sentence marked the moment when Alonso’s relationship with a significant part of the squad broke beyond repair.
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The Phrase That Changed Everything
As Marca explains, tensions between Alonso and the dressing room had been building behind the scenes for weeks. The distance between coach and players steadily increased until it finally exploded during a training session in November.
In a moment of visible frustration, Alonso lost his temper and shouted at his players:
“I didn’t know I was coming to coach a kindergarten!”
It was not a calculated wake-up call nor a brief emotional outburst. Instead, it was described as a cry of exhaustion and despair. Alonso had grown increasingly irritated by what he felt was a lack of tactical discipline, focus, and commitment during training sessions.
“Long faces, lack of concentration, whispering… until he finally exploded and said out loud what he had been thinking for a long time,” Marca wrote. “That sentence opened a wound in the relationship with the squad that never healed.”
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Tactical Overload and Mental Fatigue
From the players’ perspective, Alonso’s training sessions were excessively demanding on a tactical level. Several squad members reportedly complained about being overloaded with too much information in too little time.
Alonso’s intense focus on details, constant corrections, and near-obsessive tactical work began to wear down not only the players but also members of his own coaching staff. Discontent reportedly extended to his assistants as well, particularly his right-hand man Sebas Parrilla.
The presence of multiple coaches constantly issuing instructions and monitoring every detail made players feel under constant pressure. Day by day, the atmosphere deteriorated, and psychological fatigue set in.
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Two Sides, One Growing Divide
Alonso, however, saw the situation very differently. The packed schedule — including the Club World Cup followed by an immediate return to competition with minimal preparation time — left him convinced that he had not been given enough space to implement his ideas properly.
He believed the team needed urgent tactical correction and that every minute on the training pitch was essential. In his view, the squad was far from the version of Real Madrid he envisioned, and the process needed to be accelerated.
“Xabi knew the team was far from what he had in mind,” Marca noted. “But the pace of work and the absorption of new concepts ran into resistance in the dressing room. The two sides were no longer on the same wavelength.”
In short, Alonso was unhappy with the players — and the players were unhappy with Alonso.
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Arbeloa’s Name Begins to Circulate
As tensions mounted, rumors about Álvaro Arbeloa began to circulate within the dressing room. Whether it was a deliberate move by the club or simply a perception among players, his increasing presence around first-team training sessions did not go unnoticed.
Arbeloa, then coach of Castilla, was regularly seen observing sessions, fueling uncertainty and speculation. The idea that he could be a future solution only added to the fragile atmosphere.
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From Tension to Collapse
Results soon reflected the internal unrest. Real Madrid lost what little stability they had, problems piled up, and confidence drained away. Although the squad made late attempts to rally together and avoid Alonso’s dismissal, the damage had already been done.
The Spanish Super Cup final defeat became the final blow, but as Marca concludes, the true beginning of the end came much earlier — the day Alonso shouted during training and the bond with his players fractured for good.
