MADRID — A few days before Real Madrid
and Barcelona were to meet in the first Clásico of last season, the
Madrid team’s manager at the time, Rafael Benítez, sat down with the
club’s president, Florentino Pérez.
It
was only November, and Benítez had been in his post for only a few
months, but even at that early stage of the season, his position was
shrouded in doubt. There was a lack of what the captain Sergio Ramos
would later call “affinity” between the cool, methodical manager and the
cadre of glittering stars that made up his squad.
Performances
had been stuttering, results imperfect: At the Santiago Bernabéu, the
85,000-seat stadium where Real Madrid plays its matches, one loss and
three draws in 11 league games does not cut it. When Benítez sat down
across from Pérez, Real Madrid sat 3 points behind Barcelona in La Liga;
word was that defeat would spell the end for the coach.
Pérez,
soothingly, offered reassurance. Benítez would not be fired, he told
the manager, regardless of the result. A caveat, though, was concealed
in the velvet glove.
Pérez
made it clear that Benítez was safe as long as he picked what the
president felt was his strongest team: an adventurous lineup that
included the Colombian midfielder James Rodríguez. Such a selection ran
against Benítez’s cautious instincts. He would have preferred the more
defensively minded Brazilian Casemiro as a bulwark against Barcelona’s
formidable attack, but eventually Benítez relented.
Rodríguez
started; Casemiro did not. Barcelona won by 4-0, humiliating Madrid on
its home field. Benítez would cling to his job for only six more weeks.
As
Real Madrid and Barcelona prepare to come face to face again on
Saturday at Camp Nou, Pérez will not be having any such frank
conversations with Benítez’s successor. Casemiro, fitness permitting, is
expected to start. Rodriguez almost certainly will not. In that one
lineup decision lies not only proof of the power of Madrid’s new coach,
Zinedine Zidane, but evidence of the source of it.
Almost
a year into his top-tier managerial career, it is hard to find fault
with Zidane’s record. He lifted the Champions League title after only
six months, his third with Real Madrid — one as a player, one as an
assistant, one as coach — and the club’s 11th over all. His team sits
atop La Liga, 6 points clear of Barcelona. He has a win percentage of
81.8 per cent. Statistically, he is the best manager in the history of
Spain’s top division.
Yet
few rank Zidane, a taciturn, enigmatic Frenchman, as the equal of those
super-coaches in place at many of Europe’s top clubs. The common
perception is that he is not as inventive as Pep Guardiola, as
inspirational as Jürgen Klopp, as astute as José Mourinho, as suave as
Carlo Ancelotti.
That
view has its adherents even at Real Madrid. Among the club’s hierarchy,
there were always concerns that Zidane possessed the desire but not the
ability to be a top-class manager.
In
18 months with Castilla, Real’s B team, he was given every assistance:
Where the reserves had previously always traveled to away games by bus,
under Zidane’s aegis, they went by chartered jet. Still, he was hardly a
resounding success.
His
training methods, particularly fitness work inspired by coaches like
Gérard Houllier and Marcello Lippi, were seen as out of date; long
running sessions designed to improve stamina had been phased out by many
of his peers. There was no suggestion of a revolutionary tactical mind
at work. The team’s results were unspectacular.
Pérez, as late as the summer of 2015, was said to have been privately expressing his hope
that Olympique Marseille would offer Zidane the chance to start his
managerial career there, allowing him to learn his craft and make his
mistakes away from the Bernabeu.
Pérez
had always hoped that Zidane would prove to be Real’s equivalent to
Guardiola, a genius schooled in the ways of the club. Pérez seemed
resigned, though, that Zidane was more in line with Roberto Di Matteo,
Chelsea’s right-place, right-time Champions League-winning coach in
2012, and Luis Enrique, a custodian of — rather than an upgrade to —
Guardiola’s legacy at Barcelona.
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