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In one of the biggest shocks of the 2018/19 season, Monday saw Real Madrid announce that French legend Zinedine Zidane would be taking over the managerial reins at the club following the sacking of Santiago Solari after Los Blancos’ shocking UEFA Champions League elimination at the hands of Ajax.
The main reason for this move being such a shock? It comes just 10 months after Zidane resigned as Real boss following his third Champions League victory in a row with the Spanish giants. Zidane has signed a new contract until 2022, and evidently feels that he can solve the issues that have surrounded the club since he left back in May.
But is that really possible? Or is it the case that, while Zidane is a great manager, there are some problems at Real that he just can’t solve right now? That seems quite likely. Here are 4 problems at Real Madrid that the appointment of Zidane doesn’t solve.
#1 He can’t bring back Cristiano Ronaldo
Over the 9 seasons since moving to Real in the summer of 2009, Cristiano Ronaldo had become a genuine club legend, and clearly ended up justifying the world-record £80m transfer fee that Los Blancos paid out to bring him in from Manchester United. The Portuguese attacker scored a ridiculous 450 goals in 438 games for Real, and helped them to win 2 La Liga titles and 4 Champions League titles.
But CR7 was of course sold to Juventus in the summer of 2018 for a fee of €100m, and while that seems steep for a player who’s now 34 years old, it’s pretty clear that not only have Real never truly replaced their talisman, but he’s lost almost none of his incredible powers since making the move – as evidenced by last night’s Champions League hat-trick against Atletico Madrid.
Essentially, Ronaldo remains the world’s greatest player right now, and while Zidane returning to the Bernabeu might make Real fans feel like some of the aura from their trio of Champions League-winning seasons is back, a massive CR7-sized hole still remains in their squad – a hole that’s almost impossible to fill.
Unless things get really crazy – Juventus just wouldn’t want or need to sell him – there’s no chance that Zidane can bring Ronaldo back to the Bernabeu any time soon. Which means the problem remains. Ronaldo scored 26 goals and made 5 assists in the league last season, and Real were clearly a more potent attacking force with him – averaging 2.47 goals per game, while this season they’ve averaged just 1.7. And that’s an issue Zidane just can’t fix.
#2 He can’t stop the debt rolling in
Zidane’s return might give the Frenchman the power to attempt to fix some of Real’s issues on the pitch, but off the pitch is another matter entirely. Club President Florentino Perez remains in firm control in that area, and unless Zidane wields incredible influence over him, it looks like he’s still going to push through with the re-development of the Bernabeu – a move that’s likely to cost the club around £515m.
While the stadium will undoubtedly be cool – the world’s best, according to Perez – with a metallic ‘skin’ that can display legendary Real moments from over the years, is it really going to be worth taking on so much debt? That’s up for debate, particularly when Real’s squad is at the stage where it probably needs rebuilding to replace ageing stars with new signings.
According to reports, Real’s loans will probably take somewhere around 35 years to pay off, meaning the club could well be in for a period of austerity in the near future. Sure, Perez might’ve spoken about the potential of signing Kylian Mbappe during the press conference in which Zidane was revealed, and rumours surrounding a move for Neymar might be swirling around, but could Real really afford to break the world transfer record for either with the stadium refurb coming up?
And if that’s the case, then how can Zidane really fix Los Blancos’ rusty squad and the problems that come with that? The truth is that he may not be able to do so.
#3 He can’t do a lot about the strength of their rivals
Zidane has arrived back at the Bernabeu with 11 games of the 2018/19 season remaining – and while Real have been eliminated from the Champions League, they still have an outside chance of winning La Liga. Sure, they’re currently in 3rd place, and trail leaders Barcelona by 12 points, but greater deficits have been overcome before. The only problem? Zidane can improve Real, but he can’t do a lot about the form of Barca or Atletico Madrid, who sit in second place.
Admittedly, Barca might not be doing quite as well as they were this time last season – in 2017/18 they’d won 21 of their 27 games and remained unbeaten, but they’re still looking incredibly strong – scoring an average of 2.5 goals per game, and Lionel Messi appears to be at his imperious best once again, scoring 26 league goals already.
Atletico meanwhile remain as tough a side to break as ever, and are looking just as consistent as they did last season – they’ve conceded just 17 league goals thus far, the least of any side in La Liga, and they can still call upon the attacking talents of the likes of Antoine Griezmann, Saul and Thomas Lemar.
Zidane can attempt to make Real stronger than they are now – it may well take more than a season to achieve this of course, meaning seeing 2018/19 as a write-off – but there’s very little he can do about the strength of his 2 greatest domestic rivals. Essentially, Real are up against two of Europe’s biggest and best clubs, and the return of Zidane doesn’t make that any easier for Los Blancos.
#4 He may not want to solve the issues between senior players and the club
It’s no secret that Real Madrid haven’t exactly been a steady ship recently – most notably, there have been reports of serious problems between the club’s upper management, namely President Florentino Perez and some senior players like Sergio Ramos. Ramos and Perez supposedly had an angry confrontation following Real’s loss to Ajax last week, and question marks also surround the future of other veterans such as Marcelo and Gareth Bale.
Perez could well have brought in a manager who’d be more willing to cut some of the senior players from the squad and look to start afresh – the rumour last summer prior to Julen Lopetegui’s appointment was that Perez had Antonio Conte in line to do such a job – but by bringing back Zidane, he’s probably appointed a man who’s more likely to embrace senior players such as Ramos rather than jettison them.
That’s because it was the likes of Ramos, Marcelo and Karim Benzema who helped Zidane to be such a massive success during his first period as Real manager. To put it simply, the likelihood of Zidane attempting to clear the squad of older players who may be past their prime seems minimal, because why would the Frenchman attempt to remove players who did so well under him the first time around?
If Perez was looking for a boss to usher in a new era at the Bernabeu, then Zidane may not be that boss – and any hope of Real clearing some of the dead wood from their squad and starting afresh is highly unlikely, leaving them with a similar problem to that currently faced by Chelsea.
