Flip off I-95, north of Palm Seaside, Florida, and take a proper onto Shady Lakes Drive, a quiet, leafy road lined with well-kept lawns, palm bushes and condos. On the finish of the street, in a transformed public park subsequent to a center college, Xabi Alonso is constructing his new Actual Madrid staff.
“Transferring! Transferring! Transferring!” Alonso shouts, first in English, earlier than switching to Spanish. “Eso es, todos en movimiento. That is it, all people transferring!” At their coaching base in Palm Seaside Gardens, Madrid’s gamers are in the midst of a possession drill, break up into three teams, crammed right into a small area, marked by cones on the coaching pitch.
Alongside them, Alonso paces restlessly, like a tiger in a cage. He yells directions, corrections and reward. “Sure! Sure! Significantly better!” When he is not pacing backwards and forwards, Alonso crouches, palms on his knees, watching intently. “Transferring, transferring, Trent! Good construction!”
Palm Seaside Gardens is an unlikely place for a revolution, and the diploma of issue is dauntingly excessive. Coach Alonso bought began within the job solely a month in the past. Two weeks later, he was flying with the squad to america. 4 days after that, he was taking cost of his first sport on the FIFA Membership World Cup. The staff have already performed in Miami, Charlotte and Philadelphia, battling an East Coast warmth wave and dodging thunderstorms. Many first-team gamers have been out injured. Regardless of all of these limitations, there are indicators of the staff Alonso needs, and the modifications he is decided to make. They have been articulated within the coach’s lengthy, discursive information conferences, glimpsed in these meticulous coaching periods, and put into follow in matches.
What are Alonso’s priorities, then? The reply got here in his first information convention on U.S. soil on June 17, and it has been mirrored in each coaching session since. “It is in regards to the distances [between players], with and with out the ball,” he mentioned in Miami. “We have now to be higher positioned. We have now to acknowledge the place we should be, to have the ball, to win it again. The staff must be nearer collectively.”
However with so little time to work, Alonso has needed to compromise. “It is about prioritizing the message, the ideas,” he mentioned on Wednesday. “It isn’t about masking all the opposite gadgets. We attempt to cowl the important thing ones. … I am certain we’ll be a greater staff on the finish of the event than we had been in the beginning.”
With restricted time on the coaching pitch, Alonso and his workers have been counting on video periods with the gamers to get his concepts throughout. “You possibly can’t do an excessive amount of, with the warmth,” he mentioned on June 21. “Within the afternoon, on the lodge, we attempt to be environment friendly with the photographs. We do it collectively, we do it line-by-line, and individually. And that is not only for now, however for the entire season.”
However the Membership World Cup has introduced sudden issues. Kylian Mbappé, scorer of 43 objectives final season, was hospitalized with gastroenteritis, and hasn’t performed a minute in three group-stage video games with Al Hilal, Pachuca and FC Salzburg. The damage checklist is lengthy, the hangover to a draining 2024-25 season. Mbappé, Dani Carvajal, Éder Militão, Eduardo Camavinga, David Alaba, Ferland Mendy and Endrick — all first-team contenders — have been unavailable.
A seventh-minute purple card for Raúl Asencio meant the staff performed nearly the entire Pachuca sport with 10 gamers. Alonso needed to tear up his gameplan within the first cooling break. Madrid’s first match, a 1-1 draw with Al Hilal in Miami, was a letdown, the staff struggling within the humidity at Onerous Rock Stadium. Asencio gave away a penalty, and Federico Valverde missed one other spot kick in added time.
“We have been with [former coach Carlo] Ancelotti for 4 years,” goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois mentioned afterward. “We have now to alter to what the boss needs now. It would not occur in 4 days.”
Courtois has described the method as “trial and error.” In Charlotte, Madrid recovered nicely from Asencio’s purple card to beat Pachuca 3-1. Jude Bellingham, Arda Güler and Valverde offered the objectives from midfield. And in Philadelphia, liftoff: The staff reveled in a brand new 3-4-3 formation, beating Salzburg 3-0 and enjoying with an depth and readability not seen since 2023-24.
So after three Membership World Cup matches, and with all the things they’ve needed to cope with, how a lot of Alonso is there on this Madrid staff already?
“Little or no!” Alonso mentioned with fun when requested that query just lately. “We attempt to search for options, inside some elementary concepts we’ve. The video games inform us loads about how we will enhance.”
Protection: Tactical flexibility
Alonso has mentioned that he is not fixated on enjoying with three central defenders, as he typically did at Bayer Leverkusen. However as quickly as he had the gamers out there — with Antonio Rüdiger match once more for the Salzburg sport — the coach ditched his again 4, and went with Rüdiger, Aurélien Tchouaméni and Dean Huijsen on the again.
“[Rüdiger] performed loads in a again three when he was at Chelsea,” Alonso mentioned. “I knew he’d rapidly decide it up. It offers us flexibility.”
That has been one other of Alonso’s buzzwords: flexibility. “In my head it is at all times been there, being versatile with the methods,” he mentioned when requested in regards to the change to a again three. “The gamers have the intelligence and the soccer tradition to know why we use it, and the optimistic issues we get from it.”
And that extends to the staff’s potential to regulate inside video games, as they did when diminished to 10 males in opposition to Pachuca. Too typically, final season’s Actual Madrid felt predictable, and slightly stale. The midgame reorganization in Charlotte, applied in a first-half teamtalk, was coherent and efficient. “That sport intelligence offers you one other edge,” Alonso instructed ESPN afterwards. “I am actually happy with how [the players] understood this fast change, in simply the cooling break that we had. From that concept, we constructed a really robust efficiency.”
The brand new signings, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Huijsen, even have tailored. Alonso known as Huijsen “one of many pillars” of the brand new undertaking. Teammates have helped. “I do not assume I’ve to present an excessive amount of info to Trent,” Courtois mentioned. “He is been a very long time on the scene, he is aware of all the things from when he was at Liverpool. … [Huijsen] is a superb defender. It is about studying what we’ve to do in protection collectively. He is clever.”
Güler performed solely 373 minutes in LaLiga in 2023-24, rising to 1,247 in 2024-25. The early indicators are that the 20-year-old attacking midfielder will likely be extra central to Alonso’s plans than he was to Ancelotti’s, in each sense. Güler was launched at half-time in opposition to Al Hilal. The staff improved significantly, and Güler saved his place in midfield in opposition to Pachuca and Salzburg. In the latest sport in Philadelphia, he performed alongside Valverde, in a double pivot. If Madrid do not signal a artistic midfielder this summer season, it will likely be as a result of Alonso is satisfied that Güler can do the job. “I believe with [the players] we’ve, we will be dominant in midfield,” Alonso mentioned on June 21. “We have now to work on it, however with our completely different [player] profiles, I am satisfied.” Towards Salzburg, there was additionally a brand new position for Bellingham, enjoying forward and to the proper of Güler and Valverde, a type of inside-right place. Alonso has been frank about what he needs to see from Bellingham: doing extra by doing much less, being extra “environment friendly” with out making an attempt to be all over the place. “Jude has the capability to cowl plenty of floor, however he has to start out in the proper place,” Alonso mentioned. “He has the soul of a central midfielder, he likes to take part within the buildup, and he can get into the field. However the place he begins from will likely be necessary. That can assist him.” Bellingham may even be helped by surgical procedure on the shoulder that has troubled him since November 2023, permitting him to maneuver freely once more. His operation is scheduled for after this event. “It has been a very long time coming,” Bellingham mentioned final week. “I’ve come to the top of my persistence with the [shoulder] brace.” A frequent criticism of Ancelotti involved his reluctance to present younger gamers — particularly academy merchandise — a chance within the first staff. Gonzalo García‘s staggering influence on the Membership World Cup reveals the advantages of trusting in expertise, and watching a participant flourish. García scored in opposition to Al Hilal, offered an help in opposition to Pachuca, and scored once more in opposition to Salzburg, a simple 84th-minute chip, after working tirelessly all through. Talking to reporters, he already appears like a veteran, answering questions with a straightforward smile. For Alonso, it is no shock. “I knew loads [about García],” the coach mentioned in Philadelphia. “I would been following [reserve team] Castilla loads. … He is a typical No. 9, he jogs my memory of Raul [González]. He is at all times in the proper place, at all times ready for an opportunity.” There is no such thing as a larger praise than evaluating a Madrid academy participant to membership legend Raúl. Alonso insists there are “no choices” taken but on the squad for 2025-26, however it might now be a shock if García weren’t a part of his plans. There may be much less certainty about Rodrygo, who performed simply over an hour in opposition to Al Hilal, did not function in any respect in opposition to Pachuca, and had 23 subdued minutes in opposition to Salzburg. Alonso has known as the Brazil ahead “a particular participant” who will “play an necessary half on the Membership World Cup.” However to date, that hasn’t occurred. As typically as Alonso has burdened the necessity for flexibility, and for the facet to be extra compact, he has repeated one other nonnegotiable: the staff working collectively as a unit, and urgent collectively. It is one thing Ancelotti didn’t persuade his gamers to place into follow final season, particularly the entrance two of Vinícius Jr and Mbappé. “It is elementary,” Alonso has mentioned in america. “Everyone seems to be concerned, in all of the phases. … These days, you want a staff that presses as a unit. We have now 11 people who we’ve to make work collectively. We have to deal with it.” Towards Salzburg on June 26, there was one passage of play that delighted Alonso greater than every other, a second he described as “very illustrative.” With 75 minutes performed, coasting at 2-0 up, Madrid had a nook kick and misplaced the ball. “The way in which all of the gamers chased again was spectacular,” Alonso mentioned afterwards. “They had been all sprinting to get again behind the ball. When there’s that feeling, that all of us must defend, to be concerned, that is essential.” It has been solely three video games, in opposition to common opposition. There will likely be a lot larger assessments, beginning with Juventus in Miami on Tuesday, adopted by a possible quarterfinal with Borussia Dortmund and semifinal with Paris Saint-Germain. These matches will inform us way more about Alonso’s Actual Madrid. However the early indicators — particularly within the Salzburg sport — are optimistic. “The group wish to evolve. They wish to study. They wish to adapt,” Alonso mentioned this week. “They’re prime gamers, so it is simple with them. They decide up ideas quick. However it’s about each day work, work that will get below their pores and skin. We’re engaged on it.”Midfield: Discovering a job for Güler
Assault: Giving children an opportunity
Urgent, and dealing collectively
