Getty'Real Madrid will never' – Xabi Alonso bluntly told why he was destined to fail as Los Blancos manager
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Getty'Never seen that at Real Madrid'
Former Valencia star Gaizka Mendieta has suggested that Alonso's style of play and high pressing style was never going to work at Madrid because nobody has deployed that sort of approach before at the club. While those tactics worked at Leverkusen, where he won the Bundesliga and DFB Pokal, it didn't pay off at Los Blancos.
He told CasinoStugan: "Obviously, we know how Xabi used to play with Bayer Leverkusen and what he wanted to do at Madrid. Personally, I don't think we saw the style that Xabi Alonso wanted. We didn't see that at Real Madrid with any managers. What I mean is, again, judging from what we saw at Leverkusen, he wants a compact team that goes and presses high and defends together. I have never seen that at Real Madrid, ever. The team will always break at some point during the games."
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AFPAlonso backed to manage Liverpool one day
While Alonso takes some time away from the game, Liverpool icon John Arne Riise believes the former Reds midfielder will be managing at Anfield in the future. He also, however, feels the same for former team-mate Steven Gerrard, despite his relative lack of success in management by comparison.
He said, "I'm certain that Xabi Alonso will manage Liverpool one day. There are just certain managers, people that you would like to have in your team as a manager. And he's one of them, Steven Gerrard is one of them, which would give everybody a boost. But at the moment Stevie G is waiting for his next project that would suit him. In years to come, I'm quite sure either Gerrard or Alonso or even both might be manager of Liverpool Football Club."
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