“Zidane can stay at Real Madrid for life. Now he is the best coach in the world,” Real Madrid president Florentino Perez beamed in an interview with a Spanish radio station over the weekend. If that doesn’t tell this story in all its purity, then nothing ever will.
Los Blancos had just beaten Juventus in the Champions League final, running out 4-1 winners. It was their second successive victory in the competition, a feat no team had achieved since 1990, before the Old European Cup was rebranded two years later. Not only that, but Real have been crowned kings of Europe for the third time in the last four years and a record 12 times in all.
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There can be no doubting Zinedine Zidane’s credentials as a coach now, having achieved something that AC Milan’s great coach Arrigo Sacchi last did in defending this famous trophy. The Frenchman’s coaching mentor, Carlo Ancelotti, who he served as an assistant in the 2014 triumph over Atletico Madrid, the famous La Decima success, hasn’t done it.
Pep Guardiola, whom Zidane spent time watching like a hawk during training sessions at Bayern Munich, a man who has won 21 trophies in less than a decade of coaching and presided over arguably the greatest football team ever in Barcelona between 2008 and 2012, hasn’t done it either. But there is something about Perez’s comments that do not sit right.
In two spells as the man at the top at the Santiago Bernabeu, Perez has not shied away from firing coaches, regardless of success. In fact, it is only in his second spell, from 2009 onwards, that he has really recognised the true role of the coach. It would be unheard of now that the biggest club in the world could offer the top job to an assistant elsewhere, but that is exactly what Perez did with Manchester United’s Carlos Queiroz in 2003.
Manuel Pellegrini, Jose Mourinho, Ancelotti and Rafa Benitez all set a new precedent of expensive, proven high achievers, but the decision to hire Zidane was a watershed moment for him and the club.
Also read: Five ways Real Madrid can ensure their domination continues
Despite Perez’s idea that Real are the best club and should, therefore, spend the most money on players and coaches, Barcelona were still edging them out with their philosophy of promoting from within. In the aforementioned Guardiola era, the Blaugrana dominated Spain and Europe despite his only coaching experience coming with the B team.
Perez only oversaw one LaLiga title win with Guardiola on the other side, and that gave him an idea. Hiring a former player who understands the club and can be promoted from within had worked up north, so Perez changed his ways and Zidane, then Real Madrid Castilla coach, became their answer to Guardiola in January 2015.
It took Zidane just 512 days to not only break the club’s five-year LaLiga duck, but make Champions League history. His career trajectory was similar to Guardiola’s from the start and has continued, but he is not quite as revered, perhaps because he is seen more as a man manager, someone able to galvanise a squad of players with words, rather than a tactical genius as Guardiola has shown himself to be.
But that is exactly where Real Madrid need to go next. Perez’s ruthless nature has been in search of exactly what Zidane has given him, so it is no surprise, having achieved everything in such short notice, that even he understands he may have a gem on his hands.
Real have a quality squad, but Zidane has only signed Alvaro Morata in his time as the coach. It is time for him to stamp his authority on the squad further and build a dynasty in Madrid, to prove he is, in fact, the world’s best coach.
Juventus’ response to this defeat is much more complex. Over the past six years, under both Antonio Conte and now Maximiliano Allegri, the Old Lady have dominated Italian football and attempted to make the step up in Europe. The ideology has been similar despite a slight transition, with the same spine of the team in place.
As the team have stayed together, age has caught up with them, and losing the game on Saturday in Cardiff could have been the last chance for the likes of Gianluigi Buffon, Giorgio Chiellini and Andrea Barzagli to lift the famous trophy.
That trio have remained constant, alongside Leonardo Bonucci, helping Juve win the Serie A every year since 2011, even with the likes of Arturo Vidal, Andrea Pirlo, Paul Pogba, Carlos Tevez and other talent further up the pitch departing. You’d be hard-pressed to find a better recruitment strategy than Juve’s, but they may need their biggest drive in years to come back from this disappointment.
Allegri agreed to a new contract in Turin a matter of weeks ago, so any transition will be under his stewardship. When they lost the 2015 final to Barcelona, it felt like the start of something, even if rival clubs circled for talent as they did. They were built to win it this year, and looked like doing so throughout the campaign, conceding just once from open play. That defence, the ever-reliable quad, looked like taking them to glory, but it wasn’t to be.
Winning the trophy twice in a row has proven very elusive, but so has reaching the final. Buffon, Chiellini and Barzagli may not reach another, and while Juve’s dominance on a national scale looks set to continue for years, it may be some time until they are strong enough to compete continentally again.
Real Madrid will be celebrating for weeks, while Juve will be ruing chances missed. Both sides will need to rebuild again over the summer, but for very different reasons. In Zidane, a former hero on the pitch, Real have found a man worth following, but they must let him lead some more. Allegri, though, needs to prove he can change his stance if Juventus are to be a continued European force.
