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Zinedine Zidane's Real Madrid future has come into question after his side were knocked out in the Round of 32 of the Copa del Rey by Alcoyano, a team in the third division of Spanish football.
Recently, renowned Spanish journalist and pundit Guillem Balague has had his say on the Frenchman's time in the Spanish capital, claiming that this mountain may be too steep a climb for Zidane after coming back from pressure situations many times before.
"Their idea is to take a big decision after the season," Balague said. "Zidane has come back from the brink several times before, even this campaign, but the team seems to have hit a wall."
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Aloyocano, who played the last ten minutes of extra time with ten men, defeated Zidane's side 2-1 in 120 minutes, adding to the scrutiny on the Spanish champions.
"He's a legend of the club and they will wait to see how it progresses - they don't want to accelerate that because it's not a guarantee of anything," Balague said.
Real Madrid's disappointments with Zinedine Zidane is not just about results: Balague
Zidane returned to Real Madrid last season after parting ways with the Madrid-based club following three consecutive Champion League titles and led the Los Blancos to the League title.
The poor run of form and results this season, however, are not the only reasons for his uncertain future. According to Balague, the hierarchy at Real Madrid are upset with Zidane over two major reasons.
"The disappointment is not just because of results, though those have not been good. They lost to Cadiz and Shakhtar Donetsk at home, lost 4-1 against Valencia, lost to Alaves at home, Shakhtar away and Athletic Bilbao in the semi-finals of the Super Cup and now Alcoyano as well," the Spaniard said. "There are two things the Real Madrid hierarchy are a bit annoyed about."
"They saw him not giving any instructions at the end of 90 minutes against Alcoyano and no instructions at half-time in extra time. It kind of confirms the lack of instructions players get generally, as their football is mostly based on the quality of the players."
"And the other thing is you can run with the quality of Toni Kroos, Casemiro, Luka Modric and Karim Benzema for a while but the plan was to recycle the side and start bringing youngsters in - players like Dani Ceballos, Vinicius Junior, Rodrygo, Achraf Hakimi, Brahim Diaz, Sergio Reguilon, Luka Jovic and Martin Odegaard, and he hasn't done this at all."
Real Madrid now sit in 2nd in the La Liga table, four points away from league leader Atletico Madrid, who have 2 games in hand on the Los Blancos.
"These guys are either out or sold or want to go. Then there are players like Mariano Diaz, Federico Valverde, Alvaro Odriozola and Eder Militao - these young players were supposed to be part of the starting side more often than not, but again they seem to be used lately for less important games. That's the disappointment," Balague said.
"There is a big gap between the successful players and the new players and he doesn't seem able to make that transition. Real Madrid are quite determined they don't want to do anything during the season but they see the end of an era."
