Exposed and undermined, Alonso could not control Madrid's rampant egos

Axed head coach was let down at every turn, as players and the president called the shots and results duly suffered

- Sid Lowe Madrid

Vinícius Júnior has made his frustrations clear

Pep Guardiola sat in the press room at the Santiago Bernabéu and told Xabi Alonso to do it his way but around here, he knows, it tends not to work out like that, which is precisely why he said so. Saying it is one thing, doing it another, doing it successfully something else entirely and a month and day after being offered that advice, handed that defence, Alonso was gone. On Monday afternoon, not long after landing from Saudi Arabia, a meeting was held at Valdebebas and then came the statement, short and unsentimental. He was a "legend" as a player, but no longer coach at Real Madrid.

Alonso is the 11th manager to last less than a year in two decades under the president, Florentino Pérez. He had begun work only seven months before, and that was earlier than he intended. It had started with the Club World Cup in the US, his first big decision to accept the demand to take over sooner than he wanted, and it ended with the Spanish Super Cup in Jeddah, where it was an open secret that final judgment awaited. For a month it had been impossible to avoid the feeling of a manager on borrowed time, especially for the manager himself, exposed and undermined, and you cannot go on like that. There will be hurt pride, regret, but release too.

To become Real Madrid manager two things have to happen, Alonso said at his presentation in May: "First they have to want you, then you have to want to ... and the latter normally does happen." Even then, neither position was held quite as enthusiastically as it should have been; even the courtship had been unusually cold.