Zinedine Zidane is back in the trigger. Although all indications seem to rule out a radical decision about his permanence on the Real Madrid bench, the French coach is the center of all critics after the tremendous tumble suffered by his team against Alcoyano in the Copa del Rey.
‘Zizou’, who was already on the verge of dismissal After losing to Alavés and Shakhtar between November 29 and December 1, he managed to save the situation by chaining six victories and putting himself in the hands of the team's veterans. A temporary solution that can now take its toll on a coach who is accused of many 'sins'.
1- A closed eleven
First, close the eleven headline to a group of just over 11 players: Courtois, Benzema, Kroos, Lucas Vázquez, Varane, Casemiro, Mendy, Modric and Sergio Ramos surpass the barrier of 700 minutes played since the crisis at the end of November. Or what is the same, more than 70% of the minutes played by the team in the last 11 games. Carvajal and Marco Asensio, both around 50% of minutes, complete the list of ‘untouchables’. The rest, starting with Vinicius, already falls below 40%.
2- It does not rotate
This 'overexploitation’Of his players it is added that ZZ is the second LaLiga Santander coach who less broken your players: His 3.56 substitutions per game are only surpassed by the 3.35 for José Bordalás at Getafe.
3- Young people, secondary in the best of cases
Derived from his commitment to “veterans”, with that group of players with whom he achieved his greatest successes, “Zizou” has had to carry the label that does not count on the young. Players such as Vinicius, Valverde, Rodrygo, Mariano, Odegaard, Odriozola or Jovic (whose patience ran out and ended up leaving on loan to Eintracht Frankfurt) have gone on to play an absolutely secondary role, at best, in the French sheet music.
(+) The Cup, Zidane's cursed competition:
4- Without self-criticism
Last week, when Athletic eliminated Real Madrid in the semifinals of the Spanish Super Cup, Zidane refused to use the word ‘failure'. This Wednesday, at the conclusion of the match against Alcoyano and while Real Madrid were looking for a place to hide, they rejected the term ‘shame'. And in one of his last press conferences, he accused young players of being responsible for their lack of prominence in matches. Lack of self-criticism it is another of the sins of which the French is accused.
5- Little reaction capacity
On Wednesday, in the course of the entire match against Alcoyano and despite the indications that pointed to the tragic
final that was coming, the Real Madrid coach was little bit
interventionist. There are those who even assure that he barely gave a couple of instructions to his own in the moments before the start of the extension. AND he did not exhaust the resources either he had to try to straighten the course: he introduced only four of the six substitutions to which he was entitled.
6- An aging team
The mean age of Real Madrid's starting line-ups in the league this season is 28.9 years, the sixth highest in the category. The last three league games, this average has been in 30.5 years in Elche (1-1), 29.5 against Celta (2-0) and 30 in Pamplona (0-0). The starting eleven on Wednesday against Alcoyano had an average age of 25.6 years. Finding the midpoint between both extremes is an urgency for ZZ.