Who is responsible for Real Madrid’s bad performance?

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Florentino Pérez's decisions were decisive in the bad performance of the 'merengue' team, while others point to coach Santiago Solari

"Here lies a team that made history" was the headline phrase of the newspaper Marca cover, in its edition of March 6. It describes perfectly what suffered the Real Madrid after its elimination in the second round of the Champions League, in a match against Ajax. With an overall result of 5-3, and a crushing 4-1 at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, the white club suffered what the same publication called the "humiliating end of an unrepeatable cycle".

Leer en español: Estos son los responsables de la debacle del Real Madrid

The last time the 'merengues' were eliminated from the Champions League was in 2015, year in which, according to Goal, Álvaro Morata, at the service of Juventus of Turin, scored the goal with which the 'vecchia signora' qualified the great final against Barcelona, and that finally ended up winning against the Catalan team. Since then, Madrid reached three consecutive championships (2016 – 2018).

Florentino's fault?

After the defeat against Ajax, Real Madrid said goodbye to the dream of raising their fourth Champions League in a row, something that would be an anthology record in the history of soccer. However, the hope vanished, just as it did days before the King's Cup (eliminated in the semifinals by Barcelona), and probably La Liga, after losing the Classic on March 2 against the eleventh game and be very relegated in the standings.

Whose fault is this failure? For many, the coaches that have had the team during this season (Julen Lopetegui and Santiago Solari) have a lot to do, although, for a large part of the fans and experts, the biggest culprit is their president, Florentino Pérez.

In a survey conducted by the newspaper AS in October 2018, of 30 thousand fans who participated in it, almost 87% considered the first president of the club as the main responsible for what by the time was already beginning to glimpse as a crisis: 4 defeats in the last five games that had played to the date the poll was published.

For fans, Florentino was in charge of filling the coffers of the club with the sale of important players for the proper functioning of the team, but did not give in the task of investing that money again in names that truly gave a new face to Real Madrid

However, there is a player for whom the president is most reproached: Cristiano Ronaldo. "I felt that inside the club, especially on the part of the president, they did not consider me at the beginning (…) The president looked at me with eyes that did not want to say the same thing, as if I was not essential anymore", were the statements given by CR7 to the magazine France Football , and that gave rise to fans' idea that, so rooted to Cristiano, took Florezino Perez's eyes and put him as a 'scapegoat' of the bad performance that Madrid has experienced this season.

It may interest you: Santiago Solari: how did you become the technical director of Real Madrid?

Solari's fault?

Now, this is not the only character that can be blamed for this sad reality, taking into account that one is the boss, and another one who executes. That is where Santiago Solari comes in. On paper, Florentino wanted to be "generous" with the former Argentine soccer player, but in other versions, he simply chose it because of the coincidences that would exist between "the board and the bench", as explained by the sports journalist Manu Carreño, for El Larguero.

This is explained in the simple fact that the eleven who have played with Solari this season are not the most "natural" in the traditional game of Real Madrid, much less in the usual list that got the three Champions League.

Players like Isco Alarcón, Marcelo and Keylor Navas, key players in the triple crown, have shone by their absence in the titular teams of the last months, being replaced by slightly lighter chips like Courtois, Vinicius and even Sergio Reguilón.

"Bale and Asensio came from substitutes, when they lost by two goals. Marcelo, scorned on the bench, Isco not summoned and, although even Chamartín networks know that Madrid has no goal, he did not want to use Mariano," was the description made by the newspaper El Mundo, the meeting against Ajax, and that also explains what Solari did throughout the season.

But, all this again has its own name: Florentino Pérez. "The idea of the president is no other than to begin to justify his signings last summer, which he believes have quality to succeed in Real Madrid", was the thesis presented by Diario Gol, one of the most important web portals in Spain. Consequently, Solari ended up against the sword and the wall: he listened to the manager or left. It seems that he decided to do the first and the results are what Real Madrid reflects today.

LatinAmerican Post | Christopher Ramirez Hernadez

Translated from "Estos son los responsables de la debalce del Real Madrid"