Following the dismissal of Rafael Benitez as Real Madrid
coach, the club have named Zinedine Zidane as their caretaker manager until the
end of the season and may also appoint former Real Madrid player Santiago
Solari as his assistant.
Until Monday, the 43-year-old Zidane, who needed just six
seasons as a player to become one of Real Madrid's biggest legends, was the
coach of the Real Madrid Castilla, a job for which Florentino Perez selected
him in June of 2014 and his first official coaching job. This youth team play
in an equivalent to the Third Division in Spain, and consists of players with
an average of 20 years of age. After 19 matches, Zidane had the team in second
place, four points behind Basque side Barakaldo.
Previously to working with Castilla, the Frenchman had acted
as a special advisor to Jose Mourinho and the first team squad in the 2011-12
season and worked as Carlo Ancelotti's assistant in the 2013-14 season, both
positions as a result of his long-term contract with Real Madrid.
It is fair to say that Zidane's experience as a manager is
extremely limited. In fact, the club had preferred to give the Frenchman more
time with Castilla instead of running the risk of burning him too early in the
first team job but according to president Perez, the situation with Benitez was
untenable and Zidane was the best available option until the end of the season.
Next to Zidane will be Santiago Solari. At least on paper,
the Argentinean complements Zidane's knowledge of the game with a deep tactical
acumen and a more extroverted persona than that of the Frenchman. Like Zidane,
Solari also played for Real Madrid (in his case between 2000-05) and has become
an insightful pundit in Spain since his retirement as a player in 2011. Since
2013, he has been coaching various Real Madrid youth teams (U-16 and U-19)
rather successfully.
Whether or not Zidane manages to get the full-time job at
the end of the season will obviously depend on the team's performance over the
next five months in La Liga and the Champions League, the two competitions in
which Real Madrid can still contend.
Zidane's biggest asset -- and arguably Benitez's biggest
weakness -- is the almost reverential respect that the squad feel for the
Frenchman, something he earned on and off the pitch. With such a huge amount of
talent at his disposal, the manner in which he leverages his influence on the
players to recover the fighting spirit of two years ago seems instrumental to
improve Real Madrid's poor displays against top sides so far and turn around
the season.
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