Departure of 'Wonderbra' from Real Madrid
Sacking Vanderlei Luxemburgo was the right decision but it won't end Real Madrid's troubles unless Florentino Pérez also leaves.
by Sid Lowe (The Guardian)
No more wonderbras, flowers peering from pants, or magic rectangles. No more half-time videos, walkie-talkies and earpieces cellotaped to players' heads. No more cheesy grins, aggressive, indecipherable harangues or dreadful jean jackets. In case you hadn't noticed, Vanderlei Luxemburgo has been sacked as coach at the Santiago Bernabéu - and he's been sacked in classic, half-arsed Real Madrid style.
Life's not fair. No sooner had Madrid won their first game of the season against a side from the top half of the table than poor Luxe was on his way. Mind you, a 1-0 home victory over ninth-placed Getafe is hardly something to write home about. Especially not when the one should never have stood, when Getafe, a club with a budget of 15m euros against your 368m euros, had 17 shots on goal to your three and when the fans spent half the game - the half when they were actually awake - chanting "Out! Out! Out!" and waving hankies all about.
Madrid might have won but they were pathetic. Again. Getafe president Angel Torres insisted that "a decent team would've stuck eight past them", and he wasn't wrong. Alongside him, going pale and looking mean, Madrid president Florentino Pérez had made up his mind. Forget the fact that just five days earlier he had insisted "there's no reason to sack Luxemburgo", it was almost 10pm on a Saturday night: time to axe another coach, his fourth in two-and-a-half seasons. Only this being Spain, and this being Real Madrid, it wasn't that simple.
By midday Sunday, Luxe was a goner. He might have strolled from training with a cheerful "hasta mañana", but no one was fooled. After all, in Spain mañana doesn't mean tomorrow, it just means 'not now', and at 3pm, with Marca and AS announcing his sacking, the club's website liesdamnedliesandrealmadrid.com announced that discussions would take place to decide the Brazilian's "continuity". Which is pretty much akin to putting half a signature on a death warrant while you pop out for lunch, but still there was no official news - until a statement revealed that a board meeting had been called for 7pm.
So, some time after seven, as Barcelona were defeating Villarreal 2-0 to climb six points ahead, the board met - as the club's TV channel proved with some fabulous footage of one grovelling director bringing Florentino a cup of coffee, which was nice. Once the cameras had gone, the real work started, with Florentino asking his directors what they thought. To which they presumably replied: "What do you want us to think? Time to sack the coach? Good plan, boss!"
Meanwhile, everyone else - Luxemburgo included - just waited. And waited. Over on Real Madrid TV, Real Madrid were coming down the steps of a private jet with the European Cup (in black and white) and Robinho was showing off his skills (in Brazil), otherwise there was nothing. Then, just before 10, it was finally official. As Florentino hid, leaving his henchmen to carry the can, vice-president Emilio Butragueño appeared and announced that Luxe would be temporarily replaced by B-team coach Juan Ramón López Caro.
So well thought-out was the decision that López Caro was still on his way back from Tarragona where his side had just won their Second Division match; so well known was he that Real Madrid TV's portrait of him was, literally, a two-minute list of the clubs he's been at, peppered with words like hard working, demanding and, er, likes training. With one eye fixed on this week's Champions League match against Olympiakos, Butragueño summed up the reasoning behind the appointment succinctly: "Well, we need somebody to go to Greece with them," he shrugged.
Anyway, Madrid had another manager - and yet another managerial model. Not just the right man, the right type of man. Again.
Vicente del Bosque, the last Madrid coach to actually win anything, was too fat and too moustachioed - "old fashioned", ran the official reason. Carlos Queiroz was handsome and modern but not hard enough. José Antonio Camacho was too hard. Mariano García Remón was going to be the new Del Bosque, said Pérez. Del Bosque had been sacked after winning the league; García Remón got it half right. He was another that was too soft and paid for leaving Beckham and Ronaldo out (and for being a goalkeeping coach for goodness sake). Luxemburgo called himself the Commandant, the man who must be obeyed, and had what Florentino called moral authority.
Only he didn't. No coach at Madrid ever does. Sacking Luxe is the right decision, but that does not make it the solution.
The Brazilian - nicknamed Wonderbra because last season he made it look like Madrid had the lot when in fact they had nothing - seemed to be the answer. As the Spanish put it, he was so lucky he had a flower sticking out of his arse. The entire Blue Peter garden, more like: Madrid played poorly but he got results, including a 4-2 win over Barça, and the fans were won over - even if it sounded like that weird bit off Pass the Dutchie every time he opened his mouth.
But then it all went wrong - just as Madrid indulged a coach like never before. Luxe gained 91m euros worth of players but lost the plot, what with his players wearing earpieces to receive instructions they couldn't decipher anyway, a 4-2-2-2 "magic rectangle" formation surely dreamed up while on equally magic mushrooms, and his half-time videos. It wasn't just that he borrowed tapes from Real Madrid TV, whose matches have a nasty habit of getting recorded over with random minutes of basketball (seriously), Luxe started losing it: his players didn't understand their roles, everyone was out of position and he grew increasingly defensive, on and off the pitch. Madrid - galactic Real Madrid! - started with seven defenders against Betis.
Luxe has made a mess of it alright but he has also been a victim of the same culture that ruined others. Madrid are run like an amateur club suffering Elephantitis, where sporting principles like meritocracy long made their excuses and left, where players resent an institution that, as one first teamer puts it, "has lost its soul", where those who helped unity in the squad and balance on the field have been dumped, and where coaches are scapegoats of a president's failure. The axe has fallen on Luxemburgo but with so many coaches failing, isn't it time to look elsewhere? Like towards Pérez.
After all, as Tina Turner nearly sang: what's Luxe got to do with it?
by Sid Lowe (The Guardian)
No more wonderbras, flowers peering from pants, or magic rectangles. No more half-time videos, walkie-talkies and earpieces cellotaped to players' heads. No more cheesy grins, aggressive, indecipherable harangues or dreadful jean jackets. In case you hadn't noticed, Vanderlei Luxemburgo has been sacked as coach at the Santiago Bernabéu - and he's been sacked in classic, half-arsed Real Madrid style.
Life's not fair. No sooner had Madrid won their first game of the season against a side from the top half of the table than poor Luxe was on his way. Mind you, a 1-0 home victory over ninth-placed Getafe is hardly something to write home about. Especially not when the one should never have stood, when Getafe, a club with a budget of 15m euros against your 368m euros, had 17 shots on goal to your three and when the fans spent half the game - the half when they were actually awake - chanting "Out! Out! Out!" and waving hankies all about.
Madrid might have won but they were pathetic. Again. Getafe president Angel Torres insisted that "a decent team would've stuck eight past them", and he wasn't wrong. Alongside him, going pale and looking mean, Madrid president Florentino Pérez had made up his mind. Forget the fact that just five days earlier he had insisted "there's no reason to sack Luxemburgo", it was almost 10pm on a Saturday night: time to axe another coach, his fourth in two-and-a-half seasons. Only this being Spain, and this being Real Madrid, it wasn't that simple.
By midday Sunday, Luxe was a goner. He might have strolled from training with a cheerful "hasta mañana", but no one was fooled. After all, in Spain mañana doesn't mean tomorrow, it just means 'not now', and at 3pm, with Marca and AS announcing his sacking, the club's website liesdamnedliesandrealmadrid.com announced that discussions would take place to decide the Brazilian's "continuity". Which is pretty much akin to putting half a signature on a death warrant while you pop out for lunch, but still there was no official news - until a statement revealed that a board meeting had been called for 7pm.
So, some time after seven, as Barcelona were defeating Villarreal 2-0 to climb six points ahead, the board met - as the club's TV channel proved with some fabulous footage of one grovelling director bringing Florentino a cup of coffee, which was nice. Once the cameras had gone, the real work started, with Florentino asking his directors what they thought. To which they presumably replied: "What do you want us to think? Time to sack the coach? Good plan, boss!"
Meanwhile, everyone else - Luxemburgo included - just waited. And waited. Over on Real Madrid TV, Real Madrid were coming down the steps of a private jet with the European Cup (in black and white) and Robinho was showing off his skills (in Brazil), otherwise there was nothing. Then, just before 10, it was finally official. As Florentino hid, leaving his henchmen to carry the can, vice-president Emilio Butragueño appeared and announced that Luxe would be temporarily replaced by B-team coach Juan Ramón López Caro.
So well thought-out was the decision that López Caro was still on his way back from Tarragona where his side had just won their Second Division match; so well known was he that Real Madrid TV's portrait of him was, literally, a two-minute list of the clubs he's been at, peppered with words like hard working, demanding and, er, likes training. With one eye fixed on this week's Champions League match against Olympiakos, Butragueño summed up the reasoning behind the appointment succinctly: "Well, we need somebody to go to Greece with them," he shrugged.
Anyway, Madrid had another manager - and yet another managerial model. Not just the right man, the right type of man. Again.
Vicente del Bosque, the last Madrid coach to actually win anything, was too fat and too moustachioed - "old fashioned", ran the official reason. Carlos Queiroz was handsome and modern but not hard enough. José Antonio Camacho was too hard. Mariano García Remón was going to be the new Del Bosque, said Pérez. Del Bosque had been sacked after winning the league; García Remón got it half right. He was another that was too soft and paid for leaving Beckham and Ronaldo out (and for being a goalkeeping coach for goodness sake). Luxemburgo called himself the Commandant, the man who must be obeyed, and had what Florentino called moral authority.
Only he didn't. No coach at Madrid ever does. Sacking Luxe is the right decision, but that does not make it the solution.
The Brazilian - nicknamed Wonderbra because last season he made it look like Madrid had the lot when in fact they had nothing - seemed to be the answer. As the Spanish put it, he was so lucky he had a flower sticking out of his arse. The entire Blue Peter garden, more like: Madrid played poorly but he got results, including a 4-2 win over Barça, and the fans were won over - even if it sounded like that weird bit off Pass the Dutchie every time he opened his mouth.
But then it all went wrong - just as Madrid indulged a coach like never before. Luxe gained 91m euros worth of players but lost the plot, what with his players wearing earpieces to receive instructions they couldn't decipher anyway, a 4-2-2-2 "magic rectangle" formation surely dreamed up while on equally magic mushrooms, and his half-time videos. It wasn't just that he borrowed tapes from Real Madrid TV, whose matches have a nasty habit of getting recorded over with random minutes of basketball (seriously), Luxe started losing it: his players didn't understand their roles, everyone was out of position and he grew increasingly defensive, on and off the pitch. Madrid - galactic Real Madrid! - started with seven defenders against Betis.
Luxe has made a mess of it alright but he has also been a victim of the same culture that ruined others. Madrid are run like an amateur club suffering Elephantitis, where sporting principles like meritocracy long made their excuses and left, where players resent an institution that, as one first teamer puts it, "has lost its soul", where those who helped unity in the squad and balance on the field have been dumped, and where coaches are scapegoats of a president's failure. The axe has fallen on Luxemburgo but with so many coaches failing, isn't it time to look elsewhere? Like towards Pérez.
After all, as Tina Turner nearly sang: what's Luxe got to do with it?
posted by Basil Epicurus at 10:46 AM
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