Real Madrid's biggest dilemma: Is Mourinho challenging a spectre that toppled Ancelotti and Alonso?
Deadly trap
Jose Mourinho faces the greatest challenge of his second spell at Real Madrid: managing the egos of the stars and the individuals blessed with immense talent. It is a complex file that Carlo Ancelotti, at least in his final year, failed to resolve. Neither Xabi Alonso nor Alvaro Arbeloa managed to uproot it in the recent period.
The crisis stretches beyond what happens on the pitch, yet it clearly shapes the team's performance. It has practically caused a drift away from the major titles, something the Bernabeu will not accept.
Mourinho's test
Former Real Madrid players Álvaro Benito and Rafa Alkorta revealed, in comments to the "El Larguero" programme on Spanish radio station "Cadena SER", that dealing with ego and pride is the real challenge for the Portuguese coach.
When Mourinho first arrived at the Spanish club, Benito explained, he stood at the peak of his coaching career. That is a different situation to the one he faces now. "But he is a coach with great abilities, and he knows better than anyone else what the team's problem has been in recent years in terms of defensive and offensive organisation," he said.
Name by name, Benito reckons the starting line-up is "extremely competitive". The challenge for the Portuguese coach, he stressed, lies in getting all the stars to understand one another and cooperate on the pitch.
Tactical discipline and commitment are the only way to stop the team collapsing, Álvaro Benito emphasised. "The team is equipped to win everything, but to achieve that they will have to fulfil the commitments Mourinho will demand of them," he said.
Those commitments, along with defensive and physical effort, will be the key to "avoiding falling into the same trap again", Benito confirmed.
The Spanish club cannot carry on down the same path, he explained. "In this way it is very difficult to succeed in beating very good teams."
The spectre of individualism
For his part, Rafa Alkorta stressed that success is linked to the ability to lead the group away from tactical diagrams, saying: "Beyond the tactical approach, the key lies in the management to change the course of a team that for two years has relied on individual talent more than being a complete group."
"Reconciling this ego and this pride" is "the most difficult matter", Alkorta explained, and something none of the previous coaches managed to achieve.
Even so, Alkorta backed the Portuguese coach. "He is the only one capable of making them understand that solidarity is not a trivial thing, but rather a necessary element to win the league and cup titles," he said.
Benito warned that the make-up of Real Madrid's players poses the most difficult challenge ever this season in managing the names, saying: "With Bellingham, Diomande, Mbappé and Vini, you have four attackers who cannot be touched. In principle, it is a team liable to break. And who holds the balance? It must be everyone."
Paris Saint-Germain offer the model Benito had in mind. "They have shattered every myth in football, because they play with Vitinha, João Neves and Fabián, with two very attacking full-backs, and the team does not break because everyone presses and everyone works," he said.
A heated dressing room
Real Madrid's dressing room was in complete harmony before Kylian Mbappé's move to the Santiago Bernabéu. The last two seasons have changed all that. An unspoken power struggle with Vinícius Júnior now simmers below the surface, clear to everyone watching from the outside.
The rivalry between the pair takes many forms. It started with the left wing position the Frenchman handed to his Brazilian teammate, switching to a striker's role himself. But the real crisis revolves around identity: who is the number one man at Real Madrid?
Before Mbappé arrived, Vinícius was the club's primary bet for the future, and the management were building the team around him. Two seasons later, Mbappé has pulled the rug out from under his feet with his prolific goalscoring, edging the Brazilian away from the top of the scene.
Vinícius tried to level the scales during talks over his contract renewal. He demanded the same salary to agree to stay at the Bernabéu, plus a renewal bonus similar to the one his French teammate pocketed on his free transfer from Saint-Germain.
The battle does not end there. It extends to the fight over penalty kicks that boost their goal tallies, something that could sway Ballon d'Or calculations should Real Madrid lift the Champions League in a given season.
Neither man hides from the criticism over their defensive work. Mbappé and Vinícius both neglect pressing and tracking back when Real Madrid lose the ball, and it hurts Los Blancos' balance, especially in the big matches.
Captain's absence
Real Madrid's escalating crisis of arrogance is impossible to separate from the absence of so many leaders inside the dressing room. It was hard to imagine Los Blancos falling into this fatal trap while Sergio Ramos, Luka Modric, Toni Kroos and Nacho Fernandez still patrolled the Bernabeu.
All of those names have gone now, and Dani Carvajal can be added to the list. From the old guard, only Thibaut Courtois remains, a man capable of restoring calm inside the dressing room.
Here lies the irony. The primary captain, Federico Valverde, was involved in the club's biggest riot last season alongside Aurelien Tchouameni, and he has a habit of overstepping the bounds of discipline with team-mates and opponents alike, as his famous clash with Alex Baena showed.
Of the recent arrivals, only Bernardo Silva ranks among the veterans able to create calm inside the dressing room.
