Zinedine Zidane gives advice on how to manage Real Madrid dressing room – ‘If you haven’t understood…’

Real Madrid legend Zinedine Zidane has discussed his success as manager at the club, with plenty of debate surrounding the current crisis at the Bernabeu. Los Blancos dismissed Xabi Alonso on Monday evening, but saw little in the way of reaction against Albacete on Wednesday night, as they suffered an embarassing exit in the Copa del Rey.

Newly appointed Alvaro Arbeloa took the blame for the defeat, but did also point the finger at the physical condition of the players. The club feel the fitness of the squad is a major factor in their struggles, while externally, there is plenty of talk about the dressing room dynamics and an unbalanced squad.

Zidane explains fitness approach with Pintus

The first move of the Arbeloa tenure was to bring back fitness coach Antonio Pintus, who worked with Zidane during his remarkable run of three straight Champions Leagues. Zidane told Hamidou Msaidie on Slowmotions talks (as quoted by Marca) how he approached things in his first spell, arriving in January.

“I remember we had three weeks, and we didn’t have the Champions League, just the league, and we had three weeks to work. For three weeks, we could work from Monday to the next match. We met with the four captains and told them what we wanted to do, and they joined our project. Physically, we had seen that they weren’t in good shape. We had reviewed all the data.”

Image via Getty Images / David Ramos

“We prepared 20-30 minute cardio workouts for those three weeks, and we did them at the training centre. Because we had realised that they needed to do cardio, to fuel them up, as we said. That allowed us, seeing the talent they had, to get them in shape. And there were six months left. They had to work hard at that time because the Champions League was coming back after that.”

‘The players have to like you’ – Zidane on the dressing room

One of the issues that plagued Alonso was his seemingly cool relationship with the players. Zidane detailed how he managed the dressing room when he was in charge.

“At Real Madrid, we were always available for the players. For me, that’s what makes a team strong: you’re there for the players. If you haven’t understood that, you can’t last in this profession. We’re there to support them; you have to show them you’re there for them. For the dressing room to accept what you want to implement, they have to like you. If the players aren’t happy with everything they’re given, the training sessions, there will always be something missing. With us, I think they really enjoyed it on every level.”

That will be the challenge for Arbeloa now. The argument has been made that the dressing room Zidane had was full of leaders at the top of their game, such as Luka Modric, Toni Kroos, Sergio Ramos and Cristiano Ronaldo – something the current iteration does not appear to have. That said, Alonso never looked like he had the full buy-in of the players, which could have changed things.