Rafa’s Real tenure ends as Zidane butts in at Bernabeu

Rafael Benitez has been sacked as manager of Real Madrid after just seven months in charge, with club legend Zinedine Zidane replacing him.

Spaniard Benitez, 55, was relieved of his duties following a meeting of the club’s board on Monday.

B team coach Zidane, 43, has been made first-team boss, but the length of his contract has not been made public.

The World Cup winner said: “I am going to put my heart and soul into this job so that everything works out well.”

Benitez’s final game was Sunday’s 2-2 draw with Valencia, which left them third in La Liga, four points behind leaders Atletico Madrid.

Zidane, whose first game in charge will be Saturday’s game with Deportivo La Coruna at the Bernabeu, is the 11th coach to be appointed in Florentino Perez’s 12 years as club president.

Editor’s Note: Well Rafa Benitez was already on borrowed time after Real’s El Clasico thumping back in November and last night that time finally expired with his sacking. It’s been an indifferent Real Madrid campaign this season with the highs of beating cross city rivals Rayo 10-2 but then being dumped out of the Spanish Cup due to administrative error.

Barcelona and Atletico have dropped points this season but Real never manage to take advantage and still find themselves 4 points off the top. It’s this inability to not be closer to the top that has heaped pressure on Benitez and it finally came to a head after Sunday’s draw with Valencia in which they threw away a 2-1 lead late on.

The sacking may seem a bit harsh, 4 points even in Spain is not insurmountable especially at this stage of the season and they are still in the Champions League where there performances have been much better. You would still make them third favourites behind Barcelona and Bayern but in fairness if they were paired against them then maybe they would lose that encounter also.

Their league position and European prospects was obviously enough for Florentino Perez to consider the season a right off and that a change was needed at the Real Madrid helm. That man is 1998 World Cup Winner and current B team coach Zinedine Zidane.

He has been waiting in the wings for sometime now but is his appointment down to the fact that Florentino Perez has gone through so many top coaches that their isn’t especially at this time of the season anyone to replace Benitez. Zidane almost has a free pass this season and if they were to turn things around and secure a trophy they it would be an impressive turn around of fortunes.

Ultimalely Real Madrid need to stop focusing on the business side of things and actually focus on the important aspect of winning trophies. Players are being brought in to sell shirts instead of adjusting to perform at a level to win trophies.

There’s no question that Florentino Perez ‘s era at the club has been a success on the balance sheet but only delivering 1 La Liga title and 1 Champions League in 7 years isn’t a good enough return. But how much of that is down to bad coaching and how much is down to meddling from on high.

Zinedine Zidane will now have to deal with the interfernce from Perez, that said maybe Perez sees Zidane as his own pet project and will afford him a bit more time then others. Zidane’s first task is to make sure their stuttering season is behind them as they aim to close the gap at the top of La Liga, with the talent at his disposal it shouldn’t be all that hard.