Is this Really Madrid?

It's an interesting time at Real Madrid. The club keeps winning and yet, for the fanatically obsessed madridista it's measured by their lack of purpose, their inability to string two significant passes together, and their failure to dominate lesser opponents. Some blame the tactical intransigence of their coach. Others more practical assert the lack of playing time together for the starting eleven, and even some the overly romantic notion that a club like Real Madrid can even entertain the contradicting philosophies of winning every match and playing well in them. This isn't an argument for or against good football. I've come down squarely for the fact that the large clubs owe it to their supporters to play well. This isn't even a criticism of Jose Mourinho although I think I've done so many times in the past, and it bears repeating, just not here and now. 

You see, the most overused statement of the last month is that "Real Madrid aren't playing well, but give them time, this squad with these players will function sooner or later" and that is why this club falters to a certain extent. That's wrong. The reality is that this club has been buffeted for the last decade on the winds of conflicting strategies, differing philosophies if you would. I'd go into the differences between Vicente del Bosque and Carlos Queroz, but it's a similar situation to what happened with Pellegrini and Mourinho, no these are the bookends of a long arduous process, one that has always featured the often incompatible needs of the club to play well and win everything. Here's the  timeline.

Del Bosque wins the Champions League with a club led by the likes of Zidane, Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos and is fired. Reason? Not sexy enough for Real Madrid, too much of a company man, and there are other candidates that are younger, fresher and more deserving of the role than the hound-dog Del Bosque. Perez hires Carlos Queroz, Sir Alex Ferguson's number two at Manchester United, and quickly finds that the brand of football suffers. The complaints roll in, that his brand of football is too defensive, and there are fractures in the relationship like having Makele sold from underneath his nose that conflict with the philosophy that Perez wants to emulate: the classic Santiago Bernabeu teams of the late 1950's. From that point, it was a matter of managerial ping-pong: Jose Antonio Camacho, Mariano Garcia Remon and Wanderlei Luxemburgo over the next year and a half, running three wildly different philosophies of play and purging and gorging the club of some great players suited best two either one system or another but not both. How many great players came and went through the gates of the Santiago Bernabeu over the next five years? The next batch, Lopez-Caro, Fabio Capello, Bernd Schuster and Juande Ramos all presided over a system that has been reactive and not pro-active, beholden to any footballing philosophy at all, as long as it worked somewhere else first.

I hate to say it but blame starts at the top. They had the opportunity to close the ideological gap with the Nou Camp last year and they gave it away by continuing the failed practices of the last 10 years. You want to blame Jose Mourinho, be my guest, I won't argue with you, I'm usually on the front-line of that lynch mob, but this is a fact that won't go away. While Florentino Perez has been in charge of Real Madrid he has two league titles and a Champions League trophy (their ninth) to his name, but nothing of note since firing Vicente Del Bosque. I'd like to think that things will change, but this looks like more of the same, a generational
 malaise tied strictly  to the business practices of Florentino Perez.

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