Champions League: How Zidane made Real Madrid a relentless winning machine

In time, you will know what it's like to lose. To feel so desperately that you're right. Yet to fail all the same. Dread it. Run from it. Destiny still arrives.

One can almost imagine Zidane saying this, mimicking Thanos, the Malthusian villain of Avengers: Infinity War who’s hell-bent on collecting Infinity Stones to wipe out half the universe’s population.  Real Madrid have been equally relentless, unstoppable in their quest for glory, swatting aside opposition teams of every vintage.

Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Juventus. It didn’t matter who the opposition was, the final result has been inevitable. They now have 13 European Cups more than the number of cups won by Italian and English teams, who have 12 each.

For regular teams, reaching a Champions League final is a once-a-lifetime achievement, something to tell your grandchildren that you’d plied your trade on the biggest stage, club football has to offer. For these guys it became less of an affair and more of a professional, an almost mundane event with only one possible outcome once the pageantry is over.

Four of the last five Champions League titles have Real Madrid’s name etched on them, and Zidane – a coaching novice who wasn’t considered particularly tactically astute – now has as many Champions League titles as likes of Bob Paisley and Carlo Ancelotti. Even managerial legends like Clough, Heynckes and Ferguson only have two.

So how did Zidane achieve such a remarkable feat in such a short period of time?

There has been a combination of factors including a core group of players who’ve stuck around, talented youngsters brought in, a disregard for the Galactico blueprint and Lady Luck. And remoulding Cristiano Ronaldo’s game to make him an even more lethal assassin.

An old story about Zinedine Zidane the player in 2003 reveals how the Frenchman goes about management. He lost his cool when defensive midfielder Claude Makelele was sold to Chelsea, because Madrid president Florentino Perez didn’t consider him to be a ‘superstar’.

 Perez had dismissed Makelele, who was one of the most talented defensive midfielders of the time, stating his technique was ‘average’ and he only distributed the ball ‘backwards or sideways’.A furious Zidane had disagreed with his president stating: “Why put another layer of gold paint on the Bentley when you are losing the entire engine?”

Zidane while acknowledging that Makelele didn’t have his prodigious passing or dribbling talents said that he was the lynchpin that kept the Galactico’s from imploding. He gave the team balance and was so good at his job, that particular position is now known as the Makelele role.

Zidane knew what a player like Makelele brought to the table, that simply adding superstars didn’t make one winners.

 His managerial style has similarly focussed on the collective. He has also been given more breathing space than any other manager, his playing career assuring him of the respect that his predecessor Rafael Benitez could never garner.

No big Galactico-style player has been signed by Los Merengues since 2014 (the last one being James Rodrigues), Zidane instead bringing through talent like Isco, Casemiro and Varane. At a time where top players are moving across leagues, Real the most ostentatiously impulsive spenders of football, have kept their core group together.

Considering the net spend of the last four seasons, Real Madrid actually have an Arsenal-sque balance sheet and a positive spend of GBP 17.37 million, which is unprecedented for a club that loves to open the cheque book and sign football’s new plaything. If one were to include the GBP 40 million for Vinicius Junior, they still have 3 European Cups in that timeframe with a net spending of simply GBP 23 million.

This has led to hitherto unseen stability between the core group. Nine players started all three finals that Real Madrid won consecutively - Keylor Navas, Marcelo, Sergio Ramos, Dani Carvajal, Casemiro, Toni Kroos, Luka Modric, Karim Benzema and Ronaldo. Even Gareth Bale picked up his 4th Champions League medal, despite missing out on a starting berth in the final.  

He has also re-moulded Ronaldo’s game turning him from a marauding inside forward into a classic number 9. Ronaldo’s sphere on influence might have decreased on the field, but he still remains the ultimate predator inside the box.

His opposite number Jurgen Klopp, who’s hailed for being a footballing auteur with his philosophy of gegenpressing, pointed out that he had been a Liverpool manager longer than Zidane had managed Real Madrid.

Klopp went to pains to rubbish those who think Zidane isn’t an astute tactician saying: “You have to expect he is brilliant, like he was as a player. His players and him seem to work like a clock from Switzerland.”

Despite stating that he’s not a great tactician, Zidane usually makes the right decision. While he preferred the playmaker Isco throughout the season, he brought on Bale when the team needed a push to take on the tiring Liverpool defenders. Like the triumphant Chennai Super Kings squad that just lifted the IPL with an average age of 34, Real Madrid also have a squad where the players are pushing 30 or over it, including Navas, Ramos, Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, Luka Modric and Marcelo. However, the experience has given the squad a key advantage in big games.

To top it, Real Madrid have honed to perfection the Machiavellian streak that all football fans frown upon in opponents but love to have in their own players.

While Ramos’ cynical foul on Salah might have made him the most-hated man in the Muslim world, more so than brutal dictators and even Crusade enthusiast Richard the Lionheart, these are the kind of moments that can win you games.But Ramos’ actions without any retribution epitomises what Real Madrid is about,a will to win and get over the line, despite the moral ambiguity that might trouble some people.

Also, of importance is how often this side manages to win with their backs against the wall. They also seem to have that little bit of luck that teams need.Along with Salah’s injury, there was Karius' bizarre goalkeeping fiasco, where he literally gifted a goal to Karim Benzema before spilling Gareth Bale’s stinging shot. They had a similar goal-keeping luck against Bayern Munich when Ulreich fumbled and some slightly dubious penalties. But truth be told, every big team gets these breaks.

It’s human tendency to view referring errors through a cognitive dissonance spectrum. We tend to remember the mistakes committed by referees that are to our team’s disadvantage while conveniently forgetting those that benefit the team.This team probably won’t be remembered as team which played a particular brand of football like Guardiola’s Barcelona’s Tiki Taka or Cryuff’s Ajax Total Football.

The only defining philosophy of this Madrid team has been to win. They’ve been like silent assassins quietly going about their job, doing more than enough to get past the finishing line and reach final after final and win them. And that, for better or worse, is what football is about. All else is embellishment and just noise.

Gary Lieneker had once quipped: “Football is a simple game. Twenty-two men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end, the Germans always win.” In European club football, we can, with certitude, say the same thing about Real Madrid.