What Real Madrid fans need to know about Santiago Solari

Santiago Solari has taken over from Julen Lopetegui as the temporary manager of Real Madrid. Here’s all you need to know about the new man.

A wild week in the Spanish capital finally concluded on Monday night when, at half nine local time, Julen Lopetegui was officially relieved of his managerial duties at the club, . A firm and rather harsh statement ended with the announcement that Santiago Solari would be taking over as temporary manager while the Madrid board search for a permanent replacement.

Solari will be familiar to some Madridistas as a member of the team that secured Los Blancos’  ninth European title in Glasgow 16 years ago. The Argentine started his career in his home country with Newell Old Boys. After impressing in Argentina, Solari made the move to Spain, joining Madrid’s cross town rivals Atletico Madrid in 1999. He played there for a season before heading to the Santiago Bernabeu, where he played 167 times for Los Blancos before departing in 2005. After leaving Spain, Solari enjoyed spells at Inter Milan, San Lorenzo, Atlante and Penerol before retiring from the game in 2011.

His first taste of management was with Real Madrid’s youth team, taking over from Zinedine Zidane as manager of Real Madrid Castilla, Real Madrid’s B team, in 2016. It wouldn’t be unfair to call Solari’s reign over Castilla a disaster. The youth team had expectations of challenging for the playoffs into Spain’s second division, but Solari’s side have often barely scraped into the top half of the table during his three years in charge and have regularly faced the threat of relegation. Currently, Solari is the seventh worst Castilla manager since records began.

Outside of just being a bad manager, Solari has also failed in one of his primary objectives as a youth coach, developing youth players. The 42-year-old has mismanaged a number of promising youth prospects across his stint at Castilla, chief among them Sergio Diaz. Dubbed by some as the next Sergio Aguero, Diaz made an explosive start to life at Castilla, scoring five goals in his first 13 appearances for the club.

Solari decided to experiment with the striker’s positioning and moved him out wide. The experiment failed, but Solari insisted keeping the Paraguayan on the wing. It proved a disastrous move for Diaz’s development; the promising forward was sucked of all the momentum and confidence he had built from his start at Castilla and never looked the same. Diaz was sent out on loan to second division Lugo last season, where he played 10 games and contributed no goals or assists before suffering a long-term injury. He returned to South America this summer, looking a shadow of his former self.

In summary, Solari doesn’t seem like the man to turn Real Madrid’s fortunes around and if his brief managerial record is anything to go by, he’s more likely to make things worse. However, there are some positives to cling to.

The first is that, as a temporary manager, Solari is only allowed to take charge of the first team for 15 days before the Madrid board must appoint someone on a permanent basis. That means Solari will take charge of Melilla in the Copa Del Rey on Wednesday, a home league clash to Real Valladolid on Saturday, an away trip to Vitoria Pizen in the Champions League and a league match away to Celta Vigo. On paper, these are all winnable fixtures for Madrid, with the trip to Celta Vigo the most difficult contest in that run.

There’s also some hope that Solari might not prove as disastrous with the senior side as he did with the B team. Though it might seem like a stretch, Segunda B is quite a difficult league to manage in, especially with a youth side. The Spanish third division is currently a mixture of professional and youth sides. It’s renowned for its physicality with many professional sides made up of veterans and journeymen. It’s a notoriously hard division to get out of and proves a real challenge for any youngster or coach to make a mark in.

Another challenge that faces all B team managers is they basically have to rebuild their squads every season as the most impressive players are promoted up to their respective senior side or are loaned out for experience in a higher division.

Castilla have also made an encouraging start to the season, currently sitting fourth in table after winning five of their opening 10 games , losing their first game of the season in their last match against Fuenlabrada.

Solari’s appointment isn’t completely negative, but Real Madrid are currently in the middle of a historically bad run and with other options available, it’s difficult to see why Solari was chosen to immediately succeed Lopetegui, or how he might provide any solutions to the club’s current problems.

In many ways, Solari has nothing to lose. The fixture list has been kind to Madrid’s new manager and should he successfully navigate through the next two weeks without suffering any embarrassments, it would certainly go a long way to proving that he has grown as a manager since he took over Castilla in 2016. Who knows, he might even find himself with the job full-time.