Zinedine Zidane returning to Real Madrid is starting to look like a mistake

Zinedine Zidane’s story with Real Madrid already had a happy ending, and his return to the club has turned into a nightmare.

The assembled Madrid media weren’t entirely sure who was about to walk through the door. They knew they were there for the unveiling of Real Madrid’s new manager, but who that manager would be wasn’t certain. Until a few days before, Jose Mourinho had appeared destined to return to the Santiago Bernabeu. Instead, it was another familiar face who entered the room.

Having led the club to countless honours both as a player and a manager, Zinedine Zidane is a Real Madrid icon. In fact, he is the most successful coach in the recent history of Los Merengues, becoming the first manager ever to win three successive Champions League titles. His shock return just nine months after his equally shocking resignation would, it was presumed, set Real Madrid back on the straight and narrow.

However, with the new season under way the path already looks as meandering as ever. Real Madrid have claimed just one win from their opening three La Liga fixtures, drawing at home to Real Valladolid and losing away to Villarreal after an admittedly positive start at Celta Vigo. For context, rivals Atletico Madrid already hold a five-point lead at the top of the table.

But Real Madrid’s far from impressive start to the season cannot be quantified purely by results. There is a sense of malaise bubbling under the surface which has been apparent throughout the summer. It might be an intangible factor, but it is a factor nonetheless. The Santiago Bernabeu isn’t a very happy place right and one wonders if the Frenchman now regrets returning.

Zidane has always been underestimated as a coach. Many believed the Frenchman was only successful because of the talent of the squad he’d inherited. Subsequently, the struggles suffered by Real Madrid following his exit served to quell such criticisms. Zidane’s status was emboldened after his departure.

It was therefore difficult to understand why Zidane felt the urge to return, even more so now that Real Madrid have suffered a dismal start to the 2019/20 campaign. There were even suggestions that Zidane could resign just one week before the start of the season over the club’s failure to sign him Paul Pogba, despite over £300 million being splurged on other signings including Eden Hazard, Luka Jovic and Ferland Mendy.

To understand why Zidane would be so upset with the failure to sign just one player one must understand the circumstances in which he resigned in the first place at the end of the 2017/18 season. With Cristiano Ronaldo on his way out, Zidane recognised the need for a fundamental squad overhaul. However, club president Florentino Perez did not and so Zidane departed, holding the view that he couldn’t take Real Madrid any further without significant backing in the transfer market.

Perez was only able to lure Zidane back on the basis of a promise that the squad would be shaped as the Frenchman wanted. Real Madrid’s early summer business suggested Zidane had full control, that he would finally get what he wanted all along, but the failure to sign Pogba soon became a representation of a continued power struggle between manager and president.

Injuries have undoubtedly been a key factor in Real Madrid’s poor start, with Marco Asensio potentially out for the whole season due to a torn ACL and Hazard not yet fit to feature, but most concerning about their first few performances of the new campaign has been the lack of identity, the lack of personality.

Zidane is a pragmatist. He doesn’t profess sporting philosophy like Pep Guardiola or even Jurgen Klopp and so his Real Madrid team, the one that won three successive Champions League titles, never set the zeitgeist quite like the great Barcelona side of 2011. Even by that standard, though, there has been a distinct lack of character to what we have seen of Real Madrid so far this season.

Real Madrid is a behemoth a club. Turning around such a giant institution was always going to take time, but Zidane has now been in the job for six months since returning and no real progress seems to have been made. Many questions have been asked of the Frenchman, but one still persists from the moment he walked through that door to greet the Madrid media again – why did you come back?