Xabi wasn't the problem

To paraphrase Rudyard Kipling, “If you keep your head while all around you lose theirs…you will be a man my son!”

This could have been the pep talk from José Mourinho to his Benfica goalkeeper, who scored the most dramatic of last-minute goals to keep his team in the Champions League and send Real Madrid swirling into a new crisis.

Anatoliy trubin’s heroic deed has made him a legend in European football. It was only a goal that separated his team from the rest of the field. Real Madrid, too, needed just one to reach the knockout rounds and avoid the draw for the play-offs.

Trubin possessed the courage and personality Real Madrid lacked. He deserves the platitudes, but Real Madrid’s players should be denounced.

This just proved that the deposed coach Xabi Alono was not the problem. This collection of players are feral. They collapsed together as a group.

They were reduced to nine players for the second time during this season. Raül Asencio shrugged his shoulders and simply stepped off the field when he received his second yellow card in the 92nd minute; he almost accepted it. Rodrygo snagged him after four minutes of abuse towards the referee.

Real Madrid’s season took a dramatic turn. They dropped from third place to ninth. The play-offs were on the horizon. Benfica then scored their goal two minutes later.

Asencio, Rodrygo and their only saving grace comes from the fact they are not the only stupid ones. Aurélien Tchouaméni needed to be withdrawn. He was back in the team from a suspension, he was booked in the third minute and seemed to be on a mission; seconds after he was warned about grappling with Benfica’s Nicolás Otamendi, he clutched his shirt within whistling distance of the referee to concede a penalty.

Álvaro Arbeloa replaced him with Eduardo Camavinga. The tackling of the player was so unpredictable that a substitute, Jorge Cestero (a teenager), had to be used to give him some maturity on the field. Camavinga took over the left-back position that Alvaro Carreras had vacated after he lost his head. Carreras, along with Fran García, was sent off in the December game with Celta that was about to signal the end for the coach.

What now? Arbeloa, who inherited Alonso’s issues, cannot be sacked.

Carlo Ancelotti’s amazing management skills are highlighted. In the second four-year tenure of the Italian, there was hardly a single public issue. He made sure that the diva behaviour was not displayed on matchdays, given what we see now.

Florentino Perez needs to act. Arbeloa clearly acts as a mouthpiece of the president. He’s just like the White House representative for President Trump. Don Florentino needs to get a grip; he needs to take Vinícius Júnior’s demand for a €30m per season contract and extinguish it; he also needs to close the door on the changing room and rip into the massed egos.

Fans booed players during the final home match of the Liga with Levante. The volume is going to be turned up for this week’s humiliating homecoming against Rayo Vallecano.

Another punishment is the uncertainty that comes with the Champions League Play-Offs. It’s either a rematch with Benfica or Bodø/Glimt, who play on a plastic pitch in the Arctic Circle. Both are a poetic reproach.