Xabi Alonso Interview

[Uilleam 5,924]

An interesting chat between Xabi Alonso and the man from The Times.

One of football's great mysteries (to me, at least) is why Rafa Benitez, at Liverpool, wished to ditch Alonso in favour of Gareth Barry.

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/sport/southgate-is-trying-to-change-england-but-the-mentality-is-buried-deep-0vl9b7s5s (Paywall)

 

XABI ALONSO INTERVIEW

 

Xabi Alonso interview: ‘Southgate is trying to change England but the mentality is buried deep

As he heads for retirement this weekend, Xabi Alonso tells Matt Dickinson why the game is about intelligence not physicality

 

Matt Dickinson, Chief Sports Writer

May 18 2017, 12:01am,

The Times

 

 

There is a vintage BMW R100 motorbike sitting in a garage waiting for its owner to rev it up and ride it down the highway. Xabi Alonso is looking forward to opening the throttle. “Well, I have to pass my test first,” he smiles. “But I’ve already done the theory. I’m almost ready to go.”

 

This weekend, almost two decades after a teenage Alonso gave up his two-wheeled machine to focus on making the most of himself as a footballer, one of the best players of his generation will ride off after 18 seasons in which he has not only won so much but accomplished it all with such class, such style.

 

I love a good tackle, but it’s the last resort. It’s better to avoid the tackle, anticipate. How often does Busquets tackle? He doesn’t need to

When Alonso decided it was time to announce his imminent retirement, he wondered which moment he would use to accompany the message on Twitter. Would it be the jaw-dropping comeback in Istanbul to win the Champions League with Liverpool in 2005? How about the celebrated La Decima with Real Madrid in 2014? Or his most recent back-to-back Bundesliga championships with Bayern Munich?

 

But, then, how could Alonso possibly overlook the 2010 World Cup with Spain, when he started every game, which was the crowning glory of his country’s unprecedented hat-trick of international triumphs? How could one picture sum up a career? With characteristic thought, Alonso grabbed a pair of boots, wandered over to the park pitch near his home in Munich where his nine-year-old son plays at weekends.

 

Using a phone, his wife took a black and white picture of Alonso, boots in one hand, shy little wave with the other. “Lived it. Loved it. Farewell beautiful game,” he posted.

 

“I couldn’t pick one photo of my career,” he says. “So I thought, ‘Let’s go back to where it all started, a normal football pitch, with my boots. Let’s finish where it began, where the kids play.’ ”

 

It was perfectly done, with no PR hullabaloo; elegant, uncomplicated. It is the same when we sit down in the sunshine at Munich’s relaxed training ground on Säbener Strasse to discuss all that Alonso has achieved, and what happens next.

 

As Philipp Lahm chats a few yards away about his own retirement, Alonso is still not sure what emotions will hit him against Freiburg on Saturday, the last professional game of his life.

 

 

But, as he counts down every training session, the finale feels right. At 35, he wanted to bow out at the top, not dragging out his career in China for any amount of money. He hoped to go out on a high — lifting the Bundesliga with Bayern is close enough to the peak.

 

Retirement propels many sportsmen into a scary void. “I am at peace with myself,” he says. “When I have time to reflect, I know the memories will be good ones.”

 

Regrets? Well, not quite too few to mention. “Maybe I have three,” he says. “With Real Sociedad, my club, we were one game from winning La Liga [in 2002-03]. With Liverpool we were so close to the Premier League. With Bayern, so close to the Champions League. But maybe that would be too much to ask, too perfect. If you can call them regrets . . . but that’s just football. When I look back, I can be happy that I’ve done what I wanted, dictated my path.”

 

A new direction awaits, and one that will surely take him into coaching. If ever a man seemed hand-crafted for guiding the next generation, it is this most wise of footballers.

 

Not so fast, Alonso says. First he wants a long break, a proper year out after so many years of physical and mental intensity. “Sometimes I think about the games too much,” he says. “I’ve lost a lot of sleep thinking about matches for days before, days after.”

 

There is that motorbike to ride, perhaps some skiing, travel with his family. His son, Jontxu, “a little Scouser” born in Liverpool, is demanding that his father takes him to see the new main stand at Anfield. “I’ve spent my life trying to squeeze everything into four weeks in summer,” he says. “Now I don’t have to plan anything. I have weekends for the first time in 18 years. My wife is thrilled.”

 

But you would bet a lot of money on the game drawing him back, and Alonso seeking to pass on all he has learnt from all those years as the cerebral midfield fulcrum of some of the world’s biggest clubs.

 

Alonso is the boy from the Basque country who came to England in 2004, aged 23. His Liverpool debut came in a bruising defeat by Bolton Wanderers. “I remember [after] 15, 20 minutes I think it was a Kevin Nolan tackle, a ‘welcome to the Premier League tackle,’ ” he laughs. “Then there was [Jussi] Jaaskelainen from his kicks, not even trying to pass, just long balls up to Kevin Davies. I said to myself, ‘This is different. OK, Xabi, you want to make it here, become a pro with Liverpool you need to learn fast.’ ” He won the Champions League, unforgettably, at the end of his first season.

 

From those five seasons at Anfield, Alonso developed a deep fondness for English football. But it is not a blind loyalty.

 

That overt physicality still makes Alonso shake his head with bemusement. We chat about Steven Gerrard’s recent promise to knock out the “showboating mentality” among Liverpool’s under-18s. It is a matter of emphasis and Alonso’s is clear.

 

“You need to be up for the game but, for me, it’s about intelligence,” he says. “If you are afraid of contact, for sure you won’t make it. But the most important thing is to understand the game, like why I need to play a short pass here, a longer pass there. Why take this position not that one. Try to understand the game around you. That’s my idea.”

 

It is a reminder that he once gave an interview despairing that a young player in the Liverpool academy had cited the tackle as his greatest strength. “Tackling isn’t a quality to aspire to,” he said, in a perfectly pitched challenge to English footballing culture.

 

“It was a great controversy,” Alonso says. “And I stick with my opinion. I don’t refuse the tackle. I love a good tackle. But it’s the last resort.

 

“It’s much better to avoid the tackle. Try to anticipate. How many times does [barcelona’s Sergio] Busquets tackle in his position? He’s so ahead of the game, he doesn’t need to.

 

“In England you love to roar, ‘Aaagghhhh,’ it’s part of your game. But it needs to progress like we see with German players now, more adaptable, more flair. You see the success they had at the World Cup, and that was a ten-year process. England, it’s taking longer. You have good young players, [Gareth] Southgate is trying to bring a different way that I like. But the mentality is buried deep.”

 

It would help, he says, if British players travelled more, as he has done. “Who does it? [Gareth] Bale has done it and been a big success but, in the past 20 years, how many other great players abroad? How many since David Platt? But you have everything you want in England, money, famous clubs, so players don’t try to find something else abroad,” he says.

 

Asked to name his favourite young English player, he instantly alights on the versatility and composure of Eric Dier, who just happens to have learnt his game in Portugal.

 

Such a fine player in his own right, with those beautifully stroked passes, Alonso insists that he was most useful for what he could bring out of others.

 

“My job? To be a solution for my team-mates,” he says. “I wasn’t going to be the player to dribble past two opponents and strike from 30 yards. For the ones that could, I could make their job easier.

 

“My idea was never about my game individually. It was always about that collective. If I do this, how does it help the team?”

 

It is another reason why he seems so well suited to coaching, having spent so many years understanding how a team ticks. “It doesn’t mean I am going to be a great coach,” he says. “But will it help? You would hope so.”

 

Additionally, he has worked under some of the most renowned coaches of the past 20 years — Rafa Benítez, José Mourinho, Pep Guardiola, Carlo Ancelotti — and in so many different systems, always the brain of his team.

 

He hates to compare those managers, declining to be drawn into moral arguments about which style is better. “What mattered to me wasn’t which style they used but having a clear vision,” he says. “It’s all about making the players believe in your ideas.

 

“Right way, wrong way? You need to know your players. With the national team, [Andrés] Iniesta, [David] Villa, [David] Silva, we couldn’t play counterattack and run 50 metres. We had to play in their half, to keep control. With Madrid, we had [Gareth] Bale, [Karim] Benzema, [Ángel] Di María and Cristiano [Ronaldo]. That’s very different.”

 

He has not started his coaching badges but, as he moves back to Spain this summer and a life split between San Sebastián and Madrid, the Spanish federation will fast-track him. His mind whirs with ideas. “I have never used sport psychology,” he says. “Maybe it would have helped sometimes when my form was not so good or thinking too hard. That’s a part where football can really develop, in my view.”

 

He mentions Paris Saint-Germain’s collapse to Barcelona in the Champions League, where they lost the second leg 6-1 to lose 6-5 on aggregate. “That fear of losing,” he says. “We could all see it, so, mentally, how do you prepare better to cope with that? Physically, at the top, football is so well developed. Technically, tactically too. Mentally, I don’t know exactly how we can move it on, but I’d like to explore.”

 

 

Another thought process is how best to develop young players in an environment where the fame and riches grow with each year, turning heads. Alonso puts his own balance down to family. His father, who was a footballer with Barcelona and Real Sociedad, made his son finish his homework before going out to play.

 

“Because my father was a player too it was easier for me, watching that on a daily basis, to deal with the football life. For players who came from difficult backgrounds, neighbourhoods, the transformation is so huge that I can understand that you lose your way. I have some sympathy.

 

“That’s why the people around, an agent, staff from the club, you need to protect young players. That’s part of management. You can’t be a policeman but you have to guide. But it’s easy to talk. The best thing is to show the right way.”

 

As a career to follow, you could not do much better than look to Alonso, though, unusually, there is no autobiography.

 

“To write an interesting book, you need to tell too much,” he says. “Some part of me is shy as well. I like to preserve some parts for me.”

 

It is not that he lacks opinions — far from it — but ask him to pick a best XI of team-mates over his career and he looks pained, saying that just at centre forward, it is impossible to choose between Fernando Torres, Robert Lewandowski, Villa, Benzema and more. “Imagine the texts I get,” he says. “Do I need that?”

 

He is not interested in the froth, the superficial noise, of football but in real accomplishment and improvement. It is why he wants that proper break to recharge. His good friend, Mikel Arteta, jumped at the chance to go straight into coaching under Guardiola but despite Ancelotti offering to take him under his wing, Alonso is insistent that he will take a long pause. “Whatever I try, I want to feel it from my guts, to feel strongly about it,” he says. “I want to get it right. I won’t rush.”

 

So he will ride off into the sunset on Saturday evening, to reflect and think. He will sort out those two big sacks of swapped shirts that have been piled up over the years.

 

He will enjoy his break, talking about a car rally he would love to join. But one day, surely, he will be back in elite football. Alonso as the successful coach of an intelligent, passing team is not at all hard to imagine.

 

And not a bad CV, when all is said and done.

 

ALONSO’S ROLL OF HONOUR

 

Spain

114 caps

16 goals

Honours World Cup, 2 European championship (2)

 

Real Sociedad

124 games

10 goals

 

Liverpool

210 games

19 goals

Honours Champions League, FA Cup, Super Cup

 

Real Madrid

236 games

6 goals

Honours League title, Champions League, Copa Del Rey (2)

 

Bayern Munich

116 games

9 goals

Honours League title (3), German Cup

 

Would be useless at Tannadice on a cold and blustery February night, mind.

[craig 5,199]

Quality player, quality person. A gentleman.

[Uilleam 5,924]

Quality player, quality person. A gentleman.

 

A Bentley (from the days when Bentleys were Bentleys).