Xabi Alonso, the technical director of Chelsea's first football team, spoke about his departure from Real Madrid and the reason for choosing the Blues for the next 2026/2027 season.
Chelsea club contracted Xabi Alonso, succeeding Liam Rosenior, to lead the Blues in a difficult season during which he is required to make his fans forget the bad appearance of last season.
Xabi Alonso was dismissed from coaching Real Madrid after only 6 months of taking over the task last season due to disagreements with Vinicius Junior, the team's player.
Xabi Alonso said, in an interview with the "Daily Mail" newspaper: "My departure from Real Madrid? I am lucky that my career was not full of bad experiences".
He continued: "I had a bad experience at Real Madrid but its wounds heal, now I have fully recovered and I am very excited and I really want to enjoy this step".
He added: "Looking at the past, I benefit from the positives and the things that did not succeed, I was very critical of myself and think about what I could have done better because things certainly did not go as I expected but life goes on and you have to move forward step by step in life".
Regarding coaching Chelsea, he continued: "I should have made a great effort and draw strength from within me, the timing was just right, the right time for the club and right for me".
He went on: "This is a team that performed wonderfully recently, the situation was not as bad as it appeared at the end of last season, there are great possibilities in Chelsea to see how much time we will spend until we develop ourselves, I really enjoyed being a coach".
He continued: "After my departure from Real Madrid, I used my time to recharge my energy because the coach needs to be full of vitality to draw energy from others".
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He continued: "It is very important for me to convey this passion and enthusiasm that I have for the game in every training session and in every game plan to the players, I dedicated that time for this purpose specifically".
He pointed out: "I did not watch a lot of football matches, it was about me and the feeling I have for football, you learn from disappointments from things that were not destined to succeed, and you believe that things will improve".
Regarding contracting with Jordan Henderson and Danny Welbeck who are over 30 years old: "For me, you need to achieve the right balance between the team's personalities and stages of maturity, from early twenties to early thirties, and players at different stages of their football career, there is no ready recipe for that".
Alonso's father was a football player and coach, about that he reveals: "Because of the upbringing I was in, the path was not strange to me, I used to see that at home, it was all about work then work and work".
He continued: "Preparing the training for the next day, preparing the team's lineup, that used to happen in the kitchen and I was next to him so I don't say that it was my destiny but I had to try".
He stressed: "In the last period of my career when I moved to Germany, it was important for me to start thinking about how to manage things, I was very curious, I was at that stage of my career where I could go to Pep Guardiola's office and say to him Pep, why does this happen? What is the game plan?".
He completed: "Maybe when I was twenty years old I did not have that confidence to go to the coach's office and ask him about these things but at that moment, and because of the confidence he gave me, I felt the need to do that and even wanted it".
He continued: "I felt more responsibility towards the team compared to my first years as a player, I did not want to think only about myself but about my teammates in the team and how we play, and in supporting the young players, the situation you are in in your early twenties is completely different from the situation you are in in your early thirties, we have seen this in many cases and that was the case with me".
He concluded: "I wanted to try coaching but not directly to the highest levels, so I started with Real Madrid's under-14 team, it was natural and it was not wise to rush".
