Was Benitez the right man for Madrid? maybe not, but had he done enough to keep his job till the end of the season? in my opinion, definitely. This Madrid side are still fighting for the Champions league and are 4 points off the top of the table. This is a team Rafa Benitez had recently taken charge of as head coach, it would definitely take some time for the squad to get used to him and his tactics.

Perez knew when hiring Benitez,he was going for a more pragmatic manager than Ancelotti. Rafa is not known for his devotion to attacking football, he is a more defensive manager. This season so far Madrid has the 5th best defense score per sqwuaka, shipping in just 18 goals all season (A great achievement considering they have Pepe at the back). They have been criticized a lot by fans this season for their failure in dominating games, rarely looking like the big team. Despite the criticism though, Madrid has still scored the most goals in La Liga, while leading in both Attacking score and Possession score in the league per sqwuaka, suggesting the criticisms might be unwarranted. This team is still getting used to the coach, and some players haven’t been quite up to par this season, but they are still getting some results. There was no reason to sack a coach who was finally bringing out the best in Gareth Bale, the world’s most expensive player. Gareth has seemed to up his performance this season, scoring 10 goals and assisting 8 in 15 appearances so far.

Madrid has played so well this season against much lesser and in some cases handicapped opponents, but when coming up against teams of average or above average teams they have struggled. This was never more glaring than in the game Madrid themselves won 10:2 against Rayo Vallecano. Rayo where leading 2:1 and looking the better team till they where reduced to 9 men, then Madrid ran riot. Los Blancos has failed to beat Athletico and Barcelona, and also lost also loosing to Villareal and Valencia, and guess who failed to score in any of those big games. Real Madrid have looked like the perfect flat track bullies this season, they know how to take full advantage of naivety of certain opponents who are scared to go at them. When teams have been bold enough to take the game to them this season, Madrid has not looked comfortable.

It is fair to say along side Benitez decision to blame his fortunes on the abundance of attacking players at his disposal, in doing so shifting the blame from himself to Perez and the players (Who does that!!?), another reason for his sack would be the players especially Ronaldo’s failure to perform in big games, yeah you heard me, he got his manager sacked, indirectly. Despite all the goals he has scored for Madrid over the years, a return of just two major trophies suggest the goals have largely counted for nothing, at least for the team. It has helped him win the balon d ore a number of times, since the award largely goes to the top goal scorer this days. I’ll focus on just this season though. He has failed to score against PSG (twice), Barca, Athletico, Athletic, Sevilla, Villareal and Valencia. Ronaldo’s goals this season have come against Malmo-6, Espanyol-5, Rayo Vallecano-2, Sociedad-2, Levante-1, Celta-1, Las Palmas-1, Eibar-1 and Getafe-1.

Blaming the below par performances of individuals against the big teams on the manager is really short sighted, and you would not expect any manager to bench Ronaldo.

Perez should have stopped and taken a look at the condition of his closest rivals Barcelona about this time last year. They where in turmoil, calls where being made for Luis Enrique to be sacked, Messi was being benched, the president getting resigning, elections and so much more. They stuck to their manager, gave him time to get used to his team, the beginning was rough but they ended up winning a treble.

Zinedine Zidane is a risk, but who knows it might pay off, and it does create some excitement, Diego Simeone, Luis Enrique and Zizzou, former rivals as players, now rivals as managers of their beloved club.

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