Arbeloa's hat trick
Since taking over as Real Madrid head coach earlier this year, Álvaro Arbeloa has secured a trio of big-name scalps.
Whatever happens this season - and whatever his future holds come June - Álvaro Arbeloa can already look back and say, with full justification, that no one can take away what he’s accomplished. In just 70 days as Real Madrid head coach, he’s gone toe‑to‑toe with three giants of the coaching world and come out on top: first José Mourinho, and then, in the span of a single week, Pep Guardiola and finally Diego Simeone - the king of Madrid derbies, with a record 50 of them.
“Results speak for themselves”
“I see a great future for him,” Guardiola said last Tuesday in Manchester, apparently without any hint of irony. Simeone wasn’t asked yesterday about his counterpart on the Madrid bench, but even he had conceded before the match that “the results speak for themselves.” Compliments keep piling up, but more importantly, so do the signs that fuel genuine optimism about the Salamanca native’s direction of travel. His man‑management has been strong, and tactically he’s taken obvious steps forward. From the opening whistle - Madrid’s 3–0 against City was a masterclass drawn up on the tactics board - to the in‑game adjustments that once exposed his lack of experience. That changed on Sunday. This derby was the first league match in which his Madrid fell behind and still came back to win. What they couldn’t manage at Osasuna (2-1) or at home to Getafe (1-0), they finally achieved against an even tougher opponent: an Atlético team already sitting on a lead.
Can Arbeloa add Flick to his list of victims?
On safari, the great objective is to spot the ‘big five’ - lion, elephant, leopard, rhino, and buffalo - from up close in the jeep. Arbeloa, in just two months, has filled what had been an empty wall of “big‑game” coaching victims with framed photos of three of football’s sacred cows: Mou, Pep, and Cholo. For Madrid’s purposes, the next one logically has to be Hansi Flick. That, if it comes, would arrive in May. A Clásico in Barcelona that - after Sunday’s 3-2 result and with this remarkably resilient Madrid - still carries the scent of a decisive showdown for the LaLiga title. Arbeloa even passed the ‘Cholo Test’ while down to ten men, and Flick’s Barça now sees in front of it a Madrid head coach growing sharper by the week, increasingly seasoned and increasingly dangerous.
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