Real sack Luxemburgo

[MFC]

Real Madrid sacked coach Wanderley Luxemburgo following an emergency meeting of the club's board on Sunday.

The 53-year-old Brazilian, who was Real's fifth coach in the space of two and a half years, had been in charge of the team for just over 11 months.

Reserve team manager Juan Ramon Lopez Caro has taken over as caretaker boss.

A club statement said: "Luxemburgo will not continue as Real Madrid coach. The club has already been in contact with captain Raul to break the news."

Among those already being linked to the job are England boss Sven-Goran Eriksson, Fabio Capello, Arsene Wenger, Jose Mourinho and Rafael Benitez.

The club reportedly held initial talks over Luxemburgo's future immediately after Saturday's 1-0 win over Getafe, which was the club's first victory in three league games.

It is believed Luxemburgo did not take the team's training session on Sunday.

Cadena Ser radio and Antena 3 television speculated that the 53-year-old had already been told by club vice-president Emilio Butragueno and sporting director Arrigo Sacchi that he had lost his job.

And on Sunday, Butragueno told the club's official website: "The truth is that we don't think the team's performance has lived up to expectations.

"That's fundamentally what made us decide. It wasn't easy - it was a long directors' meeting. Luxemburgo is a professional. We are sad but sometimes you have to make decisions.

"Everybody gave their opinion and we were all in agreement. We are in a delicate moment and we think it was time for a change."

[Loud Mouth Soup]

That team is one big circus sideshow now.

No self-respecting 'big name' manager will go there.

[RealGooner]

quote:Originally posted by Loud Mouth Soup

That team is one big circus sideshow now.

No self-respecting 'big name' manager will go there.

Thats true. The joke is, they forgot to sack the guy responsible for the mess Madrid is in due to his Galactico strategy: Club president Florentino Perez.

[beachesl]

from soccernet:

Chronicle of a death foretold

Phil Ball

Archive

You just can't keep 'em out of the news. On Sunday, the guillotine finally fell, and Wandering Wanderley's head was held up for the baying masses to gawp at.

The most curious thing about this sacking was that although it was 'cantado' (inevitable) as they say here, the truth is that Real Madrid were desperately trying to avoid it happening. A few weeks ago, my 'deep throat' from Madrid assured me that the Brazilian would not be sacked, and that he would continue until the end of the season because Florentino Pérez needed to portray the image of a club able to wash its dirty linen but also able to hang it out to dry on the decks of a smoothly cruising ocean liner, if you'll excuse the extended metaphor.

As shipbuilder and pilot, Pérez also needed to assure the paid-up club members that there was still some kind of executive coherence at the club, some kind of rationally planned strategy. This executive also includes Emilio Butragueño and Arrigo Sacchi, neither of whom wished to go down with the ship, of course. Both had publicly defended their employee on several occasions, but we all know what that means.

The long-term trouble with these sorts of pronouncements, however, is that it becomes like a Kafka novel - nothing is ever what it seems. Nothing can ever be believed. It becomes impossible to distinguish between the misinformation and the real information. The surreal kingdom of Madrid remains up there somewhere, a single turret pointing out apologetically from the clouds.

Conveniently for the lot of them, it was the Bernabeú that finally dictated the sentence, that read out the decree. Well - that's what the Madrid press would have you believe anyway. After Saturday's wobbly 1-0 win over modest neighbours Getafe, the stadium appeared to give the manager the final thumbs down, booing him on the rare occasions that he dared to emerge from the shelter of his dug-out. And so we have another myth to contend with. When the Bernabéu decrees, the manager leaves.

This may well be true, but for the time being it cleverly draws a veil over the stumbling of the men in charge. They wanted to keep him to preserve their own image (since they employed him), and also to stem the recent haemorrhage of managers who have come and gone since the premature departure of the wise old uncle Vicente del Bosque. Luxemburgo's departure would also cost them a fair whack, contractually speaking. Much better to hang in there and bring in Fabio Capello at the end of the season.

But the Brazilian has been fed to the lions. The stadium apparently stood as one and gave him the thumbs down. Well - sort of. Although I wasn't actually there, it didn't seem to me to be quite as dramatic as several newspapers have been implying. Maybe the public didn't really want the mess of another sacking either, at the bottom of their china-plate hearts.

How will history judge Luxemburgo? Probably not too kindly. He never quite got the picture. He thought it was about him. He thought that the players would be impressed by his toughie pronouncements and his trophy-laden curriculum. But as his young apprentice Robinho is also finding out, Brazil is not Europe. Things happen differently.

NewPress/GettyImages

Fabio Capello: the Messiah?

Also, the Brazilian factor seemed to divide the camp, with the samba boys seeming to form a clique - mucking around with silly dances (about which several other players complained) and then publicly coming out in support of the manager whenever there were rumours of supporters' or presidential discontent.

Roberto Carlos, who seems nowadays to discredit himself every time he opens his mouth - apart from the fact that he no longer resembles anything remotely close to an effective footballer - was particularly guilty of this, and eventually fell on his own sword, admitting a fortnight ago that he wanted to go home to Brazil, where all would be sweetness and light.

Tactically, Luxemburgo was more Malcolm Allison than Vicente del Bosque, to quote two extremes. He may have been a revolutionary, but in the end he only understood himself. The other curious thing about him was his assumption that everyone understood his Spanish. Portuguese, admittedly, is a close grammatical neighbour to Castilian, but phonetically it's from a different space-time continuum. Anyone attempting to speak the other language must approach it with caution. But Wanderley's rapid-fire mixture, a bizarre hybrid beast of Portuguese-Spanish, was music to no-one's ears.

Journalists nodded politely, but clearly couldn't understand a word he was blathering on about. One had only to watch Beckham's face during the tactical chats to see the deep effect the words were having. But it wasn't just Beckham - master linguist that he is. None of the Spanish speakers seemed to get the plot either - and in the end it showed.

López Caro, the 42 year-old manager of the 'B' team Castilla, will take over until the end of the season - assuming he doesn't get fed to the lions too. You never know. It's another calculated risk. He's from Seville, which ain't Madrid, but it's closer than Brazil. And according to Marca, he eats his breakfast with his wife and kids before going to training. Well that's alright then. He must be good. Family man. And when the family man goes, the great Messiah Capello will presumably return. Well we all know what can happen to Messiahs. Just ask Camacho.

Still, one returns to the old phrase, crisis what crisis? At least Madrid have got to the next round of the Champions League. Betis haven't, and are currently staring up from the bottom of the table. The side that beat them at the weekend, the resurgent Celta, could tell them a thing or two about the 'Champions League effect' - it burns you out and it brings you down. Sounds like a Neil Young song. With basically the same side as last season, give or take a serious injury to their star striker Oliveira, things are no longer cooking in their kitchen.

Barça, meanwhile, have lost the excellent Xavi for the rest of the season with a cruciate ligament injury - a potential tragedy for his team and his country - but in a tricky game at Villarreal (Spain's second best side), the Catalans resumed normal service - admittedly with a couple of flukey goals - but that's what happens when you're top.

Anyway, back to Madrid. López Caro, on being told the news that he was to be promoted to the rank of full first-team officer at the Bernabéu, apparently exclaimed 'May God help me!' Good job he's a Christian. It might help when those lions get released again.

[Guest Jeffery S.]

What made me laugh about that Ball article was the bit about Wanderlei's Spanish, he is right. He is rather unintelligible, it drives you nuts. Then, occasionally, you understand him, and you realize that maybe he has some interesting ideas (like not having a fixed set of wings but preferring sending different players into the wings when needed, fair enough), but for sure Beckham never caught on, that is priceless. Only that Beckham has actually been playing fairly well this year, at least until the last few games, and, ironically enough, by staying out there on the wing and swinging in those crosses that drive defences nuts. Maybe, in the end, Beckham started playing well precisely because he could not understand his coach, which is the way it should be. If the guy on the bench is not up to it, the players should take it upon themselves to go out and do what they now best.

If that is happening, maybe you can keep the coach. But if it is not, well maybe it is time to sack him and start all over again. With someone with conventional Spanish to boot.

By the way, never posted on these boards, but if you go back and look at old Ball articles, he actually came out saying that Canada could have and even should have beaten Spain in Santander. More as a comment about Spain's difficulties, but a nice comment about us.

[RealGooner]

Wenger doesn't want the job, and seems to agree with me that the Madrid's real problem is its meddlesome president Florentino Perez.

Arsenal manager not interested in Real Madrid job

Dec. 6, 2005. 01:40 PM

LONDON (AP) — Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has ruled himself out of moving to Real Madrid.

Wenger was named as one of the leading candidates to replace Vanderlei Luxemburgo, who was fired Sunday.

``It is an attractive job certainly to everyone who has no job,'' Wenger said Tuesday, the day before Arsenal hosts Ajax Amsterdam in the Champions League.

``But, on the other hand, it looks to be not a stable job,'' Wenger added, referring to the fact that Madrid has changed coaches five times in 2{ years.

``When rotation within a club becomes too quick, that means the problem doesn't always lie with the manager, but somewhere else.''

Madrid fired Luxemburgo after he came under pressure from fans, who were unhappy that the star-studded team was playing poorly. Madrid lost 3-0 at home to Barcelona on Nov. 19 to fall behind in the Spanish title race.

Although Arsenal is in fifth place and 14 points behind Chelsea in the Premier League, Wenger's team is going strong in the Champions League with five straight victories.

``I'm under contract until 2008 and I always try to respect my contract,'' Wenger said. ``That's not disrespectful to Real Madrid or anyone else, it's just my line of conduct.

``I love Real Madrid as a club, they were the club of my childhood when they won the European Cup five times in five years. But I'm 100 per cent committed to Arsenal and I want to do the job well for as long as my contract lasts.''

His current deals ends in June 2008.

13:34ET 06-12-05

[Loud Mouth Soup]

Real lose 2-1 to Olympiakos on an 87m goal by Rivaldo.

Suckers.

[François]

Real played with the B team and lost. We can't expect the new coach to come in and change everything overnight.