Xabi Alonso, at the Bernabéu 11 years later: "His learning has been constant."

Between August 18, 2014, and August 19, 2025, 11 years have passed. 4,019 days in which Xabi Alonso has transformed. " His learning has been constant year after year ," those who work alongside him now admit at Valdebebas. The Tolosar native's last game at the Bernabéu as a Real Madrid player was on an August night, in the first leg of the Spanish Super Cup against Atlético de Madrid . His return, also on a summer night, will be against Osasuna and from the bench, in a polo shirt and long trousers, to manage the white team for the first time in front of Chamartín .

"You need new motivations or incentives, which I probably lost after winning La Décima ," he said in his farewell, a few days after that August 18th, having already signed his new contract with Pep Guardiola 's Bayern Munich . He was leaving to learn, with the guidelines of Jose Mourinho and Carlo Ancelotti already firmly in his mind. The man from Santpedor was his last coach, the last piece in his technical mold before returning to Madrid's youth system to begin his coaching career, which later became more professional in San Sebastián and expanded at Leverkusen .

" I wasn't going to be where I wanted to be . I'm closing a wonderful era and opening a new one. It's been the most difficult decision of my life, but I wanted to be honest with the club and with myself," Alonso admitted to the press that day, insisting that the signing of Kroos had nothing to do with his decision: "It's not a tantrum. Here I had the confidence of the club and the coach and I would have played a lot of minutes, but it's a personal decision," he commented.

"I'm going to continue learning with Guardiola , and that's a motivation for me," he declared. Today, eleven years later, Alonso will make his debut at the Bernabéu with clear ideas after his career as a footballer and his still-short coaching career. The virtues of Mourinho, Ancelotti, and Guardiola influence his model, but so too do what he's learned globally in England, Spain, and Germany over these years.

"My relationship with the Bernabéu was very good. Now the role is different, but I hope to maintain that . I'm not ready, whatever happens and whatever I feel, but I'm happy to be back," he admitted yesterday in the press room.

"Pressure", "intensity", "distances"

At the Club World Cup, he managed to establish the words "pressure," "intensity," and "distance" in the locker room, terms he also repeated in the press room. In the United States, the team improved until suffering a significant defeat by PSG in the semifinals of the tournament, but the feeling at the club, analyzing the entire month, was positive. Green shoots were emerging.

After a break from the holidays, Valdebebas welcomed the coaching staff and the squad with the same words he used during the international championship. "Everyone has to be aware that they must work as a team to improve their performance at all times," he insisted, in a clear message, yet another one, about the defensive effort of his forwards, a constant topic of debate last season.

"The players will go back to school ," they said at Valdebebas in the coach's first few days, back in June. And so it has been. The squad's learning process over these past couple of months, like Alonso's over the last few years, has also been constant. They've spent many hours in the video room, especially during the US training camp, and every day they received new details of the coach's tactical ideas.

If Leverkusen was banking on three centre-backs, it seems that tonight the Bernabéu will see a more classic line-up, with four defenders, three of whom could make their debut at Chamartín ( Trent, Huijsen and Carreras ), three midfielders and three forwards, waiting to recover Rüdiger, Mendy, Camavinga, Bellingham and Endrick, weapons to strengthen or change the scheme towards an idea more adapted to what Xabi Alonso wants. Eleven years later, the architect of the Décima opens his work at the Castellana.