Capello on brink of Real exit after personality clash
Nick Szczepanik

Perhaps it is just as well that there was no escape clause in David Beckham’s contract with Los Angeles Galaxy. The euphoria surrounding the triumphant end to his career at Real Madrid might have persuaded him to stay and then he would probably have had to persuade yet another new coach of his qualities – and Los Angeles would have looked even more inviting than it does already.

Real are expected to announce at lunchtime today that they are to replace Fabio Capello, the coach, even though he has just brought them their first league title in four years. And it would not be the first time that a coach has delivered the club a trophy and then been shown the door.

Relations between Capello and Ramón Calderón, the club president, are reportedly strained and it is widely believed that Bernd Schuster, the Getafe coach and a former Real player, has been lined up as a replacement. The announcement of Capello’s departure, and a likely payoff of one of the two remaining years of his contract, would have been made on Monday, but for the celebrations of the championship secured by the club’s basketball team.

In January, Calderón pleaded with Capello to stay after the Italian coach tendered his resignation, but there have since been clashes – for example, when Calderón overruled Capello when he wanted to drop Iker Casillas, the Spain goalkeeper, after a defeat by Racing Santander.

“Calderón signed me to win and we won,” Capello said, pointedly, recently. “I think I did my duty. Calderón knows that I have two years left on my contract and that I am going to respect them. But if he has to pay me off, I want to make it clear that it will have to be for every last cent. The president is free to decide what he wants. Has he chosen Schuster? That is something for him to answer.”

At normal clubs, manager and chairman do not always see eye to eye, but success manages to heal all but the deepest of rifts. Real, though, are no ordinary club. They are, in fact, best described as serial dump-ers of successful coaches. Just ask John Toshack, Jorge Valdano or Jupp Heynckes.

Toshack won the league in the 1989-90 season – his first at the club – and was dismissed 11 matches into the next campaign. Valdano found that being a revered former player and successful general manager did not prevent him from being dismissed in 1996, again the season after winning the title. Heynckes was let go shortly after masterminding the club’s European Cup victory over Juventus in Amsterdam in 1998 – their first since 1966.

The most bizarre dismissal was surely that of Raddy Antic, the former Luton Town mid-field player, who had led the team to a seven-point lead during the 1991-92 campaign. Ramón Mendoza, the chairman at the time, declared that the football was not entertaining enough and replaced him with Leo Beenhakker, who had rejoined the club as technical director only weeks before. Mendoza got his just desserts when Real lost the title with defeat away to Tenerife on the final day of the season.

Perhaps the unluckiest was Vicente Del Bosque, who took on the job as a caretaker coach and, having won his second European Cup in 2002 and second league title the next season, discovered that his contract was not to be renewed. A Real employee since boyhood and winner of seven trophies in four seasons, he was told that the club wanted to make a change “while not waiting for the cycle to end in decadence”.

It may have been some consolation to Del Bosque to note that the club won nothing after his departure until this season’s championship, while Frank Rijkaard – appointed by Barcelona the same week as Del Bosque’s dismissal and given time to build his team – delivered sustained success to Barcelona, Real’s fiercest rivals.

Of course, it could be something in the water in the Spanish capital. The notorious Jesús Gil dismissed 39 managers in his 18 seasons in charge of Atlético Madrid, including 15 in one three-season stretch, but in any case Beckham is probably well out of it.

At Manchester United, he had only one manager in ten years. After moving to Spain soon after Del Bosque’s dismissal in 2003, he worked under six coaches. It could be argued that it was not the galáctico culture that prevented Real filling Beckham’s trophy cabinet, but the fact that “continuity” – in any language – is an unknown word on the Paseo de la Castellana.

Revolving door

Ten years of Real Madrid coaches . . .

Jupp Heynckes Appointed 1997, lasted one year, won European Cup, Spanish Super Cup

Guus Hiddink 1998, seven months, Intercontinental Cup

John Toshack 1998, nine months, no trophies

Vicente Del Bosque 1999, three years, seven months, league title (twice), Champions League (twice), European Super Cup, Spanish Super Cup, Intercontinental Cup

Carlos Quieroz 2003, 12 months

José Antonio Camacho 2004, three months

Mariano GarcÍa Remón 2004, three months

Vanderlei Luxemburgo 2004, 11 months

Juan Ramón López Caro 2005, six months

Fabio Capello 2006, 12 months, league title