Zidane Rescues Real Madrid from Hiring Mourinho

That was close.

Ever since Real Madrid crawled away from their week in Hell, the word was everywhere that the overwhelmed Santiago Solari was done like dinner.

No surprise there. The chilling thought was who Los Blancos were allegedly lining up as his replacement.

 

That's right. Real was actually ready to pull the trigger on hiring a Russian TV talk show host.

Before that, dude did a fine job of screwing up one of football's top franchises, and when he was shown the door, a laissez-faire Norwegian took the same players and put Manchester United back in the Premiership's Top Four picture again.

Meanwhile, Zidane was last seen leading Real to their third straight Champions League title.

 

At least Solari guided Los Blancos -- or was on the touchline, at the very least -- to a precious 1-4 victory at Valladolid this past weekend, adding a bitta padding to their third-place position in La Liga.

With 11 games to go, a Top Four finish is looking fairly solid:

Zidane's signed through 2022, so his priority now is to return stability to the club.

It's hard to believe Real burned through two managers -- of course, Julen Lopetegui was gone before he even came -- since they last hoisted hardware.

 

Except the club wasn't. There's work to be done.

Part of the reason the French legend left was Real's president, Florentino Pérez, didn't agree with what Zidane wanted to do for the 2018-2019 season. Looks like he should've.

OG won't be saying no to his manager now.

 

Zidane and Gareth Bale never really clicked, so look for the Welshman to depart. Dude's been a punching bag this season for the Real fans, so that's for the best.

He's already spoken of acquiring the likes of Eden Hazard but has cooled on Christian Eriksen. Pérez has joked about Kylian Mbappé, but good luck with that.

 

Whatever. The coffers are open. There's no doubt Zidane will rebuild Los Blancos with surgical precision.

A lost season at this level is never worth it, but now Pérez and his board have learned the hard way how precarious it is to stay at the top.

A frustrated Mourinho already knows.