Benitez Sacked!

Congrats Zizou for your rapid promotion. Let's see whether Florentino Benitez will give you enough time to prove your worth as a manager.

It is unfortunate that Benitez had to go without getting the benefit of a full season to show what he could do. No one knows what might have actually happened had Benitez lasted till the end of this season. If he somehow managed to turn things around by the end of the season, he could have gotten a second season, but I suppose we'll never know now.

In the end, the simple greatest factor that cost Benitez his job was his poor Man-management skills. It is no longer sufficent, as a manager, to be a tactical genius, or to make the right team selection and rotation. You must also have the unalloyed support of your players especially the better players on your squad; they should feel sufficiently motivated by you, and eager to do their damnedest best to win games for you. If this is lacking, its just a matter of time before you become another unfortunate statistic.  The upper echelons of management took a look at Benitez and noticed how he was unable to keep the support of the dressing room; they feared that at the rate things were going south under him, Real Madrid could wind up losing some strategic players to other clubs. 

And so the hammer came down.

Zidane must know now that to be successful  as a Real Madrid coach, the first thing to do would be to win the unflinching support of the dressing room. It might mean the difference between a resurgent Real Madrid who rediscover their deadly potential and starts to mount a more convincing challenge for silverware OR a highly divided and fractious team of super egos stumbling along to another trophyless season.