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Arbeloa, Mourinho, Silva trading places – with agent key to swapsImage source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Alvaro Arbeloa, Jose Mourinho and Marco Silva look set to be trading places in the space of just over a weekPublished12 minutes agoByNizaar Kinsella
Jose Mourinho to Real Madrid. Marco Silva to Benfica. Alvaro Arbeloa to Fulham?
It may be one of the more unlikely managerial triangles but it looks set to be completed with Arbeloa nearing a move to west London.
But how did it come about? It began, as it so often does, at the top of the chain.
Recently re-elected Real Madrid president Florentino Perez decided to bring Jose Mourinho back to the Santiago Bernabeu from Benfica.
That left Benfica searching for a manager and interim boss Alvaro Arbeloa without a role.
Marco Silva’s future had already been in doubt after being shortlisted by Chelsea. As a host of managerial vacancies opened up across Europe, he subsequently emerged as the primary target for the Portuguese club.
Benfica secured their man despite Fulham offering a record contract to keep their manager of five years, with super-agent Jorge Mendes brokering deals for both moves.
That leaves Arbeloa.
Represented by Best of You agent Oscar Ribot, it is understood Mendes recommended the former Liverpool and West Ham defender to the Cottagers, with a move now advanced and expected to go through.
It highlights how Mendes, 60, has become a specialist in high-profile managerial appointments.
The Portuguese has also been involved in Enzo Maresca’s imminent move to Manchester City, while also working with Vitor Pereira, Unai Emery and Nuno Espirito Santo in the Premier League and Championship.
This week another Mendes client was in the news. Cesar Peixoto, manager of Gil Vicente in Portugal, is set to take over from Rob Edwards as Wolves manager. Mendes’ Gestifute agency has a close relationship with the Molineux club’s owners Fosun.
More broadly, 10 Premier League clubs will begin next season with new managers, or managers appointed towards the end of last season (Bournemouth, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Fulham, Ipswich, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Nottingham Forest and Tottenham) demonstrating a chaotic period in the top flight.
Arbeloa is best known in England for his impressive two-year spell at Liverpool as a player before returning to Real Madrid for a seven-year stint and ending his career with a single season at West Ham.
He earned 56 caps for Spain and was part of arguably the greatest team in their history, which won two European Championships and the World Cup in consecutive tournaments between 2008 and 2012.
Alonso and Arbeloa played together for seven consecutive years at club level and even longer with the national team.
Mourinho signed the pair from Liverpool in the same summer both Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaka joined Real to help them compete with a dominant Barcelona side managed by Pep Guardiola.
Such was the closeness of the two that they went on holiday and spent time together away from the pitch. One well-placed source in Spain stated that one replacing the other in January was initially awkward.
Alonso had struggled to convince dressing-room stars such as Kylian Mbappe to adapt to his modern style of management, involving high pressing and possession-based football, at Madrid.
Arbeloa, who began his coaching career at under-14s level, was promoted to steady the ship after six months leading Castilla, Real Madrid’s reserve team, who play in the third tier of Spanish football.
Madrid’s season ended with a second-place finish in the domestic league and elimination from the Champions League at the quarter-final stage.
Now Alonso and Arbeloa are set to be neighbouring managers in their first seasons in the Premier League – Alonso at Chelsea and Arbeloa at Fulham, with just over a mile separating Stamford Bridge and Craven Cottage. It feels as though their careers are intertwined.
Image source, Getty ImagesArbeloa and Alonso played together for Spain during the nation’s golden period
By the time Arbeloa was promoted from Real Madrid Castilla – sitting fourth in their Primera RFEF group at the time – he had created a football identity of teams with personality and wanting to dominate.
Yet at the first team, he says he couldn’t simply be himself.
As he put it: “I had to be the manager I had to be.”
So his time as first-team manager at Real Madrid may be no real reference for Fulham.
At Castilla, his side was built around what he calls offensive joy – possession and pressing without the ball were the two pillars.
Arbeloa was always willing to go more direct when a match demanded it.
On paper it was a 4-3-3; in practice, one midfielder pushed on almost as a number 10, shifting the shape into a 4-2-3-1 with a clear reference point up front, and wide areas mattered enormously.
Something was non-negotiable – intensity. Arbeloa’s defensive model is built on relentless pressing – this was not a team that wanted to sit back and defend its own box, whatever else changes around it.
Much of that thinking has roots in the dressing rooms he played in.
At Liverpool, Rafa Benitez left him with the example of a coach obsessed with improving individual players, constantly talking to them, constantly correcting.
Back at Real Madrid from 2009, Manuel Pellegrini showed him a coach who loved pace in the game, with the wings left free to exploit it.
From Mourinho, who took charge at the Bernabeu during his playing days there, Arbeloa points to the way he led and demanded maximum effort every day, a meticulously prepared coach whose training was built entirely around his model of play.
Carlo Ancelotti and Vicente del Bosque, the latter from his time with Spain, taught him something different again – that tactics alone aren’t enough.
As Arbeloa sees it, a coach who can’t manage the group is “doomed to fail” – however sharp his ideas on the pitch.
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