Zinedine Zidane has not held back and revealed why he has left Real Madrid in an open letter to the fans.
The Frenchman resigned from his role as Los Blancos coach last week, with Real yet to announce a replacement.
He departs the club as second most successful coach in history, having lifted 11 trophies over two stints at the Santiago Bernabeu.
However, he now walked away from the club because he felt “that the club no longer gives me the confidence I need, it does not offer me the support to build something in the medium or long term”.
Below is Zidane’s full farewell letter, as published in AS:
“Dear Real Madrid fans, For more than 20 years, from the first day I arrived in Madrid and wore the white shirt, you’ve shown me your love. I’ve always felt that there was something special between us. I’ve had the enormous honour of being a player and the coach of the greatest club ever, but above all I’m just another Madrid fan. For all these reasons I wanted to write this letter, to say goodbye to you and explain my decision to leave the coaching job.
“When, in March 2019, I accepted the offer to return to Real Madrid after a break of eight months it was, of course, because President Florentino Pérez asked me, but also because all of you asked me every day to do so. When I met any of you in the street I felt your support and the desire to see me with the team again. Because I share the values of Real Madrid; this club belongs to its members, its fans and the entire world. I’ve tried to follow these values in everything I have done, and I’ve tried to be an example. Being at Madrid for 20 years is the most beautiful thing that’s happened to me in my life and I know I owe that entirely to the fact Florentino Pérez backed me in 2001, he fought to get me, to bring me here when some people were against it. I say it from the heart when I say that I will always be grateful to the ‘presi’ for that. Always.
“… Now I have decided to leave and I want to explain the reasons well. I’m going, but I’m not jumping off the boat and I’m not tired of training [as had been previously claimed in prior reports]. In May 2018, I left because after two and a half years with so many victories and so many trophies I felt that the team needed a new discourse to stay on top. Today things are different. I am leaving because I feel that the club no longer gives me the confidence I need, it does not offer me the support to build something in the medium or long term.
“I know football and I know the demands of a club like Madrid, I know that when you don’t win you have to go. But here one very important thing has been forgotten, everything has been forgotten what I have built on a day-to-day basis, what I have contributed in the relationship with the players, with the 150 people who work with and around the team.
“I am a born winner and I was here to conquer trophies, but beyond this are human beings, emotions, life and I have the feeling that these things have not been valued, that it has not been understood that this is also maintained the dynamics of a great club. Even, in a way, I have been reproached.
“I want to respect what we have done together. I would have liked my relationship with the club and with the president in recent months to have been a little different from that of other coaches. I am not asking for privileges, of course not, but a little more memory.
“Today the life of a coach on the bench of a great club is two seasons, not much more. To last longer the human relations are essential, are more important than money, more important than fame, more important than everything. You have to take care of them.
“That’s why it hurt a lot when I read in the press, after a loss, they were going to kick me out if I didn’t win the next game. It hurt me and the whole team because these messages intentionally leaked to the media created negative interference with the staff, created doubts and misunderstandings.
“Good thing I had some wonderful boys who were to die with me. When things got ugly they saved me with great victories. Because they believed in me and they knew I believed in them. Of course, I am not the best coach in the world, but I am capable of giving the strength and confidence that everyone needs in their work, be they a player, a member of the coaching staff or any employee.
“I know exactly what a team needs. Throughout these 20 years at Madrid, I have learned that you, the fans, want to win, of course we do, but above all you want us to give everything, the coach, the staff, the workers and of course the footballers. And I can assure you that we have given 100% of ourselves for the club.
“Also take this letter to send a message to journalists. I have done hundreds of press conferences and unfortunately, we have spoken very little about football and I know that you also love football, that this sport unites us.
“However, without pretending to criticise or give you lessons, I would have liked that the questions were not always directed towards controversy, that we would have talked more often about the ball and above all about the players, who are and always will be the most important in this game. play. Let’s not forget football, let’s take care of the football.
“Dear Madridistas, I will always be one of you. Hala Madrid!”
