Xabi Alonso manager profile: Style of play, tactics, formations, philosophy & everything you need to know

Having played under managers such as Carlo Ancelotti, Rafael Benitez, Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola, Xabi Alonso had ample opportunity to learn from football's greatest tacticians during his career.

Since hanging up his boots in 2017, the World Cup-winning midfielder wasted little time and moved directly into coaching, working initially with the Real Madrid youth teams. He then returned to his boyhood club, Real Sociedad, where he took the reins as B team head coach, before eventually landing his first senior job at Bayer Leverkusen in 2022.

So, what type of manager is Alonso? Here, GOAL takes a look at the former Liverpool and Real Madrid star's style of play, preferred formations and more.

Xabi Alonso's manager profile

What is Xabi Alonso's style of play?

A hallmark of Alonso's teams is a commitment to a fast-paced approach, both in possession and out of possession.

Out of possession, defensive solidity is key, so wide players and midfielders drop in to support the back line, with a coordinated press triggered when the opposition enters danger zones. Once the ball is won back (also known as a 'turnover'), Alonso wants his teams to counter aggressively, so players are drilled to be ready to break away.

With the ball, Alonso's teams like to dominate possession and play in compact triangles, but there is an emphasis on directness, with early passes into the forward line - which usually comprises three players - encouraged.

As Granit Xhaka, a key member of Alonso's Leverkusen team said: "The coach wants us to keep the ball, but ball possession doesn't mean you have to keep going from right to left. We have to look for our strikers and we know how much quality we have in front."

While playing intricate passes through the middle has been a feature of Alonso's teams, they are equally capable of penetrating from the wide areas. At Leverkusen, for example, the marauding runs of fleet-footed wing-back Jeremie Frimpong yielded plenty of goals.

The Basque coach's teams can usually be divided into two blocks of five, with five players primed to defend and five players primed to attack at any time.

In some respects, Alonso is an amalgam of his aforementioned mentors, combining the possession dominance of Guardiola with the ruthless counter-attacks and defensive compactness of Mourinho.

Ultimately, he is a pragmatist and has shown a willingness to adapt his teams early, showing that he is not ideologically chained to one particular playing style.

What formation does Xabi Alonso prefer?

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In the 2023-24 season, 3-4-2-1 became Xabi Alonso's preferred formation, with three centre backs, wing-backs, a double-pivot in midfield and three forward players (usually a striker and supporting attackers).

However, he has experimented with a number of different approaches, including 4-3-3 and 3-4-3.

"I want the players to have different stimulus and not just to know what to do in one situation," Alonso said in an interview with The Coaches' Voice. "In different situations, if you start with two centre-backs or three centre-backs, it's completely different."

Which teams has Xabi Alonso coached?

Bundesliga team Bayer Leverkusen was the first senior managerial job taken by Xabi Alonso. He was appointed on October 5, 2022, replacing Gerardo Seoane.

Prior to that, Alonso cut his teeth as a coach with the Real Madrid youth teams before taking up a role as manager of Real Sociedad B in Spain's Segunda Division B.