Real Madrid's Champions League elimination at the hands of Ajax last season led to Santiago Solari's sacking
When Santiago Solari was sacked by Real Madrid in March, it was a departure that, in the puzzling world of Real Madrid, had come to seem inevitable.
Real, who had won the Champions League in each of the previous three seasons, were unexpectedly knocked out of the competition by Ajax and then suffered two consecutive losses to Barcelona - a 1-0 reverse in La Liga and a 4-1 aggregate defeat in the Copa del Rey.
Yet six and a half months on and president Florentino Perez's decision to replace him with Zinedine Zidane - the architect of those Champions League successes - is not working out the way the club would have hoped.
In his first interview since leaving the club, the Argentine discusses his sacking, his desire to return to a top job, his love of English football and his thoughts on Pep Guardiola and Mauricio Pochettino.
A harsh sacking?
Having been promoted from coaching the club's B team to replace former Spain coach Julen Lopetegui on an interim basis in October 2018, Solari guided the club to four wins in his first four matches, with 15 goals scored and only two conceded. It was the best start of any manager in the club's history.
Spanish rules dictate that appointing an interim manager has to be only a short-term measure, so Real had a choice to make: give Solari the job permanently or find someone else.
His impressive audition meant they had little option but to hand him the reins on a longer-term basis.
When he was sacked in March with the club 12 points adrift of La Liga leaders Barcelona, he had averaged 2.13 points per game from his 32 matches in charge.
In the 18 league games since his return, Zidane's return is an average of 1.72 points, accompanied by a humiliating 3-0 thumping by Paris St-Germain in the Champions League.
Fortunately for Zidane, a disjointed start to the season by rivals Barcelona meant a 2-0 victory against Osasuna on Wednesday took Real top of the table for the first time this season.
Does Solari feel he was treated harshly?
"That is a private matter," he says sharply, insisting he knows he did his best and so sees no need for recriminations. "That's football. It was an honour to serve Real Madrid."
Next stop the Premier League?
Club president Perez feels, on reflection, he probably threw Solari into the first-team role too quickly and offered him the chance to stay at the Bernabeu in an alternative capacity, but Solari has not replied to that proposition yet - and has turned down jobs in China and the Middle East.
In fact, the 42-year-old is now ready to return to the job market.
His playing career took in spells in Argentina (River Plate, San Lorenzo), Spain (Atletico Madrid and Real), Italy (Inter Milan), Mexico (Atlante) and Uruguay (Penarol), but could a managerial job in England be an option?
"I would like to coach in Europe, in a serious project in one of the big leagues," he said.
"I saw the Premier League last year and how it grew so much. It was a fantastic campaign for the English teams. There are so many different cultures as well - you have Spanish coaches, German coaches, English coaches, coaches from all over the world who have made it grow.
"The type of football I like is when the team is the protagonist, offensive football, high tempo and aggressive but in order to achieve that you have to defend high, have fast transitions, and of course talent is a big part of that.
"The statistics in the Premier League are amazing and confirm things are changing. Fifteen years ago there were just three games where one team averaged 70% of possession. Three years ago that went up to 30 games. Two years ago it was 60 games and last year there were 67 games in which one team had 70% of possession."
Tottenham manager Pochettino and Manchester City boss Guardiola are examples of two men who have made a major impact after swapping other major European leagues for the Premier League.
Pochettino grew up in the same Argentina province - Sante Fe - as Solari.
"I am not friends with him but I know him and I admire him and what he has done last year and the year before," said Solari. "It didn't just happen that he got to the final of the Champions League - it was something that was growing over four or five years."
On similarities between Pochettino and Guardiola, Solari is quick to point out that while they have both achieved great things in the English game, they are very different people.
"I don't think we can put them in the same package," he said.
"They have coached different teams. I would like to see Pochettino with one of the really big teams soon because he deserves the opportunity.
"On the other hand Pep has only ever worked with top teams. He delivered in Spain, he delivered in Germany and he delivered in England. We'll see now what his next step will be.
"But they are both top coaches and I have nothing but respect and admiration."
'Born into football'
Solari was, perhaps, destined for a life in football.
His uncle, Jorge, boasted an illustrious record as a player and later as a coach but will probably be best remembered as part of the Argentina side that played in the infamous 1-0 quarter final defeat by England at Wembley in the 1966 World Cup finals. Jorge was booked for dissent, or rather for what Jimmy Hill quaintly referred to as "violence of the tongue".
"I was born into football," said Santiago Solari. "By the time I was born my father was already a coach.
"My uncle coached 20 teams in eight countries. My father coached 14 teams in five countries.
"Many of them I followed because the family followed so I grew up in many places like Colombia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Tenerife and in many different cities. I grew up watching my father watching videos. He had this huge collection of video tapes in the house. More than 3,000.
"Football was not just a game, it was a way of life.
"Me and my brothers were always going to the training sessions waiting for everybody to leave so we could get on to the pitch and play."
Both his brothers, David and Esteban, became professional footballers and the only sibling not to was his sister, Maria Isabel (Liz) Solari, who is today a leading actress.
"With certain families all of them are lawyers or journalists," he said. "With us it was very natural that we would be footballers, even my sister. We sometimes made her play in goal."
That early love for the game is something he retains - even now after the scars of being sacked from a dream job.
When I ask him to describe football in one word, he offers up three: "passion, love, joy".
"If you lose the emotional approach to the game then you are lost," he said. "That's how we get in touch with football when we are four, five and six years old, when you start playing around at school with the ball with your friends. For the joy, the love of the game.
"Even in professionalism we cannot lose that."
Source: bbc.com