{"id":659090,"date":"2026-05-09T04:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T04:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/659090\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T04:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T04:06:09","slug":"madrids-shambolic-fight-club-braced-for-barcelona-to-land-knockout-blow-real-madrid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/659090\/","title":{"rendered":"Madrid\u2019s shambolic fight club braced for Barcelona to land knockout blow | Real Madrid"},"content":{"rendered":"

The vice-captain was taken to hospital for stitches<\/a> having been laid out by his midfield partner. Another midfielder said he wouldn\u2019t play any more; as if he was going to play anyway. The manager wasn\u2019t asking for much, just that they didn\u2019t swan out there as if wearing tuxedos, and that\u2019s still asking too much. The centre-back hit the left-back. The winger fell out with the last coach. The captain fell out with this coach. And the superstar, already accused of not caring, swanning off to Sardinia, drives out of the training ground, past the cameras and away from the whole sorry mess, laughing his head off<\/a>. Now here\u2019s Barcelona.<\/p>\n

You think things can\u2019t get any worse but things can always get worse. The most painful week anyone could remember, maybe the biggest, most public crisis they have ever had, concludes with Real Madrid<\/a> travelling to the Camp Nou on Sunday for the cl\u00e1sico. If they don\u2019t win, and few believe they can given the football they play and the faultlines that run through their dressing room, they will watch Barcelona become champions with three games left, going down as the flames go higher and history is made. It would be the first time in 94 years a meeting of sport\u2019s great rivals decides the title \u2013 only this title has long been decided, both cause and consequence of the turmoil Madrid are in.<\/p>\n

So much has happened, so much is wrong, that it is hard to know where to start or where it will finish. \u201cWe are Real Madrid and we will fight to the end,\u201d the head coach, \u00c1lvaro Arbeloa, repeatedly vowed as any chance of success slipped away, but he didn\u2019t mean like this. Even in defeat, they were supposed to compete. Even in defeat, there was supposed to be dignity, but there is none. Instead, there is recrimination, division and distrust, suspicion the only thing they share. On Thursday a fight with Aur\u00e9lien Tchouam\u00e9ni at Valdebebas left Fede Valverde bleeding and with what a club communique described as \u201ccraniofacial trauma\u201d.<\/p>\n

Valverde tried to play it down, saying that while people \u201cprefer to think\u201d that the pair had \u201cbeaten the crap\u201d out of each other, the \u201csmall\u201d cut had been caused by him slipping and hitting his head on a table, as if this was just an unfortunate accident. By then, the story was everywhere and a club statement had landed too, underlining the seriousness and undermining his version, confirming that he and Tchouam\u00e9ni face disciplinary action. A second statement confirmed that he would not play the cl\u00e1sico, told to stay home for 10 to 14 days per a medical protocol that handily keeps him out of sight. On Friday Valverde and Tchouam\u00e9ni were fined \u20ac500,000 (\u00a3432,000) each by the club, who said they had expressed remorse and apologised to each other.<\/p>\n

Fede Valverde was left bleeding and with what Real Madrid described as \u2018craniofacial trauma\u2019 after a clash with Aur\u00e9lien Tchouam\u00e9ni. Photograph: Xavi Urgeles\/Zuma Press Wire\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Valverde said the incident was product of the tension of failure, which was true, although it was also part of the explanation for failure at a club where relationships had reached breaking point. Thursday\u2019s fight began with him accusing Tchouam\u00e9ni of leaking a confrontation the previous day, but it went back further. \u201cThere is clearly someone behind this who runs to tell the story,\u201d Valverde wrote. Someone? While talk was of a mole hunt, whack-a-mole might express it better, popping up everywhere at a club where exposure and ego, politics and power, increase the pressure and deepen divides, often played out in\u00a0public. It is not just what happens that matters, it is that it is told and if you\u2019re searching for a\u00a0leak, the very top is a good place to start, or a mirror.<\/p>\n

This is a crisis that is cultural. When Vin\u00edcius J\u00fanior stormed off having been substituted towards the end of the cl\u00e1sico in the autumn, threatening to walk straight out of the team, it brought the disconnect between him and Xabi Alonso into the open and in doing so made it irretrievable. He was not entirely alone in feeling that: Valverde too had made his discontent public. Nor, though, was the feeling unanimous. \u201cIt\u2019s not the manager\u2019s fault,\u201d Tchouam\u00e9ni had insisted, blame instead lying inside the dressing room, sides starting to be taken.<\/p>\n

The club did not back Alonso, his authority undone, and as results slipped there was an inescapable sense that he was on borrowed time right until the point he was sacked after losing the Spanish Super Cup final<\/a> against Barcelona in January. Pep Guardiola had advised him to do it his own way but that was not so easy. Ultimately, Alonso had been beaten by a culture he couldn\u2019t change, a president who rarely believes in any manager, not providing him the authority or time to complete the very task he had been asked to undertake. Not only had a coach gone but an opportunity was lost<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Xabi Alonso after Real Madrid lost the Super Cup final to Barcelona in Saudi Arabia in January. It was his last game before he was sacked. Photograph: Yasser Bakhsh\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Arbeloa was a club man, the president\u2019s man, which was both an advantage and a disadvantage. Promoted early, he was said to have one job: to keep the players on side. Over-simplistic, sure, unfair on him too, but there was something in it. Eduardo Camavinga even said so. \u201cWith these kind of players, all you need to do is make them happy,\u201d the midfielder told ESPN, revealing that some days the coach would bring them doughnuts after training. Arbeloa meanwhile said he had a grey couch in his office where they could come to talk. \u201cI couldn\u2019t connect with Xabi Alonso; I have a special connection with Arbeloa,\u201d Vin\u00edcius said.<\/p>\n

But that wasn\u2019t unanimous either. The diagnosis was too simplistic. They had to compete too, to commit, to build something that would work. They had to work. \u201cThis is Real Madrid,\u201d Arbeloa kept saying<\/a> but that was part of the problem; \u201cthe project is to win, win, win and win again,\u201d he said, but it didn\u2019t happen: he has been beaten seven times. Accommodating everyone was impossible and if keeping them happy was the aim, if satisfying everyone was something to aspire to, that didn\u2019t happen either. Nor was it a guarantee of respect: for the coach or for each other.<\/p>\n

In defeat, in the absence of leadership from within a young, indulged dressing room or from above, in the absence of a collective culture of effort and with injuries hurting them as well, the divide deepened. So did the disappointment, which Arbeloa felt too: more even than the players. Maybe he too would have been\u00a0better following Guardiola\u2019s advice, aware that he won\u2019t continue, a big Jos\u00e9 Mourinho-sized shadow cast over the club.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tell them a lot: \u2018It hurts when I see that every team runs more than we do\u2019,\u201d Arbeloa said last week, little doubt that Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 was among the players foremost in his mind. \u201cIt\u2019s not just when we don\u2019t have the ball but when we do. We need everyone\u2019s commitment to press, defend, attack. If you want to be a complete team, talent alone is not enough. Those are Real Madrid\u2019s values. Madrid was not created by players dressed in esmoquin [dinner jackets, tuxedos] but by players who ended with their shirts soaked in sweat and mud, effort and sacrifice. This club always brings in the best players; when they realise what Madrid is, when talent and commitment goes together, that\u2019s when we will be the best team in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Albacete players celebrate a goal as they knocked Real Madrid out of the Copa del Rey in January, with Fede Valverde among the stunned visitors. Photograph: Diego Souto\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Instead Madrid were knocked out of the cup by second division Albacete<\/a> on Arbeloa\u2019s debut. There were European moments where it seemed the coach might find some sort of solution \u2013 he got the better of Guardiola and Mourinho \u2013 but that only heightened the suspicion that some players choose their games, when to try, that failure was at some level a choice. Knocked out of the Champions League in Munich<\/a>, domestically they won only one of four games in April, all those structural problems unresolved and tensions increasing as the title slipped away, the season done. Amid the collapse came the scramble to safety, the search for someone (else) to blame, the summary justice, the lid coming off the stories.<\/p>\n

Dani Carvajal and Ra\u00fal Asencio fell out with the coach. Dani Ceballos asked not to be considered for selection any more. Then Mbapp\u00e9, a symbol of this side and gap between expectation and reality, the man who joined European champions and won nothing for two years while his former club swept all before them, headed off to Sardinia with his girlfriend. He was injured and he had been allowed, but the optics weren\u2019t good, more than 30m people signing an online petition to\u00a0boot him out. Next \u00c1lvaro Carreras admitted that the tale of him being hit by Antonio R\u00fcdiger was true. And then came the fight, the nuclear fallout, three days before another clasico.<\/p>\n

And so it goes. The last time Madrid and Barcelona met in the league, Madrid won 2-1<\/a>; they had won nine of 10 league games and were five points clear. This Sunday they meet again and, 11 points ahead, Barcelona are on the edge of winning La Liga. Madrid meanwhile are just on the edge, wanting nothing more for it to be over now but wishing it wasn\u2019t here. \u201cWe will fight to the end,\u201d Arbeloa said, and this is it. And it is very, very bitter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The vice-captain was taken to hospital for stitches having been laid out by his midfield partner. Another midfielder…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-659090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}