Real Madrid<\/a> and if you want to have someone to blame, here I am.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cI have two things to say,\u201d Arbeloa began. \u201cI am very proud of the decisiveness, transparency and speed with which the club has acted. And, two, that the players have expressed their regret, they have admitted their error, and they have accepted the consequences of their actions. They have said sorry to the fans, the club and the dressing room, and that\u2019s enough for me. They do not deserved to be publicly burnt at the stake. Fede Valverde and Aur\u00e9lien Tchouam\u00e9ni have shown every day what it means to be a Real Madrid player, with their commitment and effort, and I am not going to forget that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there is a player that represents Real Madrid, that is a paradigm of what Madrid is, it\u2019s Juanito. And did Juanito never make mistakes?\u201d Arbeloa went on. \u201cAnyone can make mistakes but Fede Valverde and Aur\u00e9lien Tchouam\u00e9ni are two players who represent very well what Real Madrid is, who deserve a chance to turn the page, to keep fighting for this badge.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00c1lvaro Arbeloa said Valverde and Tchouam\u00e9ni should not be \u2018burnt at the stake\u2019 for their training ground altercation. Photograph: Europa Press Sports\/Europa Press\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cI will not allow people to use this to question my players\u2019 professionalism, because there are a lot of lies being told \u2013 a lot of lies. It is false that my players are not professional. It\u2019s false that they have shown a lack of respect towards me; not even once. It is false that their lifestyle is not what the lifestyle of a Real Madrid player should be. I am not going to allow that [to be said] because it is not just untrue \u2013 it\u2019s an absolute lie. Our fans can rest assured when it comes to the dressing room.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not easy to assimilate two years without winning a title and everything that has happened,\u201d the coach continued. \u201cIt is not an easy situation for all of us. [But] I see a healthy dressing room. Nothing in these four months makes me say I am unhappy with this dressing room.\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, not nothing, exactly. The first rule of fight club is you don\u2019t talk about fight club. \u201cLook, I had a teammate who got a golf club and whacked another teammate,\u201d Arbeloa said. \u201cFor me, the most serious thing and what hurts most is that what happens in the Madrid dressing room should stay in the Madrid dressing room. Situations that should not happen between teammates have always happened everywhere. For things that happen in the dressing room to be filtered out is a betrayal of Real Madrid and it is something that saddens me a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked if he had detected the leaks, Arbeloa replied: \u201cNo. I don\u2019t work in the CIA or anything like it. I am not accusing the players, or anyone, because I can\u2019t. There are lots of people around the Real Madrid first team and I am not here to point an accusing finger at anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not a pleasant situation and the players know they made mistakes but that has to be an example to everyone that we turn the page, learn and do not forget that tomorrow there\u2019s a Barcelona-Real Madrid. At times, frustration and anger can bring about situations we don\u2019t want but we can use that energy to play a great game tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00c1lvaro Arbeloa insisted Fede Valverde and Aur\u00e9lien Tchouam\u00e9ni should be given the chance to \u201ckeep fighting for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-440530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}