Real Madrid writers run out of ideas and resort to violence in latest soap opera | OneFootball

Into the 26th season, the Real Madrid Galacticos soap opera seems to have run out of ideas with plotlines as unbelievable as the final season of Game of Thrones.

By every metric, Real Madrid have had a poor year. They went out of the Copa del Rey in the Round of 16. Lost to Bayern Munich in the Champions League quarter finals and are 11 points behind league leaders Barcelona, a team they trailed by four at the time of Xabi Alonso’s sacking.

It was supposed to be a year of change for Madrid. With president Florentino Perez seemingly recognising that building a team based on vibes and player power was increasingly out of place in the world of modern football, he picked Alonso as Carlo Ancelotti’s replacement, one of the best young managers in the game and crucially a club legend.

His status as a three-time Champions League winner as well as the mastermind of Bayer Leverkusen’s invincible season should have earned him the respect of the players but when he dared to ask them to maybe track back, he may as well have slapped them across the face.

The Madrid dressing room revolted, reportedly led by Vinicius Junior, leading to the appointment of substitute manager Alvaro Arbeloa whose main job seems to have been to take blame for absolutely everything and never dare to even hint that the players might just be responsible.

Feeding a group of egos like that was bound to explode at some point and now Vesuvius has erupted.

The episodes of the past few weeks have not been at the usual venue of the Santiago Bernabeu but instead Valdebebas, home of Real Madrid’s training ground.

Usually, what happens at a training ground stays at a training ground, but as Alejandro Garnacho will tell you, information can very easily spill out.

According to reports, the two protagonists of this week’s episode are Federico Valverde and Aurelien Tchouameni. An argument between the pair erupted on Wednesday with the two reportedly coming close to blows before being split up but that was not to be the end of it and 24 hours later, the two were at it again.

Marca, who love a bit of s**t stirring, reported that the two physically fought on Thursday and other sources suggest Tchouameni punched the Uruguayan so hard he had memory loss.

Valverde fell and hit his head, opening a gash that required a trip to the nearby Hospital Blua Sanitas Valdebebas for stitches.

Cameras, forever trained on the comings and goings of the world’s biggest club, saw Valverde’s car going back and forth from the training ground.

As to what caused the second fight, Valverde accused Tchouameni of leaking the previous day’s bust-up.

Valverde, doing his best Wayne Bridge impression, refused to shake Tchouameni’s hand. The French midfielder said it was not him and the accusations had to stop. Valverde responded “I know it was you, Fredo Aurelien.” and the two came to blows.

Real Madrid went into crisis mode. Dani Carvajal, the club captain, returned to Valdebebas for crunch talks with members of the club. A statement put out on Thursday evening said they had decided to “open disciplinary proceedings against our players, Federico Valverde and Aurelien Tchouameni.”

Ranking the 10 most infamous fights between team-mates after Valverde v Tchouameni…

• • • •

The medical department issued a statement, which is weird in itself for when have you ever heard of a club medical department making a statement? They said Valverde had been diagnosed with “head trauma” and needed to rest for 10 to 14 days, ruling him out of the Clasico this weekend.

Valverde made a statement of his own on Instagram, insisting that Tchouameni did not fight him, but it was the much more believable reason that he, umm, “fell.”

Such is the mess at Real Madrid right now, if you asked about the punching incident, a legitimate question would be “which one?” for left-back Alvaro Carreras confirmed he had been hit by Antonio Rudiger in a previous incident.

Then there’s Kylian Mbappe, a man who is building a career out of dodging Champions League titles. While the final scenes of Rocky were playing out, Mbappe was in his own hot water for spending a day off in Italy with his girlfriend, Ester Exposito.

As Cristiano Ronaldo, who once had to be defended for having a 30th birthday party on the night that Madrid were defeated 4-0 by rivals Atletico, will tell you, footballers are not allowed to have fun if it’s not going well on the pitch.

Mbappe’s Italian jaunt led to a confrontation with one of Arbeloa’s backroom staff. Dani Ceballos has also had a confrontation with the coaching staff.

Madrid will lose the La Liga title this weekend, almost certainly, and they are the most unruly, petulant, supposedly elite squad in Europe. No wonder Jurgen Klopp doesn’t want the gig.

By Sam Cooper