Jamie Carragher tells story of when he had to ‘rein in’ Real Madrid manager Alvaro Arbeloa

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·22 de enero de 2026

Jamie Carragher tells story of when he had to ‘rein in’ Real Madrid manager Alvaro Arbeloa

Liverpool icon and CBS Golazo pundit Jamie Carragher has told the story of when he got into it with new Real Madrid manager Alvaro Arbeloa, at the time, a teammate of Carragher’s at Anfield. The two had to be separated, amusingly, by Arbeloa’s predecessor, Xabi Alonso.

Arbeloa moved to Real Madrid from Real Zaragoza as a teenager, and came through at La Fabrica, before leaving for Deportivo La Coruna in 2006. A move to Liverpool followed a year later, and he spent two seasons at Anfield before returning to Real Madrid as a senior player, where he would be for seven years.

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Image via Fox Deportes.

Carragher’s anecdote with Arbeloa

Speaking on CBS Sports‘ Golazo show alongside Thierry Henry, Kate Giles and Micah Richards, Carragher was shown images of the two during a Liverpool clash.

“I’m saying ‘If you even dare to take that job off Xabi Alonso’, and Xabi’s saying, ‘don’t worry about it, they’re all the prima donnas anyway, I don’t want the job!'” he joked over images of Alonso separating him from Arbeloa during a Liverpool game.

“Basically. You go and shake hands off the back of it don’t you? We were going for the most clean sheets. Listen, he was a good player Arbeloa, he wasn’t a great player, he was a good player. And he started thinking he was a great player. So I just needed to rein him back in a little bit. He was attacking too much.”

"I know where this is going..." 😂 Kate came with the receipts of @Carra23 and new Real Madrid manager Álvaro Arbeloa's relationship as teammates 👀
– martes, 20 de enero de 2026

“He just didn’t want to defend. And that was his job. Just defend. And we get our clean sheet. And I think we won 2-0 that day against West Brom, we got the golden gloves, for Pepe Reina.”

Arbeloa’s comments on Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius Junior

Interestingly, just 24 hours beforehand, Arbeloa had commented on not wanting Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius Junior to do too much defending. The defensive work-rate of their superstar duo was called into question under Xabi Alonso, but it seems Arbeloa will be placing less demands on them in that sense.