Real Madrid manager responds to Barcelona president’s statements – ‘Populist messages pandering to their fans’ | OneFootball

After days of silence, Joan Laporta has recently broken his silence on Florentino Perez and the questionable comments he made during Real Madrid’s Extraordinary General Assembly earlier this month.

Replying to Perez, Laporta accused Real Madrid of being obsessed with Barcelona, even claiming that the team has ‘Barcelonitis”.

Real Madrid, as an institution, have refused to respond to Laporta’s pullback. However, that hasn’t stopped Xabi Alonso from responding to Laporta.

What Alonso told Laporta

Speaking ahead of Real Madrid’s weekend clash against Girona (h/t SPORT), Alonso, who has a close relationship with Perez, responded to Laporta’s comments about Real Madrid and their obsession with Barça.

It appears the Real Madrid coach was particularly cross with Laporta insinuating that Real Madrid’s two goals against Elche earlier in the season could have been easily disallowed.

Xabi Alonso was not impressed with Laporta’s comments. (Photo by Angel Martinez/Getty Images)

Addressing Laporta, Alonso accused the Barcelona president of sending “Populist messages pandering to their fans. We focus on the field, on winning it in a sporting way, every game is a test for it and we have to show it”.

This marks Real Madrid’s first real response to Laporta’s rebuttal of Perez’s comments, and it will be interesting to see if Barcelona have anything to respond with.

In any case, it appears the gloves are officially off between the two traditional rivals, who walked side by side for the last few days due to their shared vision of the European Super League.

But now with Barcelona siding more with UEFA and La Liga, Real Madrid have grown hostile towards their perennial rivals, and it showed in the way Perez addressed the club during his address at the Assembly.