Nothing is going well with Real Madrid, which is going through a crisis rarely seen before. With the white season looming, several tensions have arisen within the Madrid locker room. The latest one has caused a lot of ink to flow, notably with this violent fight between Aurélien Tchouameni and Federico Valverde which forced Real Madrid to impose a historic fine of 500,000 euros. A few days earlier, another story broke out in the Madrid locker room between Antonio Rüdiger and Alvaro Carreras.
The German defender allegedly slapped the Spanish left-back according to the Madrid press. The former Benfica defender broke his silence confirming “an incident with a teammate, punctual and unimportant, which is already forgotten”. But this scene confirms that the locker room seems to be tearing itself apart little by little. And if this evening, Real Madrid faces Barça in a Clasico which could offer the La Liga title to the Catalans, in terms of the Madrid press, the athlete takes a back seat this Sunday.
The locker room no longer wants to use seniority for the captain
Daily life A.S. made new revelations within the locker room and particularly around the captain’s armband. The Madrid locker room is sorely lacking in real leaders and the RĂĽdiger-Carreras and Tchouameni/Valverde episodes illustrate this. Sources within the club confided that the club regretted the era of Cristiano Ronaldo, Sergio Ramos, Pepe, Nacho, Benzema, Kroos and Modric believing that unlike the current squad, they only lived “for football”. The new locker room leaders are singled out for their not always collective mentality. Besides Carvajal, Valverde and Vinicius are the other captains.
But several voices have been raised in the locker room in recent weeks to question these choices. At Real Madrid, seniority is used to appoint captains. But several players want to reverse this rule and take inspiration from FC Barcelona with a hybrid system between seniority and especially locker room voting. Several players are pushing to use this method. Proof of a tense situation around this subject, after the violent altercation between Tchouameni and Valverde, AS reports that Dani Carvajal, although captain, was one of the first to return home. But he had to return after a call from the club to attend an emergency meeting with the players involved in the brawl. And the other vice-captains, Valverde and Vinicius Jr, are not distinguished by their serenity either. Proof that this subject is very thorny at the club therefore…
