Valverde clash with Tchouaméni deepens Real Madrid crisis
Valverde was at the center of a heated confrontation with Aurélien Tchouaméni at Valdebebas on Wednesday, and the dispute was later settled civilly in the dressing room. The episode landed three days before the clásico and came as Real Madrid moved closer to a second consecutive season without a title.
Valdebebas on Wednesday
The practice session ended with the clash between the two midfielders, a sharp enough break in routine to add to the sense of strain around the squad. The disagreement did not spill beyond the dressing room, where it was resolved in civil terms after training.
That detail sits inside a wider pattern. Since the Champions League in 2024, coexistence inside the squad has deteriorated, with some players not speaking to each other for months. The club now sees the Tchouaméni-Valverde incident as part of an internal problem that reaches well beyond one bad exchange.
Real Madrid’s dressing room
Several informed sources say the club is working on a “small revolution” for next season. Those same sources believe a new coach alone will not fix it and that departures and arrivals are needed to address what they see as a lack of footballing quality, leadership and maturity.
Club observers have also been troubled by indolent attitudes from some younger players, including one recent signing, along with a drop in professional commitment and inflated egos without backing from success on the pitch. Some players have reacted with disdain to defeats and poor results, deepening the split inside the group.
Xabi Alonso and Arbeloa
The strain has not stopped at the players. A group in the squad cooled its relationship with Xabi Alonso to an extreme degree, and another group has now done the same with Álvaro Arbeloa, while some staff members distrusted the inexperience of Alonso’s assistants from the start.
Employees with longer careers at the club have missed the standards set by Nacho, Toni Kroos and Luka Modric, and the staff around Arbeloa had even less elite experience. Florentino Pérez backed Vinicius after his public snub of the coach during the first clásico of the season, and that support weakened Alonso’s authority at a moment when the club was already losing control of its own hierarchy.
For Valverde and Tchouaméni, the immediate issue was contained before it spread. For Real Madrid, the wider problem is harder to contain: a locker room frayed enough that one training-ground clash now reads as another sign of a season drifting toward an empty finish.
