Power struggles have also played out on players’ pay slips, with Vinicius reportedly determined to secure a higher salary in his new contract than current top earner Kylian Mbapp\u00e9. Real Madrid recently felt overwhelmed by their players’ growing power, a factor that ultimately contributed to Alonso’s dismissal. Club president Florentino P\u00e9rez and his board appeared to regard this course of action as easier than confronting the rebellious stars. According to The Athletic, the combined entourages of Vinicius, Mbapp\u00e9 and their colleagues wield alarmingly high influence inside the club.<\/p>\n
Alonso had clearly reached his limit by the time some players, openly critical of him, reportedly pretended to be asleep during tactical meetings. The former Leverkusen coach then lost his temper, allegedly shouting in disbelief: “I didn’t realise I’d walked into a nursery here.”<\/p>\n
Following Alonso’s departure, Real turned to an internal option, promoting former reserve-team coach Arbeloa. On the pitch, the new boss failed to spark a lasting turnaround, and he made little impact on the dressing-room dynamic. He stroked Vinicius’s ego in particular, and the forward now feels far more important and effective on the pitch than he did under Alonso. Even so, Arbeloa quickly encountered resistance within the dressing room; his methods were questioned and, according to reports, some players even spread malicious gossip about him.<\/p>\n
“A lot of lies are being told,” Arbeloa said at a press conference last weekend, defending his players. “It is a lie that my players are not professional. It is a lie that my players did not show me the necessary respect; that didn’t even happen.”<\/p>\n
Recent events suggest Arbeloa did not tell the whole truth, and the growing unrest in the dressing room appears anything but coincidental. The campaign is petering out with little left to play for: in the Copa del Rey they were humiliated in the round of 16 by a second-tier side in mid-January, and in mid-April they lost to Bayern Munich in the Champions League quarter-finals. In La Liga, Barcelona have long since pulled clear, and on Sunday evening they were confirmed as champions after a comfortable 2-0 Cl\u00e1sico win over Real.<\/p>\n
With nothing left to play for, wounded pride and trivialities now command the spotlight. That dynamic extends to Kylian Mbapp\u00e9, whose recent trip to Sardinia with girlfriend Ester Exposito drew fierce criticism from Real supporters. The general consensus: the Frenchman should have focused entirely on recovering from his muscle tear in time for Sunday’s Cl\u00e1sico against arch-rivals Bar\u00e7a. In the end, he was absent from the squad at Camp Nou\u2014and could face a vociferous backlash from the supporters should he be fit to play again in Thursday’s upcoming home game against Oviedo.<\/p>\n
Real’s supporters have already vented their frustration this term with loud boos aimed at the home players, with Vinicius as the main target. Arbeloa’s calls for unconditional backing have resonated only to a limited extent, leaving another fault line smouldering beneath the surface of an already turbulent campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Power struggles have also played out on players’ pay slips, with Vinicius reportedly determined to secure a higher…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3237,1297,10392,3338,1414,416,85,82,83,11244,2420],"class_list":{"0":"post-21054","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-madrid","8":"tag-a-tchouameni","9":"tag-barcelona-vs-real-madrid","10":"tag-f-valverde","11":"tag-j-bellingham","12":"tag-j-mourinho","13":"tag-k-mbappe","14":"tag-laliga","15":"tag-madrid","16":"tag-real-madrid","17":"tag-real-madrid-vs-real-oviedo","18":"tag-vinicius-junior"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}