A year ago, they were avoiding each other
The images were on a loop in Spain. Two stars in the same dressing room, on the same team, and not a glance exchanged after a goal.
Now they are celebrating together. Arm in arm, all smiles. El Chiringuito de Jugones says Kylian Mbappe and Jude Bellingham have made peace. The show says more revelations are on the way in the coming days.
Take that with the usual pinch of salt. The programme has never exactly been shy about the hype. But the pitch, for all the noise around it, usually tells you plenty.
Try it for $0.99.
A season to forget
To understand it, you have to go back to last season. Valdebebas endured a miserable year from the inside out.
Several senior figures clashed with Xabi Alonso. The coach, now at Chelsea, was shown the door fast. Federico Valverde and Aurelien Tchouameni came to blows. Alvaro Arbeloa had run-ins with several players and publicly took aim at Mbappe.
None of that gets fixed with a statement. Real preferred to change the man in charge on the bench.
The Mourinho effect
Jose Mourinho arrived this summer with a job that went well beyond tactics. Restore order. Turn the group back into a group.
The early signs are encouraging. Three LaLiga matches, three wins. Spanish media talk of a calmer dressing room and methods that are less rigid than during his first spell in Madrid. The Portuguese is still relentless on one point: intensity in training.
The thaw between his two main attackers is being linked to him, at least in part. That makes sense. A Real Madrid where Mbappe and Bellingham look for each other on the pitch rather than in the corridors is a lot healthier than one where everyone goes it alone.
How long it lasts is another matter. The Bernabeu has a short memory when the wins keep coming, and a very long one when they do not.
Discover the rest of the FOOT news on our mathodds website and app!
in your pocket.
Real-time notifications & alerts
Leave a Reply