Latest news with #Valdebebas
New York Times
16-06-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Four Atletico Madrid fans handed prison sentences over Vinicius Junior effigy
Four members of Frente Atletico — the radical group of Atletico Madrid fans — have been handed prison sentences by a Spanish court for the hanging of an effigy of Vinicius Junior from a bridge near the Real Madrid training ground in 2023. The mannequin, which was clad in a Vinicius Jr Real shirt, was hung next to a 16-metre banner which read 'Madrid hates Real' and was displayed hours before the Madrid derby in the Copa del Rey quarter-finals on 26 January, 2023. Advertisement The Provincial Court of Madrid on Monday sentenced one of the defendants to 15 months in prison for a hate crime, and an additional seven months for making threats. The other three defenders were given seven months in prison for a hate crime and a further seven months for threats. Their prison sentences will be suspended, provided they complete a course on equality and non-discrimination. The defendant handed the longer sentence was deemed to have amplified the impact of the effigy by posting a video online, and was fined €1,084 (£893, $1,213). The other three defendants were fined €720. The four defendants were handed restraining orders, restricting them from being within 1 kilometre of Vinicius Jr's home or place of work — Real's training complex in Valdebebas — and from any form of communication with the Brazil forward. They were also banned from being within a 1km radius of any football stadium during La Liga games or those organised by the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), including reserve and women's team matches, for four hours either side of kick-off and full-time. All the bans will be in place from four years from the conclusion of their sentences. The defendant who posted the video online was banned from working in education, sports or with young people for four years and three months, while the others received bans of three years and seven months. All defendants signed a letter of apology addressed to Vinicius Jr, Real, La Liga and the RFEF. The proceedings were initiated following a complaint filed by La Liga, which joined the case as a private prosecutor. In a statement announcing the ruling La Liga said: 'This ruling marks a strong step forward in the fight against hate and discrimination in sport. La Liga reaffirms its unwavering commitment to eradicating any form of racism, violence, or intolerance both inside and outside football stadiums.' Advertisement The four defendants were arrested by Spanish police in May 2023 and handed restraining orders restricting them from going within 1km of Vincius or 100 metres of Real and Atletico's stadiums while the case proceeded. The effigy was hung from a bridge on exit number five on the M-11 road — close to Real Madrid's training facilities at Valdebebas. The prosecutor claimed the four defendants showed 'an unmistakable sign of contempt and rejection of the victim's skin colour and motivated by a desire to undermine his sense of wellbeing' by hanging an inflatable doll-like mannequin, 165cm in height, with black skin and black hair, from a rope. Atletico Madrid and La Liga both condemned the hanging of the Vinicius Jr mannequin at the time, with Atletico labelling it 'repugnant and inadmissible'.
Yahoo
16-06-2025
- Yahoo
🚨 Four convicted of hate crimes against Vinicius
🚨 Four convicted of hate crimes against Vinicius The Provincial Court of Madrid has convicted four individuals for hate crimes and threats against Real Madrid player, Vinícius Júnior. The conviction comes after a complaint by LALIGA about the doll and banner that the accused hung near the Valdebebas sports city, on January 26, 2023, before a Copa del Rey derby. Advertisement The main accused receives 15 months in prison for hate crime, an additional 7 months for threats, and a fine of 1,084 euros. The other three accused receive 7 months in prison for hate crime, 7 months for threats, and a fine of 720 euros each. In addition, the court has agreed to prohibit all of them from approaching Vinícius or frequenting places related to him or professional football for 4 years, among other measures. The convicts signed apology letters and obtained mitigating factors for damage repair. This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here. 📸 Aitor Alcalde - 2025 Getty Images
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Xabi Alonso seeks meaning of ‘Madridismo' on return to chaotic and toxic Real Madrid
Of course he has been taking part in training. Quite frankly, it would have been deeply and offensively off-brand for Xabi Alonso not to have joined in. Darting around in the roasting heat, physically moving players into his desired positions, pinging pinpoint passes in his classic Predator boots: it was Alonso in his purest essence, and as the new Real Madrid coach oversaw his first sessions at Valdebebas this week it was hard not to feel that on some level nature was healing. As a player Alonso was a difference-maker, a details man, a midfielder who adored the ball and tried to leave nothing to chance. As a coach, the same traits define him. Sessions are high-intensity, fast-paced, but almost always with the ball at feet. He intervenes constantly, always correcting, always cajoling, and in case of doubt he can always grab a ball and illustrate the point himself. Zinedine Zidane would occasionally participate in training if numbers were short. But with Alonso it is almost as if he needs to be involved, that playing and coaching are simply two ways of painting the same picture. Advertisement Related: Palmeiras president Leila Pereira: 'I fought for this. I hope my fight inspires others' In one sense, this is the perfect fit. The courtship has been protracted and very public. At his unveiling Alonso described the feeling of 'home' that overcame him as he arrived back at the club he first joined 16 years ago. 'We all knew very well what your fate would be since you first sat on a bench,' the president, Florentino Pérez, said. In another sense, however, Alonso represents a clean break with Madrid's past, and how that tension plays out will to a large extent define the success of his tenure. Even Alonso's predecessor, Carlo Ancelotti, admitted the need for change, observing that after a disappointing season 'the club needs a new impulse'. But how much change, how fast? In retrospect, Ancelotti's and Zidane's four spells in charge between 2013 and 2025 represent a kind of dynasty. Together they established a certain archetype for a Madrid coach: a perception (if not always the reality) that the job is ultimately to do as little as possible. That the essential function of the coach is to impose not doctrine but order. Certainly it is the coaches with the most dogmatic ideas of how to play – Rafa Benítez springs to mind – that have often been the least successful. This is a club structurally resistant to outside influence, to any creed more complex than simply being Real Madrid, waiting for the arc of the universe to bend towards them and seeing how that works out. Advertisement Alonso, in tone and temperament, is built from different stuff. He is not a passive coach. He is not an overseer. He has distinct and defined ideas of the game, now allied with the reputation and the record and the mandate to shake things up. He will, at least in the short term, get what he wants. So what does he want? If Alonso-ball can be expressed in a single principle, it is fluidity. His Bayer Leverkusen teams were often a hybrid of a back three and back four, where defenders and midfielders exchanged positions, where the distinction between wing-backs and wingers was never entirely clear, where conventional strikers were a plan B at best. 'Today's football demands flexibility and dynamics,' Alonso said at his unveiling. 'It demands that you move your pieces around.' In practice this means centre-halves who can step up, full-backs who can tuck in, wingers who can also play through the centre and midfielders who can control the game from deep. The signings of Dean Huijsen and Trent Alexander-Arnold, along with the pursuit of the Benfica left-back Álvaro Carreras and Real Sociedad playmaker Martín Zubimendi, fit with this strategy. Jude Bellingham is regarded more as a midfielder than a forward. Rodrygo, originally assumed to be expendable this summer, has been described as 'a spectacular player' and told he is crucial to Alonso's plans. The common theme here is unpredictability: sudden switches of play, quick changes of tempo, from patience to chaos and back again. For this he will need to find an attacking structure that caters to both Vinícius Júnior and Kylian Mbappé (and Rodrygo and Endrick) while increasing work rate and fitness across the pitch. The lack of intensity was a clear contributing factor to the end of Ancelotti's reign: in their Champions League defeat by Arsenal, they were collectively outrun by 71 miles to 63. Advertisement The Club World Cup, where Madrid will begin against Al-Hilal on Wednesday, will offer our first opportunity to see how Alonso's tactical ideas translate to the pitch, albeit with little time thus far to drill them. Other aspects of Alonso's approach will reveal themselves only in time. As a former player and a friend of Pérez, Alonso will be well aware of the political currents involved at Madrid, the strain and the scrutiny. But, of course, knowing is only half the battle. In recent months Madrid have cut an increasingly distressed and angry club, a rolling boil of tantrums and toxic dossiers, vague theories and veiled threats. Of Fede Valverde having to apologise to fans for not criticising the officials after one game. Of entire weeks consumed by whether Bellingham saying 'fuck you' is worse than Bellingham saying 'fuck off'. Of Antonio Rüdiger hurling ice at the referee after the Copa del Rey final. The overall impression is of a club largely unmoored from itself: beyond the point at which its methods could be deemed unsound, to the extent that it was hard to see any method at all. Perhaps the only real blemish on Alonso's record came towards the end of this season, when he allowed the noise over his future to mushroom out of control and his team started to lose focus as a result. Well, Madrid is all noise, all destabilisation. And they are not a club, or a fanbase, that readily forgive lapses. So what happens when an interventionist coach takes on a laissez-faire culture? What happens when a devotee of small details takes on the most sprawling and chaotic job in football? What happens when a coach with ideas and values takes on a club with none? At his unveiling Alonso kept coming back to the idea of Madridismo. 'My bond with Madridismo has never ceased to exist.' 'We want to do things that inspire and excite Madridismo.' His first task, arguably, is to work out what it actually is.
The Guardian
14-06-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
Xabi Alonso seeks meaning of ‘Madridismo' on return to chaotic and toxic Real Madrid
Of course he has been taking part in training. Quite frankly, it would have been deeply and offensively off-brand for Xabi Alonso not to have joined in. Darting around in the roasting heat, physically moving players into his desired positions, pinging pinpoint passes in his classic Predator boots: it was Alonso in his purest essence, and as the new Real Madrid coach oversaw his first sessions at Valdebebas this week it was hard not to feel that on some level nature was healing. As a player Alonso was a difference-maker, a details man, a midfielder who adored the ball and tried to leave nothing to chance. As a coach, the same traits define him. Sessions are high-intensity, fast-paced, but almost always with the ball at feet. He intervenes constantly, always correcting, always cajoling, and in case of doubt he can always grab a ball and illustrate the point himself. Zinedine Zidane would occasionally participate in training if numbers were short. But with Alonso it is almost as if he needs to be involved, that playing and coaching are simply two ways of painting the same picture. In one sense, this is the perfect fit. The courtship has been protracted and very public. At his unveiling Alonso described the feeling of 'home' that overcame him as he arrived back at the club he first joined 16 years ago. 'We all knew very well what your fate would be since you first sat on a bench,' the president, Florentino Pérez, said. In another sense, however, Alonso represents a clean break with Madrid's past, and how that tension plays out will to a large extent define the success of his tenure. Even Alonso's predecessor, Carlo Ancelotti, admitted the need for change, observing that after a disappointing season 'the club needs a new impulse'. But how much change, how fast? In retrospect, Ancelotti's and Zidane's four spells in charge between 2013 and 2025 represent a kind of dynasty. Together they established a certain archetype for a Madrid coach: a perception (if not always the reality) that the job is ultimately to do as little as possible. That the essential function of the coach is to impose not doctrine but order. Certainly it is the coaches with the most dogmatic ideas of how to play – Rafa Benítez springs to mind – that have often been the least successful. This is a club structurally resistant to outside influence, to any creed more complex than simply being Real Madrid, waiting for the arc of the universe to bend towards them and seeing how that works out. Alonso, in tone and temperament, is built from different stuff. He is not a passive coach. He is not an overseer. He has distinct and defined ideas of the game, now allied with the reputation and the record and the mandate to shake things up. He will, at least in the short term, get what he wants. So what does he want? If Alonso-ball can be expressed in a single principle, it is fluidity. His Bayer Leverkusen teams were often a hybrid of a back three and back four, where defenders and midfielders exchanged positions, where the distinction between wing-backs and wingers was never entirely clear, where conventional strikers were a plan B at best. 'Today's football demands flexibility and dynamics,' Alonso said at his unveiling. 'It demands that you move your pieces around.' In practice this means centre-halves who can step up, full-backs who can tuck in, wingers who can also play through the centre and midfielders who can control the game from deep. The signings of Dean Huijsen and Trent Alexander-Arnold, along with the pursuit of the Benfica left-back Álvaro Carreras and Real Sociedad playmaker Martín Zubimendi, fit with this strategy. Jude Bellingham is regarded more as a midfielder than a forward. Rodrygo, originally assumed to be expendable this summer, has been described as 'a spectacular player' and told he is crucial to Alonso's plans. The common theme here is unpredictability: sudden switches of play, quick changes of tempo, from patience to chaos and back again. For this he will need to find an attacking structure that caters to both Vinícius Júnior and Kylian Mbappé (and Rodrygo and Endrick) while increasing work rate and fitness across the pitch. The lack of intensity was a clear contributing factor to the end of Ancelotti's reign: in their Champions League defeat by Arsenal, they were collectively outrun by 71 miles to 63. Sign up to Football Daily Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football after newsletter promotion The Club World Cup, where Madrid will begin against Al-Hilal on Wednesday, will offer our first opportunity to see how Alonso's tactical ideas translate to the pitch, albeit with little time thus far to drill them. Other aspects of Alonso's approach will reveal themselves only in time. As a former player and a friend of Pérez, Alonso will be well aware of the political currents involved at Madrid, the strain and the scrutiny. But, of course, knowing is only half the battle. In recent months Madrid have cut an increasingly distressed and angry club, a rolling boil of tantrums and toxic dossiers, vague theories and veiled threats. Of Fede Valverde having to apologise to fans for not criticising the officials after one game. Of entire weeks consumed by whether Bellingham saying 'fuck you' is worse than Bellingham saying 'fuck off'. Of Antonio Rüdiger hurling ice at the referee after the Copa del Rey final. The overall impression is of a club largely unmoored from itself: beyond the point at which its methods could be deemed unsound, to the extent that it was hard to see any method at all. Perhaps the only real blemish on Alonso's record came towards the end of this season, when he allowed the noise over his future to mushroom out of control and his team started to lose focus as a result. Well, Madrid is all noise, all destabilisation. And they are not a club, or a fanbase, that readily forgive lapses. So what happens when an interventionist coach takes on a laissez-faire culture? What happens when a devotee of small details takes on the most sprawling and chaotic job in football? What happens when a coach with ideas and values takes on a club with none? At his unveiling Alonso kept coming back to the idea of Madridismo. 'My bond with Madridismo has never ceased to exist.' 'We want to do things that inspire and excite Madridismo.' His first task, arguably, is to work out what it actually is.
New York Times
27-05-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
What we learned from Xabi Alonso's first Real Madrid press conference
When Xabi Alonso was officially presented as Real Madrid's new manager yesterday, there was an air of nothing having changed. 'I am very happy at what I feel is my home,' he said, almost 11 years after he played his last match for Madrid. 'The link with madridismo never ceased. When I returned to Valdebebas an hour and half ago, that feeling was reborn.' Advertisement The Spanish coach started this phase of his career on the bench at the academy of Los Blancos, a fact highlighted by the club president, Florentino Perez: 'We all knew very well what your fate would be since you first sat on a bench in 2018, with Infantil A,' he said. In an impeccable outfit and without using notes, Alonso commented in particular on his memory of Carlo Ancelotti, who he replaced, and for whom he played at Madrid and Bayern Munich. The two have been in contact in the past few weeks. 'Probably, without his mastery and the learning I had from him, I wouldn't be here,' said Alonso. 'I pick up the legacy with a lot of honour and pride.' Minutes earlier, Alonso had a contract-signing ceremony, during which he posed with president Perez and a Madrid shirt with his name on it. Then he recorded his first message to the madridistas in the room with the Champions League trophies, choosing the La Decima — the 10th — as the background for his video. That was a very special conquest for everyone at the club, coming 12 years after they had last won it and against their great rival Atletico Madrid, who they beat 4-1 in the most agonising of ways. 🤳 ¡El primer mensaje de @XabiAlonso como nuestro nuevo entrenador!🆕 #WelcomeXabi — Real Madrid C.F. (@realmadrid) May 26, 2025 Alonso missed that final due to suspension, but he ran from the stands to the corner to celebrate one of the goals with his team-mates, a sprint that will always be remembered. The presentation of his return as manager was held at the Valdebebas basketball pavilion and Alonso was surrounded by his people, including his wife, Nagore, who was in the front row. Also close by was his technical staff, made up of Sebas Parrilla (assistant coach), Alberto Encinas (assistant), Ismael Camenforte-Lopez (physical trainer) and Benat Labaien (analyst who was not with him at Bayer Leverkusen). Advertisement Present too were the very excited Alvaro Arbeloa, one of Xabi's best friends who this summer will be promoted to coach Real Madrid Castilla (the club's reserve team); Santi Solari, director of football; and Roberto Carlos, ambassador. Raul was not there, despite him usually being at such events, but that is mainly because he is leaving after six seasons in charge of Castilla. The hustle and bustle in the Valdebebas press room reflected how big a day it was for Madrid. It felt more like the prelude to an important Champions League fixture, with 130 journalists in attendance. After a longer wait than expected, at 2.05pm Alonso appeared through the door, escorted by Emilio Butragueno, Madrid legend and director of institutional relations, as well as several staff members from the press department. Alonso made his way to the chair, unbuttoned his suit jacket and said good morning as he sat down and smiled. He left the room 20 minutes later, with a 'Thank you very much', having answered 19 questions. Many of the comments afterwards were about what great shape Alonso is in. He is only 43 years old. Twice he was asked about Luka Modric, only four years his junior, whose contract is not being renewed. The coach avoided clarifying whether or not he asked the club for the Croatian to continue. He also declined to comment on whether he will use a system with two or three central defenders or whether he will play with two or three strikers: 'It's a good question,' he said, without providing an answer. Despite being wary of stepping in any 'puddles', he provided several potential headlines, including that he 'obviously' sees Jude Bellingham as a midfielder. Or on Rodrygo, one of the doubts for this summer, saying 'we need him' and that he will talk to him and all the players. Alonso spoke about how active the club is and will continue to be in the market. 'Our duty is to always want to improve in any facet,' he said. 'I want to have this communication and vision with the club to reach a consensus. It's not that I come with demands, but to work as a team to improve.' Advertisement That is no small statement, coming after four years in which Ancelotti's requests were barely heard by the board. But Alonso has already pushed for the signing of Dean Huijsen from Bournemouth and for the arrival of Alvaro Carreras, for whom Madrid is in talks with Benfica. 'I want the people who see us to say, 'This is the team I like', that people go to the stadium to enjoy,' he said. But after the words, it's time for the facts.
