Pedro León hits back: "Dudek's claims are lies"

Pedro León has hit back at claims made by Jerzy Dudek in his autobiography. The Getafe midfielder shared the Bernabéu dressing room with Dudek during the 2010-11 season and the former keeper stated in his book the reasons for the fall-out between León and then Madrid boss José Mourinho. Dudek claimed that the relationship between coach and player soured as early as the fifth round of Liga action, when Real travelled to Valencia to play Levante.

Dudek wrote: "We were drawing 0-0 and Mourinho told him to warm up but instead of doing so he just stood around by the corner flag. I was sitting close to Mourinho and saw his reaction. He was furious: ‘Look at his lack of effort. And then he gets offended when he doesn’t play.’”

The former Poland international then went on to say that Mourinho gave León a dressing down in front of the team and publicly decided to omit the midfielder from the club’s next match against Auxerre in the Champions League. “The next day we were training ahead of the Auxerre match,” Dudek wrote. “Pedro León thought he was going to play but Mourinho called us together in the centre circle and said to him: ‘I’m sorry, but you’re not interested in playing for Real Madrid. Others would give their lives for this shirt, but not you.’ He looked at Pedro and told him to watch the game at home because he needed players who would die for the team.”

On Thursday León responded to the Pole’s account on social media: “Enough with the lies. I want to clarify that these declarations are completely false, they have no veracity of any kind and there are witnesses that can back that. Teammates who were with me at the time in the dressing room can confirm it. It is completely untrue and I demand these claims are rectified because of the damage they have caused against me,” León said.