Real Madrid acknowledges mistakes in search for the mole who caused the whole thing to fall apart

Real Madrid’s dressing room has blown apart in recent days, but the decline had been coming since last season. Carlo Ancelotti’s presence acted as a brake and a unifying force, keeping all the players moving in the same direction despite differences that already existed and have now led to an almost nonexistent coexistence. In fact, the Italian and his staff calmed highly tense situations between two major players after the Champions League defeat to Milan. Ancelotti carried authority. What came after him did not.

Real Madrid’s downward trajectory

The truth is that, since the start of the current campaign, everyone has focused on themselves. Many players are not even speaking, while others have shown their differences in public without the slightest embarrassment. The collective has taken a back seat, despite certain gestures in recent months made for appearances, but with no real impact on the group’s trajectory. Club executives were aware of the dressing room’s deterioration, but always trusted that the players’ individual quality might be enough for the team to compete again. Reality proved very different: the team played and competed when it felt like it, throwing away LaLiga and failing to do enough to reach the Champions League semifinals.

Who is the mole at Real Madrid?

The club’s hierarchy had known since January that the situation would need to be overhauled in the summer of 2026, and Álvaro Arbeloa has not been able to do it. It has overwhelmed him. What they never expected, not even remotely, was what an entirely uncontrolled dressing room would become, with players, entourages and others acting as leakers for everything that happened behind those four walls – and there was plenty. Respect was lost, as Federico Valverde and Aurélien Tchouaméni have shown.

At Valdebebas, they can hardly believe the lack of loyalty on display. At times, there was even talk of setting traps in an attempt to stop the self-serving leaks coming from one side and another. Conversations, shoves, slights – all of it has been transcribed, a clear sign that the group was in full decomposition. The squad appears to be pointing in one direction in the hunt for the leaker, but the culprit is not Tchouaméni, however much Valverde believes it. The mole is still being hunted.

With everyone having crossed the line – some by letting frustration spill over into violence, others by failing to control the players’ tension – the distance between the club and the team is now total. The measures taken will be drastic, and the club is considering scenarios it had previously avoided in order to throw the exit door wide open, starting with the two protagonists of Real Madrid’s two saddest days in decades.

The objective is simple: to ensure that any player who wears that jersey feels it like a second skin. There is no alternative. The club wants to shield that dressing room, something Xabi Alonso tried to do. At Valdebebas, mistakes are being acknowledged, such as renewing the contracts of players who had been under observation because of their performances and who, after losing prominence, pushed their situation to the limit at different times. There is also recognition of the haste in putting Arbeloa in charge of everything, though the urgency grew after Zinedine Zidane said no to returning. It was not about Arbeloa’s ability, but about having to take control of a dressing room that was completely broken.

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