Alonso Conducted a Sting Operation on Real Madrid Players During Club World Cup, Confirming Information Leakage

In his first six months as Real Madrid manager, Xabi Alonso has implemented several major reforms to the club’s operations, including strengthening confidentiality measures for the first team.

He aims to build a new internal culture that allows him and his coaching staff to better control everything at the training ground and the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium. The club has expressed its support for this.

The latest example is Alonso and his team’s decision not to train at Anfield ahead of Tuesday’s Champions League match against Liverpool.

At the post-match press conference following Saturday’s 4-0 victory over Valencia, the 43-year-old coach said: “We have to prepare properly for the game, and we prefer to train at our own training ground, in our own space, so we aren’t surrounded by 200 cameras.”

Confidentiality and focus. Since late May, Alonso and his team have been conveying this message to the players and implementing a series of new rules in the dressing room they inherited.

They believe these changes are crucial and imperative. A source close to Alonso’s team—speaking on condition of anonymity to protect relationships, like all sources mentioned in this article—previously told Camel Live that the team had developed many “bad habits” that needed to be corrected.

In August, the team returned to Madrid after participating in the Club World Cup in the United States. Following Alonso and his team’s rapid work in June and July, the club held a meeting with senior players, including the captain, to formulate a new set of dressing room rules.

These rules emphasize the importance of punctuality, as well as intensity and focus in training.

In addition, access to the dressing room has changed. Alonso reduced the number of club staff around the team before matches and during halftime, thereby creating greater privacy and focus.

However, after the match, the dressing room doors are open to all staff.

As for the training ground, family members, agents, and even friends of players used to regularly appear there, but now access for players’ entourages is restricted. Another new measure taken by Alonso is that only staff truly essential to training are allowed on the training ground.

Alonso and his coaching staff want Real Madrid’s dressing room to be a safe space where no information is leaked to the media—they even conducted a sting operation.

Ahead of the Club World Cup opener against Al-Hilal on June 18, Alonso informed the players of the starting lineup in advance, trusting them to keep it confidential and prevent leaks.

However, the test was unsuccessful, as news of the unexpected start of 21-year-old youth academy forward Gonzalo García was quickly reported by the media.
Lineup leaks are not new to Real Madrid. Such incidents have occurred frequently in recent years—to the point where the club decided to announce the starting lineup more than two hours in advance as a countermeasure. They even adopted this measure before the most important matches, such as the 2024 Champions League final against Borussia Dortmund at Wembley Stadium.

The team has been specifically asked to help prevent starting lineup leaks, but another leak occurred ahead of the Liverpool match—Spanish media reported that Real Madrid’s starting lineup would be the same as the one that defeated Barcelona 2-1 in the Clásico on October 26.

We may see Real Madrid adopt the practice of not training away from home again before other Champions League away matches this season. This has not happened at the club since José Mourinho managed Real Madrid from 2010 to 2013, but insiders say it is likely to recur.
Alonso is well aware of how Real Madrid’s dressing room used to operate, having played for the club as a player for five years from 2009 to 2014, including during Mourinho’s tenure.

“Xabi was there; he knows exactly where leaks are most likely to come from,” a source close to Real Madrid’s hierarchy told Camel Live. “The key is to control this situation every day.”