Real Madrid’s announcement that Zinedine Zidane was returning to replace sacked Santiago Solari on Monday night overshadowed captain Sergio Ramos taking to social media to address a disastrous week endured by the club.
Ramos, via a series of tweets, addressed rumours of dressing room bust-ups with left-back Marcelo and the club president Florentino Perez.
Los Blancos lost to bitter rivals Barcelona twice in four days, the first a 3-0 defeat that sent them out of the Copa del Rey, followed by a 1-0 loss in La Liga that left them 12 points behind their old foes, killing all chances of a late run for the league title.
While those two losses effectively ruled them out of the running for two trophies, there was a chance of a third, in the Champions League, where they held a 2-1 lead over Ajax ahead of the second leg at home.
But a stunning 4-1 loss to the Dutch side meant they crashed out of the competition that always seems to matter the most at Madrid, and brought the feeling that the result was an end of an era, with Real having won the competition a historic three straight times and four times in five seasons from 2013/14 to 2017/18.
That all three of these losses came at home, in the space of a week, added to the growing discontent at the club.
Zidane has been re-appointed Real Madrid boss.
It was after the loss to Ajax that Ramos, who was suspended having admitted to deliberately getting a yellow card in the dying moments in the first leg to miss the second leg and be available for a quarter-final, was reportedly involved in a heated argument with Perez, with the club president supposedly threatening to sack the defender.
Ramos is alleged to have replied that he’d be happy to leave as soon as he was paid whatever he was due over the remainder of his club contract, before angrily reminding Perez of his contributions to Madrid since joining in 2005.
The centre-back was also suspended for Madrid’s most recent game, against Real Valladolid on Sunday, thanks to an accumulation of yellow cards in domestic football, but travelled with the squad for the game in anyway.
On Monday, Ramos decided to address the storm that has engulfed the club – hours before the club made the announcement that Zinedine Zidane was to replace Santiago Solari has manager having overseen a disastrous month.
The 32-year-old admitted that the yellow card in Amsterdam that ruled him out of the second leg against Ajax was a mistake and that he took the blame “200%”, before addressing criticism over his decision to attend that game anyway to film a documentary being made about his career.
But the football world will be most interested in his reaction to reports regarding the dust-ups with Perez and Marcelo. Ramos said the latter, who has been linked with an exit from the club after losing his place in Solari’s first-choice XI, is “like a brother to me”, adding that it was normal for players to confront each other when necessary given the pressure they face.
As for Perez, Ramos said: “Dressing room issues are discussed and resolved in the dressing room. There’s no problem whatsoever and everybody has the same interest: Real Madrid.”
The club captain ended by acknowledging that this has been a “deeply disappointing season” but that he and his team-mates were “lucky enough to play for Real Madrid, lucky enough to form part of the history of Real Madrid”.
“Real Madrid, was, is and will always be Real Madrid, but we have all written that legend together,” he concluded.
