Real Madrid midfielder Aurélien Tchouaméni has claimed last season’s dressing room clash with teammate Federico Valverde was “a minor thing,” insisting that there’s now “no issue” between the pair.
Valverde was hospitalised with a head injury — and both players were fined a combined €1 million by their club — after the incident in May, which happened just days before Madrid were due to face rivals Barcelona in LaLiga.
Madrid will play Barça at Camp Nou this Sunday in the first Clásico of this season, with both Tchouaméni and Valverde set to feature.
“I want to clear things up,” Tchouaméni said on Thursday in an episode of his YouTube show, The Bridge. “There was no fight like people said there was.
“Things happen in a changing room, it happens, you see little scuffles and things. Anyway, something went wrong. The only problem is, when you are at Real, something small like that becomes like that [widens fingers apart.]
“It gets blown up and something that was not necessarily that big a deal becomes massive. Then everyone calls you, everyone wants to know what happened.
“It was such a minor thing, people message me about it but I’m just trying to calm things down. I was watching a documentary the other day on the NFL and these things happens all the time. But in football, it’s a bit different and everything is just that much bigger at Madrid.”
Tchouaméni and Valverde have frequently started in midfield together this season under new coach José Mourinho, with Mourinho adamant that he’s seen no problems between the duo since he took charge this summer.
“I arrived with a lot of information,” Mourinho said in August. “But I decided to start from zero… I’ve been keeping an eye on it, and I’ve felt no need to talk about it. I’ve seen that everything is normal. Seeing how they’ve interacted, you couldn’t imagine what happened.”
“Now in the changing room, the coach said it… we’re cool,” Tchouaméni said on Thursday. “There is no problem at all. On the field, it is completely the same and life goes on.
“Someone told me actually that stuff like this brings people closer… We are cool. Frankly there is no issue, we’re chill.”
Madrid go into Sunday’s Clásico six points behind LaLiga leaders Barça, who have a 100% record in the league this season.
Valverde could feature at right-back, having started Madrid’s last two games in the position, ahead of Denzel Dumfries and Trent Alexander-Arnold.
