Graham HunterNov 18, 2025, 03:30 AM ETCloseGraham Hunter is a Barcelona-based freelance writer for ESPN.com who specializes in La Liga and the Spanish national team.Follow on X
Why Federico Valverde’s injury is a problem for Real Madrid (1:13)Alejandro Moreno discusses Federico Valverde’s inclusion in Real Madrid’s injury list and how that could impact the team. (1:13)
First of all, you remember Arbeloa … don’t you? He was that rangy, pipe cleaner-thin defender for Liverpool and Real Madrid who literally won everything. He played his part in two European Championship wins and the World Cup victory with Spain, and amassed various trophies with those clubs, too, including the Champions League with Madrid, defeats in two Champions League semifinals and a final for Rafa Benitez’s Reds.
The trouble with Arbeloa, if indeed you consider this to be troubling, is that he’s blunt to the point of resembling a carpenter’s hammer. He is unforgiving, unrelenting and completely unafraid of incurring anybody else’s displeasure or disapproval. Right now, he’s also the coach of Real Madrid’s B team, Castilla, and is therefore in charge of some truly valuable talents that Los Blancos desperately want to see pushing through into their first team.
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The kid’s name is Joan Martínez, and he is part of what is called “El Relevo” (“the changing of the guard/the next generation”) in Spain.
Antonio Rüdiger and David Alaba are 32 and 33, respectively, both have been racking up injuries and, most importantly, both are out of contract at the end of the season. And so Madrid are in the typical “stick or twist” scenario. Either you stick, think conservatively, and spend less money by renewing the contract of two thirty-somethings who have been riddled by injuries recently — and who may well be in decline — or you let one/both of them go and spend significant money on replacements.
Just over a year ago, the reviews this elegant, lanky (6-foot-3) central defender was receiving were the type that either precede a phenomenon — or a phenomenal disappointment.
Martínez made his first team debut, aged 16, against AC Milan in Chicago during Los Blancos’ summer tour of August 2024. At the time, Ancelotti said: “Joan has potential. He’s very young, but he has everything a center back needs: good on the ball and very attentive to detail.
“He could have a big future at Real Madrid. So far our youth academy, have done a terrific job with him because he’s extremely good.”
Martínez’ teammate on the day, Lucas Vázquez, also drooled over the young defender’s potential. “I wasn’t at that level when I was 16 … He’s an incredible kid. He produced a very good game today. This is a center back with tremendous potential and we’re all going to try to help him so he continues to develop.”
The shockwaves began on Saturday evening, when Arbeloa took to the press conference desk, after his Castilla team beat CP Cacereño 2-0, and began to verbally dismantle his central defender — someone who’s started every league match and played 95% of all available minutes. The timing was brutal, the words were coruscating, and the impact was huge.
Arbeloa, himself an international class fullback or central defender, said: “[Martínez] is a very talented young man, but he has a long way to go. To begin with, he needs to train much harder than he is now, with much more focus and intensity.
“If he wants to be a Real Madrid player, he needs to understand that the demands of that position are extremely high. What he’s doing now isn’t enough to turn him into a first-team player and until he realizes that, he’ll obviously be a good player for Castilla, but the top level is a different story.
“We’re working on making him understand that he has to be professional and train at his maximum every day. That’s where he needs to make a big leap forward to become a Real Madrid player, because he has the talent, the technique, the physical conditions and the mentality … but what he’s doing right now just isn’t sufficient.”
A central part of the conversation revolves around when, if ever, it’s correct for any coach to give such an intense dressing down to any of his players in public. Views differ, and sometimes this kind of public blow-up is a last resort — but if this is a last resort, then how many times has Martinez ignored Arbeloa previously? And if this is not a last resort, then has Arbeloa been intemperate and ill-judged in hammering the kid so publicly?
Arbeloa, born in the same UNESCO-protected city as Vicente Del Bosque, won it all but suffered a lot along the way. He was one of Jose Mourinho’s chief lieutenants in what became the Clásico war immediately after Spain’s two big clubs, Madrid and Barcelona “united” to win the World Cup. The “cross-party” friendships annoyed Mourinho so much that he began a policy of scorched earth to break up those relationships … and to ensure that Madrid closed the gap on Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona.
Back in his playing days, Arbeloa explained to El Mundo: “In LaLiga games, you don’t have any friends. My attitude to my opponent is ‘I’m not going to give you any peace.’ Some things you do much more strongly in games of maximum tension, but generally, my idea is to piss off the opponent as much as possible.”
It’s an approach Arbeloa evidently took into coaching, where his May 2023 cup tie against the Atletico Madrid academy team, coached by his old pal from Spain and Liverpool days, Fernando Torres, led to the two former teammates insulting each other, being dragged apart. Torres at one point shouted “I’ll take your head off!” to which Arbeloa roared back “Let’s go! Start whenever you want!” (Don’t worry: they’ve since buried the hatchet.)
But over and above Arbeloa having graduated into his current status as a terrifically promising coach, he left his final Real Madrid match to a guard of honour from Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, Luka Modrić, Toni Kroos, Sergio Ramos et al. The superstars knew the value of a good, loyal Spartan foot-soldier when they saw one.
Joan Martinez would do well to accept the public ticking off, learn from it and change his attitude radically. Alternatively, he could take a leaf out of Arbeloa’s own book and go to war with his coach. The choice is his.
Then there was the intense, public and remorseless war of words between Arbeloa and Barca defender Gerard Piqué. The latter was so disparaging of Arbeloa’s footballing ability, in comparison to his own, that he used to refer to his Spain teammate as having as much technical skill “as a training ground cone.” Insulting enough — until he then began to make these feelings known in public. The spat between these two enemies — Pique even said of him in 2015 that “He’s not a friend, he’s just someone I know” — who, remember, had won two international trophies together, pulling together for the good of La Roja, was deeply entrenched and deeply damaging to both men.
Why Federico Valverde’s injury is a problem for Real Madrid (1:13)Alejandro Moreno discusses Federico Valverde’s inclusion in Real Madrid’s injury list and how that could impact the team. (1:13)
Alejandro Moreno discusses Federico Valverde’s inclusion in Real Madrid’s injury list and how that could impact the team. (1:13)
CloseGraham Hunter is a Barcelona-based freelance writer for ESPN.com who specializes in La Liga and the Spanish national team.Follow on X
But Plan B (or even Plan A minus) is this Martínez kid.
It’s particularly imperative that this guy fulfills his potential, because an academy success like him could prevent Real Madrid investing many tens of millions in established central defenders like, for example, Jarrad Branthwaite at Everton or even Ibrahima Konaté, who may leave Liverpool as a free agent next summer.
Harsh enough to cause a sharp intake of breath, right?