Alexander-Arnold takes first step in high-wire act with no Real rehearsals

Madrid's new No 12 will make surely the most scrutinised pre-season debut that any footballer has faced

- Barney Ronay

Yesterday morning the Miami Herald carried a story about a Local Man arrested in Florida's Polk County for breaking into a house to make himself dinner and have a bath rather than going home to face his wife after an argument.

The Local Man, who has no criminal history, was apprehended just as he was settling in for a relaxing soak. He has since been charged with burglary. So on balance, and while an entirely tempting, innovative option, this is probably not the way to go.

Pressure makes diamonds, as online graft-influencers like to say. But it also makes the average human yearn for a little quiet space.

That same morning Trent Alexander-Arnold, who could probably also do with a break from the white noise, was taking his second Real Madrid training session in the 32C (90F) heat of the Gardens North County District Park, a hundred miles south-east of Polk, and in a team where the entire experience can at times resemble an unceasing spousal argument.

Madrid are the most relentlessly exposed football club on the planet, huge even in a place where it feels at times as if nobody actually knows the Club World Cup is going on just up the road.

Towards the end of the opening ceremony on Saturday a Fifa-branded wailing wall of hope was wheeled out on to the pitch at the Hard Rock Stadium, trailed by a gaggle of children, who then solemnly implanted 32 lighted bricks bearing the badges of every competing club.