Alexander-Arnold Feels Heat as Madrid Blow Victory Chance

Xabi Alonso had said in the buildup that he was going to "ignite" his players at this Club World Cup, that Real Madrid were ready to rock and roll.

- Barney Ronay

Xabi Alonso had said in the buildup that he was going to "ignite" his players at this Club World Cup, that Real Madrid were ready to rock and roll. In the event this was something a little more ragged and downbeat, pub-rock, at times even a meandering shoe-gaze in Miami as a feisty and well-drilled Al-Hilal kept the new-era Madrid at arm's length in a Group H opener that ended in a 1-1 draw, flickered but never caught fire, and saw Federico Valverde miss a 92nd-minute penalty to win it.

Madrid announced before the game that they had sold 60,000 tickets for this game at a 65,000 capacity stadium, which seems a little hard on Al-Hilal, who are owned by the Saudi government and as a result are basically paying for the whole show. As expected the Hard Rock was a sun-dappled sea of white at kick-off.

And this was another strange event at the mothership of all strange events. Most obviously the game kicked off at 3pm local time in mid-June, a time of day when crossing the road here is likely to induce a state of full-body sock-soaking hydration.

In other staging news, Fifa revived its No To Racism messaging, running a short video to that effect before kick-off. There was a clear response here to criticism of kowtowing to the nearest authoritarian politician, and the watering down of that message to Football Unites The World, which has the added drawback of being demonstrably incorrect.