Real Madrid star Fede Valverde survived the transfer whispers after his altercation in the locker room with Aureilen Tchouameni, and whlie it is the latter who is understandably the more likely to leave after years of subpar play and being the one to actually injure the other in the brouhaha, Madridistas have not exaclty hid their own disappointment with the Urugayan international.
While no true Madridista wants to see Fede sold as he is a pillar of two Champions League teams and still showed his value last season even in a difficult campaign, the fans very much want to see Fede improve. He has stagnated a bit in his development after looking like the world's next elite midfielder, and though he showed a glimpse of that with his Champions League knockout hat trick against Manchester City, he needs to be clicking at a high level more often.
With his country needing him, Valverde had a huge chance to step up as the captain against Spain with the entire world watching and their survival on the line. But instead of rising to the occasion, Valverde, amidst rumors that he is among those squabbling with Marcelo Bielsa behind the scenes, flopped worse than anyone else on his team.
Fede Valverde was atrocious for Uruguay
Bielsa actually had to hook Valverde off at the 56 minute mark, and though some Real Madrid fans and casuals were not pleased, it is impossible to fault the manager for taking out even a player as good as Valverde considering the circumstances.
Fede Valverde was an embarrassment. He completed only about 65 percent of his passes, attempting 15 attempts. He completed no dribbles and drew no fouls while losing the ball three times with unforced errors. Valverde played silly and sloppy, looking like a youth academy player on the grand stage as Rodri, Pedri, and Spain locked him down.
There is a maturity gap and a lack of leaderhip from Fede that he has hid behind Eduardo Camaivnga and Aurelien Tchouameni, who soak up more of the criticism. But when he goes back to Real Madrid and meets with the ruthless Jose Mourinho, the new manager is not going to take any BS from Fede. If he starts complaining about working too hard like he did with Xabi Alonso and now apparently Marcelo Bielsa, Mourinho is going fire him into the sun.
Valverde has shown a cowardice that Madridistas were not familiar with, and though people pinned it on Alonso, the World Cup has shown that the problem may well be Fede's. Mourinho will take him to task and pull the habits back out of him.
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