Real Madrid star goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois is getting back to full fitness after a tough injury cut his World Cup short just when Belgium were hanging in there against future champions Spain in the quarterfinals, and there is no question that he is the most important Madrid player these days. Because as much as Jose Mourinho is trying to add to the midfield and defense and although Real keep building up their attack with new faces, so much ends up resting in the palms of the star shot stopper.
Courtois has won Champions Leagues single handedly for Madrid, and he is often the "Black Magic" fans refer to when Madrid are able to gut out the toughest of victories. But increasingly, there is a wider gap between Courtois and his No. 2, as Andriy Lunin is starting to look shaky after previously being the best No. 2 on the planet, even playing like a top No. 1 when Courtois went down with a serious injury in the 2023/24 Champions League winning season.
Although it was just a friendly match against Fiorentina on the first day of August, Lunin looked dreadful against the inferior Serie A opposition. The Ukrainian goalkeeper could not stop anything, and just as he did last season, he looked quite shaky in goal and not at all like someone Real Madrid can trust.
Andriy Lunin is not viewed the same
Now 34 years old, Courtois may only have a few seasons of elite level football left in him, and if Andriy Lunin gets called into action a few more times in the 2026/27 La Liga season and continues to look as shaky as he did last season and as suspect as he did in the preseason vs. Fiorentina, Real Madrid fans are only going to be asking more questions about Courtois' successor and Lunin's place in the succession plan.
Real Madrid haven't really been concretely linked to any young goalkeepers, and there is nobody in Castilla who stands out as a great option to one day be the No. 1. In fact, it has been more than 20 years since Real Madrid produced an elite goalkeeper out of their academy, and that was Iker Casillas, whom they pretty much stumbled upon by chance in the Champions League Final against Bayer Leverkusen.
The 2026/27 season is going to have a lot of storylines around Jose Mourinho, Vinicius Junior, Kylian Mbappe, and the other stars in the outfield, but the storyline of who succeeds Courtois is quietly going to be a huge one, too.
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