Real Madrid Boss Alonso Says Team Has ‘Little Time’ For Club World Cup

New Real Madrid head coach Xabi Alonso said that his team has “little time” to prepare ahead of the Club World Cup.

The newly-reimagined, 32-team FIFA competition kicked off on Saturday with a 0-0 draw between Al-Ahly and FC Barcelona legend Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami which was enjoyed by 60,000 punters.

Madrid has already landed in the Floridian city ahead of his men’s own opening fixture against Neymar’s former club Al-Hilal midweek, and Alonso noted that “everything has to be accelerated because we have little time to get to know each other and train”.

“We’ll start to team up because we have three training sessions before the first game,” added Alonso, while further stating that Los Blancos “come with a lot of desire and with the hope of having a good tournament to go all the way” amid monstrous prize money being on offer.

With Carlo Ancelotti’s mostly victorious cycle having come to an end, as the Italian now oversees the Brazil national team, Alonso noted that the club he played for as a midfielder under Carletto in the mid-2010s is “starting a new stage” where ending domestic dominance from FC Barcelona is the first port of call.

“We have to prioritise what is important: what we want to be, how we want to play and that we feel it. We want to be able to do that from the first moment, from the match against Al Hilal. First we must recognize ourselves,” he demanded.

Alonso claimed that his sessions with the players have thus far “been very positive”. “Little by little you get to know them, you have that much-needed contact and little by little more players are arriving,” he concluded, in a nod to signings such as Trent Alexander-Arnold.

Real Madrid is going to the Club World Cup to win

Though coming home with the trophy isn’t make or break for Alonso, Real Madrid isn’t going to the United States and the Club World Cup to make the numbers up. This has already been communicated by the coach, striker Kylian Mbappe and even president Florentino Perez as he unveiled new signing Alexander-Arnold before the flight to Miami.