Three days after receiving Chelsea in the first leg of the Champions League quarterfinals, Real Madrid muddied a brilliant week in which they had eliminated Barcelona from the Cup with a win at the Camp Nou with a league defeat at the Bernabéu against Villarreal that culminated in a painful incident. After the match, Fede Valverde approached the Villarreal bus and punched the Submarino player Alex Baena on the cheekbone, who was looking at his cell phone at that moment.
The attack caused deep indignation at Villarreal. Everything seems to indicate that the Submarine will not report the punch at the police station. To do so, the case would go to criminal proceedings and the footballer risks a serious penalty. The Competition Committee does not usually enter these issues ex officio, but if there is a complaint from the club or the affected player, a file would be opened and the situation investigated. It is up to the sanction of Anti-Violence.
Real Madrid chose at an institutional level not to comment on the matter and maintained silence in its official media. Club sources consider the case "a closed issue because it is something personal between Valverde and Baena."
The truth is that in a week in which the whites are risking their future in the Champions League, the last thing Real Madrid wants is to get entangled in a disciplinary issue with their Uruguayan player, who they internally cover without fissures.
Valverde is not a particularly conflictive or hot-blooded player on the pitch. He has only been sent off once in his career, the red one he saw for grabbing Morata in the final of the Spanish Super Cup played in Arabia in 2020.
The incidents between Valverde and Baena already start from the cup tie, on January 19. The Submarine had a 2-0 win and Madrid ended up coming back and taking the game (2-3), the same result but the reverse of yesterday Saturday at the Santiago Bernabéu. At that time, in the La Cerámica parking lot, and according to Madrid sources, Baena mocked Valverde, telling him "cry now, your son is not going to be born", alluding to the problems that Argentine journalist Mina had with her pregnancy at the time. Bonino, Fede Valverde's sentimental partner.
The same sources say that throughout the game at the Bernabéu Baena continued with this type of provocation with Valverde, who after the game went to look for Baena where the Villarreal bus was parked and told him: "Now tell me what you told me about my son."
Valverde spent yesterday with his family. Madrid sources say that, without being proud of his action, he is not sorry for what he did.
Alex Baena denied Madrid's version with a tweet posted last night on social networks: "It is totally false that I said that," he assured.
The dates in question of what happened seem to corroborate the version of the player from the groguet team. When the Cup match was played, Mina Bonino's pregnancy and the complications she suffered were not yet public.
Xisco Nadal, the Villarreal delegate, tweeted last night after the attack: "Valverde, pimp and coward", a message that was later deleted from his account. Quique Setién, the Submarino's coach, also mocked Real Madrid in the Bernabéu locker room, imitating the gestures and words of Carlo Ancelotti at the Camp Nou. Relations between Real Madrid and Villarreal have been terrible for years.
