{"id":518,"date":"2025-09-22T13:01:38","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T13:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leistergame.com\/?p=518"},"modified":"2025-09-23T09:33:37","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T09:33:37","slug":"xabi-alonso-picks-out-real-madrid-player-that-has-pleasantly-surprised-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leistergame.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/22\/xabi-alonso-picks-out-real-madrid-player-that-has-pleasantly-surprised-him\/","title":{"rendered":"Xabi Alonso picks out Real Madrid player that has \u2018pleasantly surprised him\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- Article Start --><\/p>\n<p>Real Madrid could hardly have planned for a better start to the season, particularly after their Club World Cup elimination at the hands of Paris Saint-Germain, with six games won out of their opening six fixtures. That start has been underpinned by major contributions from new signings, and fresh Kylian Mbappe.<\/p>\n<p>Los Blancos have done so with Trent Alexander-Arnold injured for the past two games, without Jude Bellingham until the closing minutes of their win against Espanyol, and with Vinicius Junior blowing somewhat hot and cold.<\/p>\n<h2>Xabi Alonso picks out Real Madrid man that has surprised him<\/h2>\n<p>Nevertheless, there have been standouts for Real Madrid beyond Mbappe, and one garnering increasing praise is Alvaro Carreras. Brought back to the club after a sojourn to Manchester United, Preston North End and then Benfica at the price of \u20ac50m, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.football-espana.net\/2025\/08\/06\/real-madrid-alvaro-carreras-xabi-alonso\">Carreras has been omnipresent for Alonso thus far<\/a>. He told the press he had been surprised by his impact.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1241\" height=\"858\" class=\"wp-image-306700 has-webp lazyload\" style=\"height:auto;aspect-ratio: 1241\/858;max-width: 1241px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" alt=\"Carreras has been in fine form early on in his career at Real Madrid.\" data-src=\"https:\/\/leistergame.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Carreras-Eder-Militao.jpg\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image via Javier Gandul\/Diario AS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cI was optimistic, I have, we have been following him for a while, but his personality and competitiveness have very pleasantly surprised me. He makes very few mistakes and has a great mentality. It\u2019s surprising how quickly he\u2019s impacted that position. We also have Fran [Garcia], David [Alaba] and Ferland [Mendy] for that position. But his performance has been excellent.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Alonso taking it slow with Eduardo Camavinga<\/h2>\n<p>The Basque manager <a href=\"https:\/\/www.football-espana.net\/2025\/09\/20\/xabi-alonso-gives-pointed-response-to-dean-huijsen-red-card-suspension-controversy\">confirmed that both Eduardo Camavinga and Jude Bellingham would be ready to start against Levante<\/a> on Tuesday night, but noted that he was keen not to rush things with the Frenchman.<\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"EN DIRECTO I  Rueda de prensa de Xabi Alonso antes del Levante-Real Madrid, en vivo\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/smaNjR69Gg0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m a bit cautious with him. He\u2019s been with us a while, but has not been available much. I know him from watching him, from how he interprets the game. He has enormous potential, a lot of qualities, and there\u2019s a place for him within the project. He\u2019s keen, he\u2019s willing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><!-- Article End --><\/p>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.football-espana.net\/2025\/09\/22\/xabi-alonso-picks-out-real-madrid-player-that-has-pleasantly-surprised-him\">Xabi Alonso picks out Real Madrid player that has \u2018pleasantly surprised him\u2019<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.football-espana.net\">Football Espa\u00f1a<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Real Madrid could hardly have planned for a better start to the season, particularly after their Club World Cup elimination at the hands of Paris Saint-Germain, with six games won out of their opening six fixtures. That start has been underpinned by major contributions from new signings, and fresh Kylian Mbappe. Los Blancos have done [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leistergame.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leistergame.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leistergame.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leistergame.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leistergame.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/leistergame.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":524,"href":"https:\/\/leistergame.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518\/revisions\/524"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leistergame.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leistergame.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leistergame.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leistergame.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}