Real Madrid Gears Up for the Club World Cup on Grass Blessed by Bielsa

Marcelo Bielsa tested the grass of the fields in Palm Beach Gardens last year and called the gardener. “Upon seeing him, he bowed,” says Daniel Prieto, one of the directors of the municipal complex where Real Madrid trained for the first time this Sunday morning before their debut in the Club World Cup on Wednesday against Al Hilal (21:00, Telecinco and Dazn). The Uruguayan national team prepared there for nearly two weeks last June for the last Copa América, and their coach validated the grass for elite football. “We were thinking of asking FIFA to host a national team in the 2026 World Cup, but they asked us to host a club this summer instead,” Prieto says.

Around a year ago, Madrid received a catalog of available training sites for the Club World Cup and began preparing the Palm Beach Gardens refuge, which is quite different from the place where Fede Valverde was with his national team last year. Except for the grass. “The first four times the representatives from Real Madrid visited, they didn’t even step on the grass,” Prieto says. “I think in the world of football, everyone trusts what Bielsa says.”

What they did need to do with the two fields where Madrid will train while staying in Palm Beach, about 20 minutes from the complex, was to let it rest for a few weeks before the team’s arrival. In these public facilities built six years ago by the Palm Beach Gardens city council, around 1,800 children aged six to eighteen regularly train, and they are currently on vacation. A part of the complex has been reserved for Madrid, while the rest can be used for free by anyone wanting to practice sports privately. There are football fields, tennis courts, and pickleball courts, as well as a running circuit and walking trails. Organized teams do have to pay to use the facilities, like the 400 children who waited on Sunday afternoon to play flag football, a non-contact variant of American football for younger players.

Madrid liked the place but had different needs than the Uruguayan national team, which left the area almost unrecognizable. They installed changing rooms, showers, a treatment area, a gym, stands, and a kind of glassed-in lobby from where Emilio Butragueño, the director of institutional relations, watched this Sunday’s first training session with club personnel.

There was even more excitement at the entrance of the area designated for Madrid, where about fifty fans gathered, most wearing the team’s shirts. However, the area is heavily guarded by police, who parked a mobile trailer there, almost like a small police station.

Inside, Xabi Alonso led his first session with all the players available at this time. After the arrival of Vinicius, Arda, and Lunin, only Ferland Mendy and Endrick remain in Madrid recovering from their injuries, although they are on the roster for the tournament and could join later. “Everything has to speed up because we have very little time to get to know each other and to train,” Xabi had said the night before after landing at Palm Beach Airport.

There are quite a few unfamiliar faces in the first-team call-up, including nine youth players (Sergio Mestre, Youssef, Jacobo Ramón, Asencio, Fortea, Diego Aguado, Chema, Víctor Muñoz, and Gonzalo); Mario Martín, returning from a loan; and the two latest signings, Dean Huijsen and Trent Alexander-Arnold. The English player has been particularly shy, being at another club for the first time after 20 years at Liverpool. He has joined the rondo with the foreigners, where he has stayed close to his friend Jude Bellingham, alongside him or following him in any exercise.

Everything has to move quickly. There are only two training sessions left in Palm Beach Gardens before the first match against Al Hilal. “We are starting a new stage, and we need to prioritize what is important: what we want to be, how we want to play, and to feel it,” said Xabi.