Trent Alexander-Arnold impressed with his Spanish at unveiling and maintains Real are the only club he would have left Liverpool for
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ell, that was unexpected. Trent Alexander-Arnold took out the earpiece, made his way to the stage at Real Madrid’s training ground and said: “Buenas tardes, a todos.” Good afternoon, everyone. So far, so standard. But then he delivered the next line in Spanish too, then the one after that, and the one after that.
He kept going until he got to the end of his speech, when he delivered the one line everyone invariably does on the day they are presented here: “Hala Madrid!” It wasn’t long – one minute and one second, in all – but it was long enough to win them over already.
“I think it surprised a lot of people,” Alexander-Arnold said when he had made his way over to the press room. “For me it was important to do that, to have a good start.” He wasn’t wrong: there had been a kind of double-take as he went on, an increasing admiration, and this was a very good start: delivered smoothly, with no cue cards, only the tiniest pause at one point and in genuinely good Spanish, accent and all. “Perfect,” one sports daily called it. “Impeccable,” another said. Suspiciously good, some inevitably suggested.
