Arbeloa has ‘four finals’ to prove himself as Real Madrid enter season-defining stretch

Madrid—For Álvaro Arbeloa and his Real Madrid squad, the tranquillity of a rare mid-season training camp is about to give way to a 12-day gauntlet that will shape the entire 2024-25 campaign. Club sources have labelled the coming quartet of fixtures as “four finals,” a sequence that begins on Saturday at the Bernabéu against a buoyant Real Sociedad and ends with a Champions League survival mission against José Mourinho’s Benfica.

Domestically, the margins are razor-thin. Madrid trail Barcelona by a single point at the top of LaLiga and, with the Catalans this weekend facing relegation-threatened opposition, any misstep could hand their rivals the initiative. After hosting La Real, Madrid travel to Pamplona to meet Osasuna at the forbidding El Sadar, where points have been hard to come by for even the league’s heavyweights.

Sandwiched between those league engagements is a two-legged Champions League playoff that Madrid were forced into after failing to secure a top-eight finish in the group phase. The first leg against Benfica is scheduled for 17 February at the Bernabéu, with the return in Lisbon eight days later. Memories of the Portuguese side’s 4-2 group-stage win—goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin even scored a stoppage-time header—still sting, and progression is anything but guaranteed.

Fitness guru Antonio Pintus has used the fortnight-long hiatus to run the squad through punishing physical sessions, yet the treatment room remains crowded. Rodrygo is out with hamstring tendinosis and will also sit out the European tie through suspension. Eder Militão and Jude Bellingham continue their rehabilitations, Marco Asensio is nursing a tibia fracture, and Kylian Mbappé is still managing a troublesome left knee. In their absence, much rests on the shoulders of Antonio Rüdiger, whose Champions League pedigree is viewed inside Valdebebas as a potential difference-maker.

With LaLiga and European glory still mathematically attainable, Madrid’s season now hinges on how Arbeloa’s depleted group navigates these four pressure-cooker matches. Win, and the disappointments of the Super Cup and Copa del Rey exits fade into footnotes; stumble, and a trophy-less spring becomes a stark reality.