Thibaut Courtois was one of the standout performers for Real Madrid on Sunday in their 3-1 Club World Cup win against Pachuca. Thanks in part to the Belgian’s saves, the team secured their first victory under coach Xabi Alonso. Meanwhile, Courtois was critical of teammate Raúl Asencio.
Real Madrid’s 3-1 victory over Pachuca in the Club World Cup quarter-final turned into the Thibaut Courtois show long before the final whistle.
The scoreline reads like routine progress, yet the match told a far more dramatic tale: reduced to ten men after just seven minutes, Real spent more than eighty per cent of the evening defending deep in their own half while their goalkeeper repelled wave after wave of Mexican attacks. Pachuca unleashed twenty-five attempts at goal, the most Los Blancos have faced in any competitive fixture without extra time since a Copa del Rey defeat to Atlético Madrid in 2014.
The drama began when centre-back Raúl Asencio dived into a late challenge on striker Salomón Rondón near the halfway line. Referee Ismail Elfath initially brandished yellow, only to upgrade the sanction after a VAR review revealed studs above the ankle. Down to ten and still adapting to Xabi Alonso’s proactive 4-3-2-1 pressing scheme, Real immediately abandoned their high block and retreated into a compact 5-3-1, tucking Dani Carvajal inside as an auxiliary third centre-back. The tactical reset gave Alonso clear data on how his side can survive under siege, but it also condemned Courtois to one of the busiest nights of his Real career.
By the quarter-hour mark he had already denied Erick Sánchez twice and beaten away a dipping free-kick from Roberto de la Rosa. On the touchline Alonso barked instructions to teenage midfielders Nico Paz and Mario Martín, imploring them to stay tight to Pachuca’s double pivot and prevent vertical passes into the half-spaces. The plan worked in patches, yet every turnover invited another barrage. Courtois’s most spectacular stop came on thirty-three minutes: a reaction save with his trailing leg after a point-blank header by Pedro Pedraza wrong-footed him at the far post.
Remarkably, Real led 2-0 at half-time. Their first goal originated from their only corner of the opening period. Toni Kroos’s outswinger glanced off Aurélien Tchouaméni at the near post and dropped for Jude Bellingham, who volleyed beyond Óscar Ustari from eight metres. The second arrived via a counter started by Courtois himself; his forty-metre throw released Vinícius Júnior into space on the left, and the Brazilian squared for Rodrygo to tap in. Those two moments of ruthlessness encapsulated the difference in pedigree between the sides: Pachuca dominated territory and possession, yet Real punished the smallest lapse with clinical precision.
During the interval cameras caught Courtois walking off the pitch gesturing toward the bench, visibly unhappy with Asencio. In his interview with DAZN at half-time he lamented that the team had committed the same kind of reckless error in both tournament matches, a reference to Asencio’s needless foul that conceded a penalty against Al-Hilal four days earlier. Courtois’s comments were not framed as an attack, but the frustration in his voice underlined how thin the margin for error had become for a squad still adjusting to its new coach.
Pachuca’s head coach Guillermo Almada doubled down after the break, sending on winger Oussama Idrissi to stretch the ten-man Spaniards. The result was a relentless sequence of crosses and cut-backs that forced Courtois into eight saves in thirteen minutes. Federico Valverde and Ferland Mendy both cleared off the line, while a curling effort from Luis Chávez kissed the outside of the post. Against that tide Real conjured a third goal on sixty-one minutes when Bellingham released Vinícius with an outside-of-the-boot pass that split two centre-backs; Vinícius rounded Ustari and walked the ball over the line. Only then did Alonso allow himself a clenched-fist celebration.
Courtois’s clean sheet eventually vanished in the seventy-ninth minute, and even that required a wicked deflection. Chávez unleashed a speculative drive that struck Dani Ceballos on the hip, wrong-footing the Belgian at the last moment. Pachuca pulled one back, but the contest was essentially decided. Real’s game management thereafter was professional: Kroos slowed every restart, Carvajal feigned a hamstring stretch to burn thirty seconds, and Bellingham dribbled into the corner flag whenever he sensed a counter might leave them exposed.
For Alonso, appointed only three weeks earlier, this was a night of mixed emotions. He praised Courtois’s leadership in the post-match press conference and stressed that with eleven men his side would not have allowed so many chances. Yet he also admitted that the red card exposed structural issues he must solve quickly, especially with the Champions League round of sixteen looming next month. The new boss has reintegrated Vinícius into a narrower role and given Bellingham license to roam between the lines, but neither adjustment has yet produced a collective pressing shape as cohesive as what Carlo Ancelotti achieved two seasons ago.
The evening’s other subplot revolves around Asencio. The 22-year-old has enjoyed a meteoric rise from Castilla to the first team this season, but two high-profile lapses in the space of a week threaten his place in Alonso’s trust hierarchy. Courtois, speaking again after full time, repeated that even soft fouls can become decisive in knockout football and said the squad would fight on without Asencio before welcoming him back. Club sources suggest the coaching staff will fine the defender and mandate additional film study sessions focusing on positional discipline.
Numbers from Opta paint a stark picture of Courtois’s importance. He posted a post-shot expected goals minus goals allowed figure of plus 2.3, his best single-match mark since a Champions League quarter-final against Chelsea in 2022. Without his interventions Real’s first outing under Alonso could have devolved into embarrassment. Instead, the Spanish giants march on to a semi-final date with Brazil’s Fluminense, buoyed by the knowledge that their goalkeeper remains an impenetrable last line of defence even after missing six months earlier in the year with an ACL tear.
Attention now shifts to how Alonso manages rotation. Key veterans like Kroos and Modrić cannot start every three days, particularly in the Gulf heat of this expanded Club World Cup format. The early red card forced sixty-three defensive actions out of Mendy, the most by any Real full-back since Marcelo in 2016, and the physical toll was evident as he trudged off in stoppage time. Vinícius revealed to Spanish radio that the squad held a closed-door meeting after the Al-Hilal scare to address concentration lapses. By overcoming Pachuca under extreme duress, they believe that conversation already yielded dividends.
Pachuca exit the competition with pride intact even in defeat. Almada praised his players for dominating every metric bar the score and lamented that European opponents punish mistakes at a brutal rate. The Mexican side finished with sixty-four per cent possession, nineteen key passes to Real’s six, and won seventeen corners to Madrid’s two. Yet they lacked the penalty-box cutting edge that defines Champions League winners, and their defence could not contain Vinícius’s acceleration in transition.
Courtois left the mixed zone without further comment, but his body language said enough. Arms draped around Bellingham and Rodrygo, he shepherded the young attackers toward the team bus, reminding them of standards that must be met regardless of opponent or circumstance. Real Madrid still have obvious flaws under their new regime, yet as long as the tall Belgian stands between the posts they also possess a safety net few clubs can match.
