Courtois: There will always be players who will be dissatisfied, so I don’t think Alonso loses the dressing room

Hupu reported on November 20 that Real Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois accepted an exclusive live interview with Radio Corbett.

Do you think you are the best goalkeeper in the world?

Of course I am one of the best goalkeepers, but it depends on everyone's preference and everyone has the right to express their opinion. Ultimately, I have to help my club and as for what people think...

What about the top three goalkeepers?

I won’t talk about it for now. So far...Oblak is in really good shape this year. I like Alisson a lot, even though he's injured. I also like David Raya.

This is not a ranking, it's just that you picked your three favorite goalkeepers. Having said that, the first headline we can take from the interview is that if you were the head coach of the Spanish national team, you would choose Raya as your starting goalkeeper (laughs).

This is not something I can decide. I'm grateful to Unai Simon for his comment. But Arsenal have been outstanding this season, conceding very few goals, and Raya was outstanding last season.

Although Unai is also an excellent goalkeeper, his performance in the national team is very good and he should continue to play. This is football, this is competition. I think Luis de la Fuente has already made his decision and Raya will just have to wait for his chance.

But this is a healthy competition, especially at the goalkeeper position; because if you concede two goals, the coach cannot hesitate, and it is always harder to find a suitable replacement.

How are you? Will you be able to play against Elche this weekend?

Yes, I can participate in the competition. Just a minor injury that requires rest and recovery. I have started training on the court and am gradually getting back to 100% condition. I had two adductor strains last year and I wanted to protect myself and avoid any risk of missing five or six weeks.

So I was surprised by all the talk in Belgium; they thought I was quitting the national team. But that's not the case because every game I play for the national team means something.

Nowadays, every national team call-up causes all kinds of chaos. Medical reports, some people choose to stay at the club for the next game (as in your case). Many people suspect that you are just deliberately hiding it.

That is not the case. If there is a national team game in midweek, I will definitely not play. In the game against Rayo Vallecano, I felt some discomfort in the adductor muscles and we saw the injury;

If I had played, the injury would have been more serious. But I understand that this situation is never easy for the national team and the club. I hope to play for the national team until the end of my career, but it is also important to be in good shape at the end of the season: to play every game for Real Madrid and then go to the World Cup.

Do you think Real Madrid’s current status and results have experienced some decline or minor crisis?

Well... whenever we draw or lose, there is always someone talking about the crisis, and there is always more talk from the outside than the noise inside. I think the game against Liverpool was not good and we deserved to lose.

As for the game against Rayo Vallecano, I thought we played pretty well; it's always difficult to play in their stadium, and it's been difficult for us to win there in recent years. We know we have to improve and we have a lot of away games in the next month which will be very difficult. We will work hard to achieve good results and we must go to Elche to win.

People's attitude towards Rayo Vallecano's game may be easier to understand than the game against Liverpool, because if it weren't for your wonderful save, that game would probably end in a disastrous defeat. But Xavi Alonso surprised fans by believing the match was decided by small details.

From an outside perspective, the game is always different from how we actually feel on the court. On the pitch, I felt like in the first half against Liverpool we were basically in control of the game and their chances were limited to one long shot, one poor clearance and one set piece.

Although in the second half, just like against Rayo Vallecano, we struggled to create a threat on the offensive end; Liverpool's performance was indeed better.

There have been recent reports that Xavi Alonso has lost control in the dressing room and there is tension between the coach and some players. I don't know if you have an influence in the locker room or if you're the kind of guy who can keep things in order when things get out of hand.

I don’t think I have a bad relationship with the head coach. But at the end of the day, there's always going to be someone in the locker room who's unhappy about not getting enough minutes or playing the game differently.

But we always communicate face to face in meetings, so it’s no problem. I'm 33 years old and I can give orders like this, but we haven't had to because we're all pulling in the same direction. When I saw those reports, I didn't think they were true; but they were just news that made a lot of noise.