{"id":9761,"date":"2026-10-03T15:54:23","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T15:54:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/?p=9761"},"modified":"2026-10-03T15:54:23","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T15:54:23","slug":"jose-mourinho-faces-major-real-madrid-defensive-crisis-as-tchouameni-dumfries-and-academy-stars-emerge-as-solutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/?p=9761","title":{"rendered":"Jose Mourinho faces major Real Madrid defensive crisis as Tchouam\u00e9ni, Dumfries and academy stars emerge as solutions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"article-body\">\n<div>\n<p><span>The defensive situation at the Santiago Bernabeu has reached a critical point following the recent Madrid derby. Antonio Rudiger currently stands as the only natural first-team central defender available for selection as the squad prepares for the October 10 encounter with Villarreal. Dean Huijsen is set to serve a one-match ban after his dismissal against Atletico Madrid, while Raul Asencio has recently undergone surgery.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>According to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.marca.com\/futbol\/real-madrid\/2026\/10\/03\/mourinho-abre-casting-problemon.html\" target=\"_blank\" data-affiliate-type=\"NONE\"><span>Marca<\/span><\/a><span>, Aurelien Tchouameni is the leading candidate to fill the void, a role the French international has successfully occupied during previous injury crises. The manager is also considering Denzel Dumfries as a potential makeshift option. The Dutch international has the raw physical power to adapt to a central role, and Mourinho has already experimented with unconventional defensive setups during the early stages of his tenure. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>During a post-match press conference in August following a friendly against Alcorcon, as quoted by Marca, the coach noted he had to pair Trent Alexander-Arnold and Dumfries to &#8220;try to find a dynamic that would allow for this type of play.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The defensive situation at the Santiago Bernabeu has reached a critical point following the recent&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"two_page_speed":[],"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-laliga"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/GettyImages-2292188991-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}