Real Madrid head coach likens unfettered midfielder to former Liverpool teammate after Club World Cup heroics

Fede Valverde once said that he could spend all day watching Steven Gerrard play; his coach sometimes feels like he still is, and no one is better placed to see it or make it so. Xabi Alonso had been in charge at Real Madrid for just two games when he said that the Uruguayan reminded him of his former partner in the Liverpool midfield. “ I haven’t seen many players with his physical performance,” he said. “I’m very happy to be coaching him. Every manager would like a Valverde on the team.”

Coming from Alonso, it was quite the compliment. There was always something special between him and the Liverpool captain. Gerrard described the Spaniard as “pure quality, a class act on the pitch and a gentlemen off it,” and was “devastated” at his departure, writing: “I missed you every day from the moment you left.” Alonso said that Gerrard was the better player, the man with whom he won the European Cup, scoring six minutes apart, and shared the Istanbul kiss that inspired endless fan fiction; the man he once called “my hero, my mate”.

• Last 16: Real Madrid 1-0 Juventus (G García 54)

• Mbappé makes first appearance of tournament

Kylian Mbappé at last made his debut at this Club World Cup as the competition enters the knockout phase, coming on to face Juventus two weeks and four games after he was hospitalised with a stomach virus that saw him lose five kilos. But while the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami chanted the Frenchman’s name, roaring as he made his way to the halfway line, and stood to hand him an ovation when he entered the fray, the excitement overflowing, it was the kid heading in the other direction for whom Rita Hayworth is family but most of them had not heard of a month ago, who had taken Real Madrid into the quarter-final.

For all the focus on the most famous names, for all that this month, this experimental event, needs them, every tournament has its revelation: this World Cup has a 21-year-old madrileño. “I knew this competition was the opportunity of my life,” Gonzalo García said after he again showed that it is one he is determined, and equipped, to take hold of. The Real Madrid academy striker, who had never started a game before arriving in the United States, scored his third goal here with a superb thumping header from a delicious Trent Alexander-Arnold delivery, doing what no one else could over 90 minutes here: beating the Juventus goalkeeper Michele Di Gregorio.

President says immigration jail in Florida Everglades is a ‘little controversial, but I couldn’t care less’

Donald Trump on Tuesday toured “Alligator Alcatraz”, a controversial new migrant detention jail in the remote Florida Everglades, and celebrated the harsh conditions that people sent there would experience.

The president was chaperoned by Florida’s hard-right governor, Ron DeSantis, who hailed the tented camp on mosquito-infested land 50 miles west of Miami as an example for other states that supported Trump’s mass deportation agenda.

• Last 16: Flamengo 2-4 Bayern Munich

• Gerson 33, Jorginho 55pen; Pulgar 6og, Kane 9 73, Goretzka 41

A World Cup is a better place for the Brazilians, but this one has lost two in 24 hours. The day after Botafogo fell to Palmerias, Flamengo departed too, cut down by Harry Kane.

That sea of red and black will be missed and their team will too: the side who beat Chelsea showed that was not by chance, as they made a game of this one, scoring twice at the Hard Rock Stadium, their fans banging drums and their coach declaring his pride at how they had played. But it was Bayern Munich who progressed.