Trent Alexander-Arnold: From Liverpool Hero to Real Madrid’s Third-Choice Right-Back

Third choice. That is where Trent Alexander-Arnold stands at Real Madrid right now, and nobody involved seems to enjoy saying it out loud.

He has played in seven of Madrid’s 13 games this season and started four. He sat out against Roma, Sevilla and RB Leipzig, and in last week’s Clásico he got a couple of minutes in stoppage time. José Mourinho has been picking Fede Valverde, a midfielder, at right-back, with Denzel Dumfries, signed from Inter in the summer, next in line. A BBC piece this weekend asked where his future lies, and readers in Ghana were among those searching his name.

He turned 28 last month. Sixteen months ago this move was supposed to be the start of his best years.

Quick facts

• Full name: Trent John Alexander-Arnold
• Born: 7 October 1998, West Derby, Liverpool
• Position: Right-back, sometimes central midfield
• Clubs: Liverpool (2016-2025), Real Madrid (since June 2025)
• Contract: Runs to 2031
• Major honours with Liverpool: Champions League (2019), Premier League (2019-20, 2024-25), FA Cup (2022), EFL Cup (2022, 2024), Club World Cup (2019), UEFA Super Cup (2019)
• England: Senior debut 2018; played at the 2018 and 2022 World Cups

The local lad

The Liverpool part of the story is almost too neat. He grew up in West Derby, a short ride from the club’s old Melwood training ground. When he was six, his school was invited to a half-term camp run by Liverpool, and his name was one of those pulled out of a hat. An academy coach, Ian Barrigan, spotted him there and asked his parents about signing him.

He captained the club’s under-16 and under-18 sides. He was a midfielder for most of that time, which explains plenty about the way he plays now. He made his first-team debut in October 2016, aged 18.

Corners, Barcelona and two titles

His reputation was really made on one night. In May 2019, in the Champions League semi-final second leg against Barcelona at Anfield, Liverpool were 3-0 down from the first leg. Then, at 3-0 up on the night, he walked away from a corner, saw Barcelona’s defenders switch off, turned back and whipped the ball in quickly for Divock Origi to score. Ball boys talk about it. So do coaches. It is still the moment most fans picture when his name comes up.

Liverpool won the final against Tottenham that year. He started both the 2018 and 2019 finals, the youngest player to start consecutive Champions League finals.

The next season Liverpool won the league for the first time in 30 years, and he was named PFA Young Player of the Year. More cups followed: the FA Cup and League Cup double in 2022, another League Cup in 2024, and a second Premier League title in 2025. By May 2022 he was, at 23, the youngest player to win six major trophies with an English club.

His numbers as a full-back were absurd at times. Assists from crosses, from free-kicks, from passes most right-backs would not see, let alone try.

Leaving Anfield

Then he left. His contract was running down, and in May 2025 he confirmed he would not sign a new one. Real Madrid wanted him early enough for the Club World Cup, so they paid Liverpool about 10 million euros to release him a few weeks before he would have been free anyway.

Some supporters did not take it well. Booing at Anfield, the angry phone-ins, all of it. He gave his first speech in Madrid in Spanish, called the move “a dream come true” and put “Trent” on the back of his shirt instead of the long double surname.

Why Madrid has not worked, so far

Honestly, it is a mix of bad luck and bad fit.

The injuries came first. A muscle problem in pre-season. A hamstring injury five minutes into the Champions League opener against Marseille in September 2025, which kept him out for about seven weeks. A thigh problem in December. He made 21 La Liga appearances out of a possible 38 last season, with 14 starts.

Then the coaches kept changing. Xabi Alonso left. Álvaro Arbeloa took over and, to be fair, seemed to rate him, calling Madrid “lucky to have” him after an assist against Real Sociedad in February. Now it is Mourinho, who wants defensive certainty first and treats creative full-backs as a luxury.

Mourinho has at least been open about it. “First of all, it hurts me. I don’t like to make players feel bad,” he said recently. “But there are things that are more important than these feelings.” He has also used Trent in central midfield, against Inter in September, and praised how he read the game there.

That might be the clue. People have been saying for years that he could end up as a midfielder. Maybe that is not a demotion.

England, on and off

International football has been harder still. He went to the 2018 World Cup as a teenager and started a match, one of only a handful of teenagers to do that for England at a World Cup. He was at the 2022 tournament in Qatar too, and was in the squad that lost the Euro 2024 final.

Under Thomas Tuchel he fell away. Tuchel said publicly that Alexander-Arnold had to “take the defensive part very, very seriously”, and in May 2026 he left him out of the World Cup squad altogether. He was recalled in September. Whether he stays in is another question. Tuchel names his next squad on 6 November, before Nations League games against Croatia and Spain, and a third-choice club player is not an easy pick.

What could happen next

There is talk of a January exit, though nothing concrete. Jamie Carragher said on The Overlap that he would have him back at Liverpool and that he made “a big mistake” going to Madrid. That is one former team-mate’s opinion, not a club plan.

My own guess, and it is only that: he stays until the summer, plays more than people expect when injuries pile up, and the real decision comes in 2027. A contract to 2031 is a big thing to walk away from.

Off the pitch, he is a keen chess player, has said the game helps him think “two or three moves ahead”, and in 2023 joined an investment group in the Alpine Formula One team. Small details, but they fit the player. Patient. Always looking for the pass after the next one.

What we could not verify

• Any formal January transfer offer. Reports so far are opinion and speculation.
• Exact appearance figures for this season beyond the BBC’s count at 1 November.
• Whether he will be named in England’s November squad.

Sources

• BBC Sport
• The Athletic
• ESPN
• The Guardian
• Sports Illustrated
• Real Madrid
• Wikipedia