Dani Carvajal is expected to start for Real Madrid on Saturday at the Santiago Bernabéu in a game that Sports Illustrated has suggested could be his farewell at the stadium, and a string of public messages from teammates signaled that the club’s right back may be leaving on an emotional note.
Toni Kroos posted an Instagram message explicitly asking fans to give Carvajal a big sendoff. Kroos wrote: "Madridistas, mañana se va uno de los más grandes. ¡Uno de los nuestros! Uno que siempre fue un ejemplo por su actitud. Uno que defendió al Real Madrid en cada situación con todo lo que tenía. ¡Dad mañana la despedida que merece! ¡Dejadle salir por la puerta grande! ¡Hacedle sentir lo mismo que yo pude sentir hace dos años! Fue un placer jugar contigo. Gracias Dani Carvajal". Carvajal answered Kroos with three hearts.
The message carried weight: Kroos and Carvajal played 315 matches together, a tally Kroos’s post implicitly invoked as the basis for his plea. The week also saw public farewells for teammate David Alaba; Carvajal himself posted a message to Alaba that said, in part, "David, que auténtico privilegio compartir 5 años contigo un vestuario. Eres un líder absoluto, en todos los sentidos. Solamente con ver la pasión que dedicas para ser mejor te das cuenta de la gran persona que eres, más gente como tú. Mucha suerte en todo lo que venga, David Alaba." Alaba replied: "Gracias por todo Capi."
Carvajal’s place in the club’s modern history is unmistakable on paper. He is leaving Real Madrid with six Champions Leagues, four La Ligas, two Copa del Rey titles, six FIFA Club World Cups, four Spanish Super Cups and five UEFA Super Cups — a haul the club’s public tributes have emphasized.
But the note of celebration is sharpened by a quieter, harsher reality on the field this season. A MARCA piece cited in the club’s coverage said Carvajal has been punished by injuries this season and "has not found the continuity needed to be a starter at Real Madrid or to go to the World Cup." That inconsistency is why a match at the Bernabéu could feel like both a ceremonial farewell and a final attempt to close a difficult season on a high.
The squad available for Athletic Club on Saturday will also shape how the night plays out. Real Madrid will be without Eder Militao, Ferland Mendy, Rodrygo and Arda Güler for the match, while Vinicius Junior and Dean Huijsen could be rested. David Alaba is also leaving the club this Saturday against Athletic Club, adding another layer to the farewell atmosphere.
The tension in the story is immediate: Kroos’s public plea asks fans to elevate the moment, to treat Carvajal as one of the club’s greats and to send him out "por la puerta grande," while the narrative of the season, as MARCA described it, is of a player hampered by injuries and unable to stake an uninterrupted claim for a starting place or a World Cup spot. Those two threads — the career-long archive of trophies and the recent, injury-marred decline — collide on the Bernabéu pitch.
If Carvajal does start, the game will be the moment when those conflicting facts resolve in front of the club’s supporters. Sports Illustrated’s suggestion that it could be his Bernabéu farewell, Kroos’s appeal for a grand sendoff, the social-media goodbyes for Alaba and the squad absences all point toward a match framed less as a routine league fixture and more as a staged farewell. The simplest, most direct conclusion the facts support is this: regardless of the stops and starts of his final season, Dani Carvajal leaves Real Madrid with one of the most decorated trophy cabinets in the club’s recent history, and if he walks out at the Santiago Bernabéu on Saturday he should receive the sendoff Kroos has asked for — a public recognition that, in trophies and in tenure, he belongs among the club’s modern greats.
