It has been just over three months since Aurelien Tchouameni and Federico Valverde came to blows in the Real Madrid dressing room.

This Monday, after a World Cup and a period of vacation in between, they finally crossed paths again at Valdebebas following the Frenchman’s return to work.

The €500,000 fine imposed on each player by the club will surely also have helped cool tempers.

But it still needs to be demonstrated on the pitch that, after that unfortunate incident which left the Uruguayan in hospital after hitting his head hard, everything has genuinely returned to normal.

Mourinho wants the issue completely resolved

Now, according to AS, new Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho is the person most interested in ensuring the matter is completely behind them.

His plans involve Valverde and Tchouameni forming the double pivot in a team featuring a star-studded attacking quartet of Yan Diomande, Kylian Mbappe, Vinicius Jr. and Jude Bellingham.

A strong understanding between the Frenchman and the Uruguayan on the pitch will be crucial to the team’s stability this season.

The Portuguese coach is not planning to do anything special to address the situation. There will be no meeting between the two players, because for now the matter is considered settled and they have already discussed it themselves.

Only if events on the pitch show that the wound has not truly healed will Mourinho step in.

What the players said

The two players have already discussed what happened and have publicly accepted each other’s apologies.

“There is no problem,” Tchouameni said in an interview with L’Equipe in June.

“A lot of things happen in a dressing room. We shook hands when he came back and carried on working together. We’ve talked, of course…”

Valverde also confirmed that they had made peace: “I had the support of a lot of people” over what happened, he said.

“There are times when you have to get through these obstacles in football and in life. You learn from everything. I’m sure this will help me become a better captain.”

The reality, however, is that although they have trained together a couple of times, Valverde and Tchouameni have not played together since the altercation on May 7.

Initially, the Uruguayan was unavailable under concussion protocol after falling and suffering a head injury following Tchouameni’s blow.

Later, muscular problems kept one or the other out of the final league matches, when the season had already been decided.

Mourinho will now be hoping that there no lingering issues between his new captain and key midfielder as the new season looms.