sport news Year one at Real Madrid could barely have been worse for Thibaut Courtois after ...

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Eden Hazard tried to take the sting out of the latest episode of Thibaut Courtois' nightmare season by joking: 'I think he has seen too many of my videos and he's tried to dribble like me.'

Those two could well be team-mates next season and Courtois – for all that his first campaign has been awful – will be Real Madrid's goalkeeper but year two cannot come quickly enough for the 26-year-old because year one could barely have been worse.

Ever since Courtois let-in five goals in what was his first ever Clasico at the Camp Nou last November and then let in five goals against Switzerland in his next game – there has been an uneasy foreboding about how things were going to work out.

He has already played for three different coaches in his first season and while the first two: Julen Lopetegui and Santiago Solari backed him to be the number one, Zinedine Zidane seems less sure.

Last January Zidane blocked the club's attempt to sign Kepa based on a loyalty to Keylor Navas and since returning to the job he has put the Costa Rican back in goal.

Courtois is fighting for that No 1 shirt against someone who is very well liked at Madrid. Even when Solari left him out in favour of Courtois he said: 'Keylor is a gentleman. I admire him as a player and I respect him as a man.'

The arguments for Courtois replacing Navas last summer were that he would bring greater stability and security but nobody has seen it yet this season.

The Barcelona goals in the Clasico were not his mistakes but that old aura he had at Atletico Madrid and then

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