tv off: 28 Nov 2024

To Whom It May Concern:

Juninho: ...All I ever wanted was less narratives or factos. But f— being rational, I’ll give ‘em what they ask for.

MM: “…”

Juninho & (KFZ): It’s not enough (Ayyy). Few solid MMers left, but it’s not enough. Few MMers that’ll really step, but its not enough. Say you bigger than myself, but its not enough.So I tell ‘em you gotta touch grass (yea somebody gotta do it). That’ll make ‘em pretty mad (yea somebody gotta do it). I take they fantasy G-pass (damn watch Juni do it). We survived outside while some ya’ll looking clueless (Juni woah)

They like “Juni, what’s goin on?” It’s the Alpha and Omega, DT Week, Welcome home. This is not a thread or song. This a revelation, on how to get [censored] gone.

VC: Crash

Welcome to The Daily Merengue — a blog where you can feel free to discuss all things football. Do not be alarmed by the overt RMCF bias. It’s in the name!

Shoutout to the Mods who do a fantastic job, Valyrian Steel, KungFuZizou, NeRObutBlanco, Felipejack, and Juninho (“GOAT”).

Quick Intro (apologies Phil)

I just want to quickly share a quote that I read a few days ago. “When someone shows you their face, believe it.” Yes, people are complicated creatures and have room to grow, mature, and simply make mistakes. However, until that moment you are forced to believe what you see. Y’know, life is just a collection of perspectives.

So I say this because at some point we need to recognize and believe what we’ve seen from this 24/25 Real Madrid team. At some point, it isn’t that it’s still early in the season. They’ve shown their faces. They’ll be awfully injured, consistently inconsistent, struggle to figure out what needs to be done, at times bereft of ideas, and at other times godly. They’re a talented mess. Could they still stumble and win a La Liga title / Champions League? Absolutely…and maybe there’s some peculiar beauty about being flawed? But this is the 24/25 team.

TV OFF

I’m Not Mad. Following the intro, I’m just here to say that I’m not really mad or disappointed by the performance. It was expected…we are missing around 5 credible starter caliber players (Militao, Tchouameni, Rodrygo, Vinicius, and Carvajal). We have been supremely inconsistent all season even when they were healthy. We’ve yet to really dominate top teams…etc etc. I’m not sure why anyone would’ve expected us to beat the high-flying Liverpool at Anfield. This match would’ve been difficult with a healthy in-form squad.

Carlo. TBH I barely even really blame Carlo for this loss, or maybe its just that our collective performances have completely diminished my expectations? He hasn’t had solutions for our healthy squad, so I’m not really sure if I’d expect him to now have solutions…..

I actually think the squad at first performed in a manner that he wanted. We can debate whether this is the right way for them to perform, but they seemed to collectively listen. We sat back and absorbed pressure looking to counter when appropriate. It was the tried and true Carlo v City (and a few other top CL teams) method. Of course, in this situation we only had one player of considerable speed going forward so all swift counters pretty much went to die.

If I really have to critique Carlo (who personally, I’ve just lost hope in) I’d continue to ask Carlo to play a bit more of Ceballos (over Modric) and to stop subjecting Jude to LM. IMO flat 4-4-2 hasn’t and rarely works with these players and is easily passed through. Also the team looked cohesively better after the Camavinga injury (which pains me to say) simply because having Jude + Fede + Ceballos in central channels enabled the team to actually move at its necessary pace. The staff is sleeping on Ceballos’ utility but thats for another day.

Mbappe. He probably needs his own section for various reasons but let me not belabor the point. NVM lets belabor it…one second.

Quick Intermission.

Kylian Mbappe

Broken. On the one hand, Kylian Mbappe looks a shell of his former self. He has blistering pace, but there is something wrong in everything he does. His confidence is pretty much shattered. His dribbling isn’t at a speed or as succinct as necessary. He almost always takes one touch too many. His shooting motion is virtually in slo-mo. And on top of all that, he still doesn’t really defend. (Although, to be fair to him he lost possession maybe once or twice and I did see him attempt to run back even though he isn’t great at it). This isn’t the PSG Kylian. This isn’t the WC France Kylian. This Kylian is unrecognizable.

Now the Hazard comparisons are actually stupid and people who say them are pretty silly. I’d say stupid if not that I may get censured. Kylian needs like 2-3 goals to reach Hazard’s goal tally at Real…lmao…

But its a bit appropriate to raise the customary eyebrow and maybe ring an alarm bell or two. It may be time to bring in someone else (staff wise / trainer / consultant) to help. It is what it is. We have no choice to hope he figures things out because he’s not going to the bench or anywhere any time soon.

But Who Isn’t? Kylian absolutely needs to increase his performances but as I believe Jingle said in the Immediate Reaction Thread…it may not be exactly fair to single out any player. Besides Asencio, who is pretty much playing for vibes and with house money, who is exactly performing consistently well this season? Some of you will point to Vini, but I could also talk about halves where Vini was an absolute ghost and any Brazilian would call him Mbappinho. Jude has been frustrated all season and imo wasn’t exactly great today either. Lately he often over dribbles and either a) loses possession or b) falls over hoping for a foul. If you say Camavinga, I’ll probably agree but availability is like football 101 and it looks like he wont be available again. Fede has had a few moments and a few other mehhhhhh moments. Etc. Etc. Etc. Besides players who have been pretty bad or awful for a few seasons (looking at you Mendy), I’m not entirely sure it’s appropriate to single out Kylian. I’m also not entirely sure that it’s even appropriate to act like Kylian has ruined our team (which I could argue was equally dysfunctional at times last year).

Idk, I just find it hilarious that all of a sudden Joselu is a missed legendarily prolific striker.

TV On

Asencio. Kid is not only fast but good and confident. He is a prime example of why we should put a bit more faith in La Fabrica. Hindsight is 20/20 but imagine if we had Asencio rotating with Militao / Rudi / Tchouameni BEFORE the injuries. Complete conjecture, but maybe we could’ve saved someone.

Camavinga. A brilliant player that I’m supremely disappointed to see injured again.

Courtois. Only reason this game was only 2-0

Ceballos. Just a bit of Dani Ceballos hype to remind you that you all decided one day to hate him for legitimately no reason.

Academies. A 20% increase in priority of football academies can be useful.

…JNX PT. IV

TR: JUNNNIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

KFZ:

“Ain’t no other king in this mod thing, they siblings. MM nothing but my children, one shot, they disappearin’. I’m from the city where the flag be gettin’ thrown like it was pass interference. Padlock around the building. Crash, pullin’ up in unmarked alt just to play freeze tag. With a bone to pick when I eventually feature that. So when I made it out, I made a few threads about El Oso. Tryna show MMers, the ropes before they tread down slippery slopes. I’m prophetic. Reread the DTs and only then you’ll truly get it. Censored a few for saving face, seen all the alt cosmetics. How many heads I gotta take to level my aesthetics? Hurry up and get your beach muscle up, we out the plyometric. [censored] ran up out of luck soon as I upped the highest metric. I just made it sweet, and now ya’ll indebted. They mouth get full of deceit, let these cowards tell it. Wal in MM with the etiquette of [censor], yellin’ ”

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“King Juninho Lamar”