No Real Surprise: 27 October 2024

A Brief Moment of Self-Awareness

Valyrian Steel: MM is going to be none too pleased.

Juninho: I promised them a Recap Daily Thread and they got a Recap Daily Thread.

Valyrian Steel: They got Real Madrid’s body.

Juninho: Well, if they wanted the team’s soul, you should have made a moderator deal with a priest.

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 (the “King of MM”).

Author’s Note: A Few Observations From El Clasico:

No Real Surprise

A Loss. Someone in the Immediate Reaction thread simply stated that “the scoreline is a surprise but the loss isn’t.” And to this, I can only agree. Yes, the forwards were extremely wasteful during El Clasico but they’ve been a bit wasteful throughout various parts of the season. Yes, the defensive structure eventually collapsed but that is pretty much a weekly occurrence and is only further exposed when we attempt to “press” (quotes because what we do is surely not a real press) esp a team historically known for being able to maneuver out of pressure. I mean we lost 0-4 to Xavi’s Barcelona. LOL we lost a league to Xavi’s Barcelona. Anyway, the 0-4 loss was a bit of a surprise to most people, but losing to Hansi Flick’s Barcelona shouldn’t be a huge surprise to most.

Barca. On that note, before we really dive into these reflections, I must applaud this current version of Barcelona. In a short amount of time, Hansi Flick has taken a team filled with primarily inexperienced players who he’s never coached before (besides Lewa) and implemented a system that is somehow not as stupid as I first imagined. It’s a risky but it seems to be well coached and works for his set objectives. This isn’t really the time nor place to dive into this discussion but this Barcelona squad is likely one of the best coached teams in football.

Thoughts On Some Players

Author’s Note: I simply don’t have the time to go through the multiple player failures, so we’ll just highlight a few.

Kylian Alvaro Morata Mbappe. Kiki — you really made this one tough lol? Kylian had a bad day…a very bad day. He practically lived offsides during the first half and was obviously far too eager to run into space. It was clear that he needed to bend his runs and as said by Patrick Kluivert during a broadcast, Kylian is obviously far too used to playing as a LW where runs are often more vertical rather than bent. In his defense, there were a few moments where I actually think the other players needed to release a pass in faster manner but that was maybe 2-3 instances. Kylian’s confidence obviously tanked throughout the game as he continued to then miss his onside chances. I’m not entirely sure what’s going on with Kylian this season. He still has moments of brilliance but just doesn’t seem to be the alpha player we have generally seen. Still, I’m not yet worried about his Madrid career.

Ferland Mendy. There are many MMers who I think are a bit outspoken and outlandish about their Mendy criticism (or “hate”), but Mendy really hasn’t covered himself in glory this season or even in the past few seasons. Mendy needs to defensively be great in every game in order to justify his absolute inability to be a part of build-up play or ball progression. And imo in the past few seasons, he hasn’t been consistently great. He is an absolute speed demon which is useful, but his 1v1 defending is often so-so. He rarely is the one to make an actual tackle or crucial interception. Additionally, he often causes more pressure on our final third with mispasses or back passes to the goal keeper.

Quick aside: Lunin. Lunin isn’t great with his ball distribution so Mendy passing back to Lunin often just killed any passing momentum.

Now back to Ferland Mendy: We simply need to move on from him. IMO Fran has actually be stable-ish this season. There is really no justification for Fran to not receive more game time. If we aren’t going to be defensive stalwarts with Mendy, we might as well try to outscore our opponents.

Leadership. The lack of leadership on this squad is appalling. The players were quick to talk after the Dortmund comeback. What occurred during this loss (with player’s virtually walking near the end) and after when no one spoke to the media is appalling. It’s especially appalling when this team still has captains such as Luka Modric who have been here for over a decade. This is unacceptable.

Camavinga: On a positive note, Camavinga imo was brilliant. He is a gem of a player.

Carlo Out

Disclaimer. 25% of you will say this is a massive overreaction, which is fine — my DT week ends today so I’ll yet again enjoy my slow retirement and idgaf. Nevertheless, I’ve actually held this position for years despite the results. Additionally, I don’t actually blame the majority of this Barca loss on Carlo. I’m just viewing what I’ve seen for the majority of this season.

We Are Lost. For months, the players have looked lost. Again — for months the players have looked lost. I understand the usual excuses that we’ve lost Toni Kroos + now we have Kylian Mbappe + there have been various injuries + its a long season, but it’s so extremely hard for me to agree with these narratives when on the other sideline (and many other sidelines) Hansi Flick seems to be surviving despite facing similar (if not greater) challenges. I also know a lot of you are going to say we need new signings. Again — our squad is better than 90% of the teams we face.

More importantly, I’m not entirely sure what Carlo is building with this team. I’m not entirely sure what our consistent game plan is. Today we played what Hala Croatia infamously calls “kick and run” football, which to be fair almost worked. But once Hansi Flick and Barca made a few stylistic changes to their midfield, we again seemed pretty lost. It isn’t an actual successful tactic.

Additionally, I have pretty much lost faith in whether Carlo has the ability to actually fix these issues. A quick example is our reluctance to actually learn how to press. I believe we’ve all identified that this year we have a defensive structural issue. We are giving up far too easy chances and our midfield is pretty quickly bypassed. Generally, this can be resolved by either a) winning the ball higher up the pitch (i.e., a well-developed and cohesive press) or b) a mid / low block. This Real Madrid team does neither. We have individuals press by themselves, which further exposes our defensive line, which tbh it is unclear how introducing MIlitao for Nacho has made this defense worse. (Note: we had defensive issues BEFORE Carvajal got injured). This was pretty obvious today. When we were chasing the game with a midfield line of Camavinga – Modric – Fede – Jude (don’t get me started on right midfielder Jude..), we had a lifeless press that was easily bypassed and eventually led to 2 additional goals. It could’ve been a lot more too if not for Lewa / Raphinha being exceptionally wasteful.

Now again — before I hear from you all that this is an overreaction to El Clasico…let’s still remember many of our recent results. On Tuesday, we were 0-2 at the Santiago Bernabeu until Dortmund capitulated while Nuri Sahin made terrible subs. Last week, we lost in xG to Celta Vigo who lacked any semblance of clinical finishing. We lost to Lille. We gave up a last minute draw to Atletico after puzzling subs. We almost bottled against Deportivo Alaves. We were mostly outplayed against Stuttgart despite a flattering 3-1 win (xG was much closer 1.9 v. 1.83). And that’s only what’s occurred in the past month….

Hey, I’m willing to admit maybe the issue isn’t that Carlo isn’t providing proper tactics / instructions. It could be as simple as the the players just aren’t listening to Carlo. The players feel to comfortable with Carlo. The players have grown too lax.

Idk — but with every day it just doesn’t seem to be a coincidence that Carlo has never defended a League title.

Regardless, something needs to change.

Thank you though for bringing us this far. It’ just now I want us to go further.

If You Don’t Want To Listen To Me, Listen To These MM Writers

…A Quantum of Solace

Valyrian Steel: Juni — MM needs you back. They need you back. I need you back. We need you back.

Juninho: [silence]

Valyrian Steel: Are you really just going to disappear again?

Juninho: [silence]

Valyrian Steel: Do you really have nothing to say?

Juninho: “But we ain’t gotta pay attention to the stuff Juni battles.” Every outro I ever loved had to be loved in the shadows. Tug-o-war about Luka becoming a custody battle. DT boat goin’ down, feel like I’m missin’ a paddle. Might buy that crib in Vila Real — covered in grass, lacking gravel. It come with two boats and cattle. Retirement’s sweet ain’t you heard??! My perspective is from the beak of a bird. Yet you hope I peaked, you take my peace. KFZ should we retire and run — like thieves in the night? I’m paranoid, I speak with a g-n. Speak heat every Daily Thread ‘cause MMers be beefin’ for fun. I wanna be vegan for now. I’m conscious. Know 33 bullish alts that should bow and everyday post that they grateful. MMers hateful, you eat at me, Conq got a plate full. You can’t relate to, these things I say too, off the mental. Whether it’s wealth talk or ish that’s painful. I paint full, pictures of my perspective for Coral’s sake.

Just for Phil to tell me, “It’s not good” from his lunch break…

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“left shooter. right shooter. left shooter. look”