¥VL: 16 March 2025 – Managing Madrid

Oscnar’s Final Intro:

Oscnar: Teach ‘em and if you still have nothi

Juninho: I don’t have much more to teach.

Oscnar: Then remind them why you’re the greatest.

Juninho: If you ain’t do a 2K DT then I don’t wanna hear no chat ‘bout numbers. You man are my youngers, all blacked out like grungers. Not tens or twenties or hundreds. Not tens or twenties just thousands. I can’t never just ‘llow dem. On MM Mount Rushmore shoutin but soon I’ll go back to the mountains — sorry Philly for the outcome. And I bless DT’s with smoke, and Ceballos / Mbappe predictions kept ‘em close. Then I sip my Tetley take a toke, Joao bants tryna get me on the ropes. Ayy, bro I got the speshy in this Arsene Wenger coat. So please man let’s just be adults. Feel free boycott and hop off my boat. None of you can test me, I’m the G.O.A.T. Brazil kit collections lookin’ dope. I got the R9 and the Hulk. And I ain’t flexin’ on felipejack bc I’ll still be sexy if I’m broke. Wait there, and I was made to win like I’m designed to blow. We’re doin’ major things, but it’s a minor though. I used to pray for things but that was time ago. And now I hit you MMers with the Wiley flow, it’s like. Bad ‘em up, bad ‘em up, bad ‘em up once. Never could you take me for a dunce. Been mod on the scene for like a hundred months. All I met is bare runts. Take man for lunch. Idiot yutes get [censored]. Pick one boy from your bunch. Tell man “Jump”. Oh what, you didn’t wanna’ jump well? Oh, well look now you’re slumped. Feel free to DT swerve. Get out my lane. North and East and West are hot but the South’s on flames. Last year Juni became a household name. I grew up in a house of pain. I don’t do it for the clout or fame. All the real MMers ready vouch my name.

Welcome to The Daily Merengue — a place 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 “The Greatest of Mods”).

Villareal v. Real Madrid: Observations

Quick Recap. It’s important to begin with the context of this game and why I’m under the impression that there shouldn’t be any real nuanced takes from this game. We won. Grabbed 3 points. Won at La Ceramica which we haven’t done in 7 years. And the team is obviously exhausted and need a break (which sadly they likely won’t find). There were some lackluster points where it looked like the team was just barely holding on but a testament to their resilience they persevered. Shoutout to Thibaut Courtois for his crucial saves. Shoutout to Mbappe for just being THAT GUY. Shoutout to the midfielders for running themselves to the ground. Even LV deserves a quick shoutout for a crucial tackle top of the box on an untracked midfielder. The team tried their best and grinded a necessary win.

Alaba. You’ve all for the most part have heard me say that I’m not really going to be harsh on Carlo for the remainder of the season regarding rotations. I thin we’re passed that point. In the sense, sure I’m fine with critiquing him for not rotating early in the season. I’m fine with critiquing him on us dropping points to the point where now every La Liga game is a must-win. However, now that we are in this position, it is what it is. You need the top players to win these must-win games so I don’t expect nor really want to see the likes of an Endrick / Arda etc.

However, given the rotation of Rudiger, I am a bit surprised that Alaba wasn’t featured in this game. Maybe a report will drop after this DT is published noting Alaba’s recovery process or a knock he picked up, but I’m just surprised that Alaba wasn’t considered over Tchouameni at CB. I mean Alaba is a full-time CB and was selected over Asencio in the Real Betis game where we dropped points, so you’d think he would make the cut today over Tchouameni. Anyway, it’s just an interesting reference point as we consider the future of our CBs.

Early season I predicted that we would likely reconsider whether Militao is a Real Madrid starter by season end. This absolutely isn’t how I intended for these things to happen and I would’ve rather been wrong, but we’re here. Also imo Asencio is a better foil to Rudiger’s style of play. He very much adopts the Varane “sweeper” role. Realistically, Asencio + Rudi should be our starters by next fall unless the club splashes for a Saliba / Bastoni. Maybe we’ll grab Dean from Bournemouth too. I’m personally team buy Dean if he’s willing to be a 3rd / 4th choice. It may be interesting to have a young Spanish duo that can develop on a club + NT level.

Brief Interlude. Because We’re All Tired

Back to Business — Vinicius Jr. I’m not really here to criticize today’s performance by Vini. I actually think he had a tidy and impactful game despite a few mistakes here and there. Carlo also masterfully managed his minutes by including him as a sub in the final 30 or so minutes against tired legs as the game began to open up. Vini’s impact likely should have led to another 2-3 goals so I’m more or less happy with his performance. I just wanted to touch on a tweet + comment from MM Contributor, Matt Wiltse, in today’s MM Podcast as well as Kiyan’s comments regarding Vini after the Atleti game.

Kiyan’s Comments: Kiyan noted Jude’s frustration with Vini during the high intensity Atletico match. He noted something similar to what I’ve said for now nearly two months. The forwards + midfielders are at times frustrated by Vini’s inefficient decision making and sometimes ineffective dribbling. They also are at times just confused on what Vini intends to do leading to a stagnation of our attacking play. This has at times led to the midfield forgoing obvious passing situations to Vini. This was glaringly obvious during the Espanyol game where Ceballos and Jude pretty aggressively avoided passing to Vini.

I only refer back to this because this moment clearly happened again today. Early during Vini’s introduction you may recall Jude dribbling towards Villareal’s box on a brief counter (likely 4 v 4 players). Jude passes the ball to Vini and then Vini while attempting to dribble past two defenders, trips and falls over. IMO this actually wasn’t fully Vini’s fault and just bad luck but the play proceeds with Jude tracking back, making a tackle with Camavinga, and hands on hip shaking his head out of frustration. Fast forward only 3-5 more minutes, Jude finds himself again dribbling towards Villareal box with an OBVIOUS counter situation. Jude desperately needed (imo) to pass to Vini as that was the appropriate outlet for the play and Vini’s speed would have likely led to a goalscoring opportunity. However, instead Jude slows down as he approaches the box, looks at Vini, and then passes to the right. A similar action occurred shortly after while Jude was dribbling past a defender on the left side of the pitch where he had an opportunity to play Vini into Villareal’s half. This likely could be nothing but this moment stuck out in my eyes and I believe one or two people noted this in the Match Day Thread.

Matt’s Comments: Now Matt in today’s MM Podcast, pretty much reiterated a point which I’ve been more or less silently alluding to — an elephant in the room. In today’s podcast, he discussed how Real Madrid combines better in the final third when Vini is not on the field and arguably Mbappe’s performances are better for it. Similar to what I’ve said, he refers to the sample size we had early January 2025 and remarks that besides the City game these were likely Mbappe and the team’s best performances. I understand that this is a sensitive topic for many Real Madrid fans and I’m willing to walk back my heat of the moment outburst that Vini needed to be benched during the Atleti game. However, it is far past time to have an earnest conversation on whether the team would be better suited for a less direct approach or to better limit Vini’s touches. We intrinsically have a compromised backline, a midfield that is sometimes great and sometimes sh—, and the lack of a creator to provide those incisive passes or a box dominant target man. It may just be better suited for the team to prioritize combinations similar to what we see between Rodrygo x Mbappe as this at the very least brings out the best version of imo our best player — Kylian Mbappe. Anyway, there’s still a lot left to this season so we’ll see how things play out.

Translation: Madrid much better without Vini than with him. And it also has a better Mbappe. What to do? Bench Vini? No. We should convince him to combine more because he should also benefit. Let’s see if Vini will see it or someone will convince him to see it.

TR’s Final Outro:

TR_Madridsta: Remind them…

Juninho: ”Yuh, DT 1K post elimination, fake intimidation. Take a minute, take a deep breath, have a little bit of patience. HBITIM like “Juni, you amazing, you the inspiration. Your threads set the bar for the next generation. You Neo in the matrix, these MMers just Nemo in the ocean. Small fish, making kids feel emotion. @ing you for promotion, truer words had never been spoken.” “Blog legend” Scottie want to see RIP me on a t-shirt like I′m Hulk Hogan. I appreciate the readers rocking with me, this is really just a small token. Really rockin’ with a visionary. Only reason I ain′t love this MM and I ain’t gettin’ marriеd. ′Cause I′m really out herе irl, filling up the itinerary ‘til I′m six feet in a cemetery. Bulletproof doors so heavy, got me replyin ′round like a dignitary. Funny how it’s only broskis that are waiting on the boy’s obituary. ‘Cause if I die, it’s these “Faces” that become the sole beneficiary. And what are they really gon′ do with it? Have you boycotting DTs while looking up “lolza” in a dictionary?? Vini Ceramica trips, not Philly trips when it’s cold out here in February. F— that make the beat switch, turn the prose up, give a million to ‘em. Right now, I got so many written hooks it’s like I’m billing to ‘em. Mournval’s boy told me Birmingham Blinders was his favorite thread, he was drilling to it. Thousand MMers writing crashout hits and like only Juni that’ll really do it. CruiseKroos, you the only one checkin’ on me when I was really in some ish, brother. BSG, you a legend from the 6, hate to see you crashed out bc of this [censored]. It’s about to be a lit summer, tell Val “Leave the motor runnin’.” Tell KFZ that the blue rec ceiling’s too low, way I have them throw a hundred.”

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“i am still not your savior.”