The Daily Merengue is a place where you can feel free to d 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, Ezek, Valyrian Steel, Kung_Fu_Zizou, Juninho, NeRObutBlanco and yours truly, Felipejack.
Arda is the best player of the month
La Liga is blocking Dani’s signing
More comments by Davide
The AS journalist asked other interesting questions related to Real Madrid.
Q: How can a team can survive from Kroos departure.
DA:
It survives, but it loses something that it will never recover. Kroos was the best player in his position. So, you can’t say “I need another Kroos”, because there isn’t one. He was the owner of the match, he owned the rhythm of the match. The game flowed in the way he wanted. If he wanted the ball to go like this [horizontally], it went like this. If he wanted the ball to go like that [vertically], it went like that. He decided and so he was fundamental. And he ran, he was player who ran 11 km per game. And he defended, he knew to defend, he had tactical sense.
I loved when he played as 6. It’s true he didn’t like the second balls and duels, so he preferred to play like an 8 and let the dirty game to the 6, which was Camavinga or Casemiro. But to Real Madrid losing Tony Kroos was difficult, because you lose many things. Apart from the things you lose in daily basis. He is very intelligent, he challenges you, he makes you think, because he always has an interesting point of view. He was a player who improved you as coach.
Q: Is Vini a difficult player to coach?
DA:
It’s a player that every teammate loves. He is a generous person, he doesn’t miss a single training session. He is always there to the team and other players know. When he is doing well in the pitch, he is very decisive. But if you have to know you have a player like him, because he influences the collective play, as he is a very direct, vertical player. He has so much confidence on his skills, that he always takes his man on. Therefore, you need to have a structure behind him that allows you to play with him. If you doesn’t have this structure, the game gets out of control, because Vini always go for the decisive play. Vini won’t change. You can change the structure, so he is valued. And when he is in a good moment, he decides the matches and he did many times in Madrid. Now, I think he is going through a difficult time like all players have had.
Q: What do you think when Vini was substituted by Xabi Alonso in El Clasico?
DA:
First, I felt sorry for Xabi, because I have a good relationship with him. It’s not right, I think Vini knows he made a mistake. These are things you shouldn’t be doing it, out respect for your coach, club, teammates and the fans. It’s on the past now, but how do you manage it? What you can’t manage is the reaction from other people. You can’t control that. The decision coach makes are to win the game at that moment. There is nothing personal. Xabi Alonso made a change he thought was appropriate to win the game.
The players in Madrid are professional and they never disrespected us. They don’t want to leave the pitch? Like Vini did, others have done it too, like Kroos a thousand times saying “what are you doing? why are you taking me off?”, Modric has done on his natural language. But that doesn’t mean the players are in charge. In Madrid, the coach is in charge and these are things from the outside.
