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, Ezek XI, KungFuZizou, NeRObutBlanco, Felipejack, and Juninho.
Writer’s Prelude. Since yesterday’s DT was lacking, here is a comprehensive breakdown about my thoughts after the first 3 games. LIVE EDIT: This will be broken down into three (3) parts across the next DTs. I have most of it written
but the word count is already close to 3,000 which is far too long for just one day’s read. So we’ll build from back to front.
Jose Juninho — Defense Edition
“Not that I read it a lot, but sometimes when I read the press, not only English but Portuguese, I feel that sometimes defending properly is seen as a crime but it is not.” — Jose Mourinho (while at Manchester United)
Disclaimer. It’s a bit weird to say this before I write what I imagine will be a pretty long three DTs but I just want to note that none of what I say / or you say / or even Kiyan says [let’s see if this leads to any comments!!] about this team matters as it’s Sept 1st 2026. At this point last year, we thought Xabi Alonso was about to take us to a treble. At this point a year before, we thought Carlo x Kylian x “This is the greed described in the Bible” were about to take us to a treble. At this point three years ago, everyone LOVED Jude Bellingham and everyone (besides TR / me / Ivatar) hated Joselu and complained about how we didn’t sign a ST like Harry Kane or dare I add Aubamayeng. So yea it’s super early for all of this. Just to again cement my point PSG under Luis Enrique’s second year stint started terribly before ultimately winning every trophy in sight (besides the CWC).
Of course, you’re free to make your judgements — it’s the internet so have at it. However, I’m in the business at this age of protecting my peace. So I’m not getting too high on this team but also not too low. I’m just waiting too see what happens when Mourinho is forced to make tough decisions. Like if Vini’s form doesn’t pick up or when Tchouameni is healthy or when injuries really set in and games pick up. But anyway let’s dive into the defensive breakdown.
Defense — CBs + Overall Line. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the work of the defensive line and their relative focus throughout the past 3 games. In all honesty, this is a Mourinho team so I shouldn’t be surprised at all…but I find myself excited about how comfortable I am with our defensive line. I feel like most of my Madrid fandom (besides a few very brief moments were filled with chaos. It was whether Varane / Ramos could make a last ditch tackle or whether Courtois could win us the CL with 9 saves against Liverpool (aside: MM AND REAL MADRID FANS NEED TO STOP SAYING VINI WON US 2 CLS UNLESS THEY NOTE THAT COURTOIS WON US CLS. Record-breaking 9 saves against Liverpool and some crucial saves against Dortmund. Tibo is arguably the greatest Real Madrid GK of all-time). Nevertheless, this year there so far feels like a sense of calm even though we only have 1 clean sheet. So far Courtois has made 5 saves across 3 games and I can only really think of maybe 1-2 that were truly goal saving and not pretty routine.
Overall for the defense, we’ve only kept 1 clean sheet which isn’t amazing. However, I wouldn’t I wouldn’t really blame any of those goals on the defensive line. Fede Valverde simply didn’t track a midfield runner which led to the Espanyol goal. Yes — he directed Carreras to cover the run but Carreras was already in the box covering the far post player. It was simply a miscommunication by the captain or just a lack of urgency to take responsibility for a man which was very much his own. The Sociedad goal was earnestly a lucky unfortunate event. Carreras got a bit of the stick for that goal (which I actually think is undeserved) and I’ll admit Konate initially misjudged the pass. But the goal takes a wild deflection to the only person who isn’t covered in the box. If this is the only type of goal we are conceding on a weekly basis, I’m pretty confident we will have the best defense in the top 5 leagues.
Speaking more directly on our starting CB pairing Konate has been refreshing to watch and looks like the Konate from two years ago. I was recently informed that Konate lost his father last season, which is a more than reasonable justification for being pretty distracted especially with the chaos that was Liverpool last season (i.e., lack of leadership, Virigl Van Dijk & Salah poor performances, Slot’s poor management, and underlying all of it is mourning the loss of their teammate and friend Diogo Jota). Konate looks rejuvenated — he’s quick, strong, and a great balance to Dean. I’m actually pretty hopeful for this partnership going forward. Separately, Dean looks fantastic. To everyone who doubted him for losing form, when the ENTIRE TEAM lost form — shame on you. Dean has put in great performances simply because a) Mourinho is a manager that will make sure that Dean first and foremost focuses on defending before the prettier side of the game, b) getting dropped from Spain looks to have reinvigorated his hunger for the game + kept him fresh, and c) he finally has a partner who he can trust. I think we’re going to see Dean take a major step this year and I’m truly excited to see him take on the responsibilities of the legendary #4.
I somewhat mentioned this during the summer but our CB depth (assuming Konate + Dean can maintain form) isn’t all too bad. Rudiger put in a solid performance against Malaga and can be a reliable 4th CB option. If Militao returns with any bit of decent form, he can also be a great rotation piece and then Mourinho seems to show a bit of faith in Mario Rivas who should be our Castilla option. I’m not speaking on Asencio simply because the club + some players seem to have serious issues with his off-pitch behavior but if he’s our actual 5th option we could certainly do worse.
Anyway kudos to the defense for their work.
Fullbacks. Curiously, we’ve actually seen less Trent these early games than Dumfries. I’ll admit I predicted early on that Dumfries would play a lot of our major games being that Mourinho believes in defensive fortitude before jogo bonito BUT I assumed simply due to politics (+ the WC and easier run of early games) Trent would get a major opportunity to stamp a start spot early on. This has not been the case as Dumfries seems to be pretty settled in as the go-to starter. I’ll earnestly be extremely surprised if Dumfries doesn’t start against Inter. Nevertheless, I’m actually pretty confident that Trent’s lack of playing time is more about fitting Arda Guler in the lineup than Trent’s ability or practice mentality. One simply can’t start Arda with regular freedom with Trent. For Arda to thrive as a pseudo-RW with freedom, he needs to be paired with a defensively-focused RB who can combine with him but also understands that he will often be left 1v1 against opposing forwards. Dumfries isn’t Ferland Mendy but he certainly isn’t Trent. Trent just can’t be left in those positions as he’ll inevitable lose a ground duel, force Konate to be stretched and ultimately collapse our entire defensive fortitude. If Trent had the transition speed of Valverde, we definitely would be having a different convo but he doesn’t…so that’s where we stand. Therefore, Real is simply making a quick calculation on who is more important to this team and atm Arda is just undroppable. I expect us to see Trent once Diomande (who is actually putting in great defensive performances in his cameos) gets up to speed and IF one of the “undroppable” players gets dropped.
Just a quick mention for the LB position. I love Cucurella but don’t want there to be unnecessary hate on Carreras. Carreras actually has put together a sling of pretty good performances and even the game where MM tried to blame him for the goal it truly wasn’t his fault. If anything, Konate shouldn’t have let the ball drop and took a terrible angle on the Sociedad ST (forgetting the name but I don’t think it was Oyarzabal). And then the shot deflected in potentially the silliest fashion. One may point to his HT hooking as a sign of Mou’s frustration but I’ve heard and get the feeling from sources that this was much more related to getting Cucu up to speed quickly and was preplanned. I think our LB position for the first time in years is really in four good hands.
But that’s all for today…tomorrow we’ll talk about the midfield.
Cheers,
J
