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The Final Collection of Letters
“I hope one day these words find you.” — [censored]
Writer’s Prelude. Another day with more drama and no official announcement of Mourinho. As of writing, Benfica has finally disclosed that Real Madrid will pay the 15M release
clause for Jose Mourinho and he will therefore depart their club. I suspect that hours after the release of this DT, we will finally have confirmation of his signing as well as potentially a press conference so we will open the Jose Juninho DT era in a few. Today we focus on what we ust recently witnessed.
To Whomever Will Understand,
Embarrassing. Readers — is it possible to be both proud of something that you love but also embarrassed by it? Like if your love one makes an embarrassing comment or action, your pride and love doesn’t just suddenly end right? I ask because as we continue this long journey as Real Madrid fans in 2025-present, I quite frankly find myself embarrassed by a multitude of actions by our club. I’m still proud to call myself a Madrid fan. I’m proud of our successes and can also find pride in some of our defeats but this year has tested I believe many of our resolves.
A List of Embarrassments. Just to quickly rattle off a list of what has led to me at times feeling this way, it really is the following: i) The lifeless performance against Arsenal in 2025; ii) lifeless losses to Barcelona throughout the 24/25 season; iii) the Great Tantrum of the Fall El Clasico 2025 and the lack of club power to project proper leadership; iv) rumors surrounding Real Madrid’s captain’s refusal to warm-up and play against Karat; v) firing a project manager for trying to change club culture when he was hired to change club culture; vi) losing to Albacete; vii) watching two LFs refuse to do the minimum defensive work or communicate offensively (i.e., the infamous Arda shouting at Kylian to move); viii) rumors about the players being behind our new manager and then suddenly hating everything about his soul; ix) Carvajal as captain and Fede / Vini as his vice captains; x) Camavinga stock; xi) boxing matches in the locker room; xii) the cover up story and blaming the leak not the fight that led to stitches in one’s head; xiii) whatever the fuck Flo thought his press conf to yell at the press was about; xiv) surprise elections; xv) both candidates being absolute conman; and now this xvi) a ridiculous wasted alleged bid of 150M for Julian Alvarez combined with an Official Club Statement to ensure we all knew that Atleti rejected it.
Did I miss anything? Oh Rudi slapping people, our former nutritionist saying that our players eat pastries on a daily basis, sleeping during film study, and throwing away La Liga against Getafe.
150M. But anyway and moving on pretty swiftly because as I begin to write this I just grow more and more apathetic regarding our current situation. This embarrassment is hopefully my last for the next 2-3 weeks if God permits.
(Actually quick author note before final publication: I guess I didn’t really write about why this is embarrassing to me. I think it’s because it just doesn’t really serve the club or our alleged royal standards. This bid and the circus around it feels campaigned primarily for personal ego rather than institutional value. It doesn’t feel like a succinct strategy. It feels somewhat mindless and the repercussions for it don’t feel like they’ve been properly assessed (i.e., future leverage over transfers). I’m not entirely sure what the gain is in publicizing a bid and a rejection of said bid when it could have just as easily been filtered through the media similar to how Haaland and co denied Enrique Riquelme. I’m not sure if the value of confirming this promise outweighs today’s brand / PR knock. I’m not entirely sure that I see even the value of this entire 2-3 week segment of our Real Madrid lives (i.e., surprise elections). It just feels as if there isn’t entirely a proper steward running the ship. There certainly aren’t adults in the locker room and its becoming increasingly alarming how there likely aren’t any in the board room too. So as a fan hoping that the people running my beloved club are actually professional and 10x smarter than me, I’m a bit embarrassed because its starting to feel like they really aren’t any more qualified than you or I. Maybe financially but I’m not sure in terms of leadership and professionalism.)
Some of you have devised that this was actually an intelligent masterstroke by the President to destabilize Barca’s negotiations with Atleti. I politely disagree with that notion. I was about to go into paragraph mode to discredit this notion but I just don’t feel it. Instead, I’ll just politely ask that you revisit the multitude of actions this board has conducted in the past year or so and question if these actors seem to be moving in a precise and strategic manner. If after your review, your answer is “Yes” then so be it. I can’t argue with those beliefs.
If you continue to also believe this is a masterstroke by Perez, I’d also caution you to just read some of the words below. One quote is from fellow MMer Danger_Noodle:
To all the people saying it was just part of his plan with Atletico to drive the price for Barça
– Danger_Noodle
In that case, he still:
1. deliberately fooled the 90k+ socios to win the election while making fun of Riquelme for the same thing,
2. agreed for Atlético to publicly humiliate us,
3. will ruin our transfer window because everyone now knows or at least believes we potentially have 150m+ to spend but no idea who to spend it on
Best case now we’re going to make overpriced, okay-ish signings like Enzo and Calafiori, worst case is the “there is going to be many signings, crazy summer” was all part of the bluff to win the election and we’ll call it a day after 15m€ Mou, 30yo Dumfries and Konaté and revert to the “we have the best squad in the world”-mantra
So yea that’s where I stand at this current moment with all of the 150M news. It feels much like what I said yesterday, where I felt like this was simply for the election without a substantive plan. I guess I just didn’t expect Atletico to also try a public humiliation ritual.
Whats Next? Well besides, Mourinho — it’s probably best for us to start preparing for some sales and big sales. The club has been linked with purchases for the time being such as Josko Gvardiol, Calafiori, Matheus Fernandes, Enzo Fernandez, etc but I believe there was an element of the elections causing those links. To be short, the press solely discussing purchases projects “new hope” without showcasing the underbelly that is “your favorite player is probably getting sold.” So now that we can dismiss some of the hope, get prepped for leaks surrounding departing important players. As we all know, the books must be stabilized. We aren’t Barcelona frivolously spending 80M on the likes of Aaron Gordon. No at Real Madrid we spend 60M on Franco Mastatuono! But seriously, I would prepare for the following potential sales — Dani Ceballos, Fran Garcia, Brahim Diaz, Camavinga, Tchouameni, Federico Valverde, and Vinicius Jr. Oh and Franco is likely getting loaned. The obvious hard and important sales would be Tchou / Fede / Vini and by all indications none of these players want to leave the club. However, there are loose indications that the punishments of the Tchou v Fede fight isn’t entirely over. There are reports that the a fair share of the locker room would prefer for Fede to leave, which is actually a bigger issue than I think some of us are willing to admit. It’s one thing to have the board pushing for you to leave. It is another when there are complaints from the players wanting you to leave especially when you are the captain. Oh and before I forget — add Asencio to the potential departure list as he has equal complaints from the locker room. Now, would Fede leave Real Madrid? Idk. All I know is that in the Mourinho era, it could likely become incredibly uncomfortable quickly.
Additionally, Vini’s contract renewal still looms over the club like a dark shadow and recent talks and “potential bids for a Galactico” may also showcase the club warming up towards moving on. I’m not here to definitively say this will be the end result but we’re swiftly approaching a position where the club will have to make a hard decision to either aggressively try to sell the player while he has a semblance of value or risk losing him for free. Also just thinking of the coaching dynamic and reports that Mourinho doesn’t want “names but fighters,” it’s unclear if the gaffer will find this contract renewal as a permissible distraction. Anyway, time will tell – all will soon be revealed.
Cheers,
J
