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. And it’s Match Day!
Match Day
Onto Sevilla. It’s another day in La Liga for Los Blancos as we search to maintain the pace with Barcelona (who just beat Real Betis 5-2). Although history is on our side versus Sevilla,
this Sevilla team has been alright this La Liga campaign. Thus far, Sevilla sits 5th in the standings with 14 points and good performances against Rayo, Bilbao, and a decent performance that led to a loss against Barcelona. I expect them to still be a challenging opponent determined to obtain a result against Spain’s biggest club. Our team will be without Vinicius Jr., Rodrygo, and Ferland Mendy but still headed into this match with overall decent form. Although the Roma match was quite alarming, the team pulled together and won 3 needed points which could be a turning point for the rest of the year. Let’s see if Mourinho and the squad have learned any lessons from our most recent match!
What I Hope To See. What I Expect To See. I’m just going to get the pessimistic version of me out. I expect to see a pretty much standard Real Madrid 4231 tomorrow with minimal rotations. TBH I expect most rotations if any to occur against Leipzig who have been materially out of form and the CL is a competition where at this point we can afford to lose points (also its a few days before El Clasico). I expect the only material change to the front 3 to be Diomande paired with Kylian and Arda. I expect the midfield to be some combination of Jude Tchou and Fede. And I expect a bit of rotation in the backline so potentially Carreras at LB and/or Trent at RB paired with Dean and Konate. That is what I expect.
I understand that materially, every RM fan is over the Tchouameni and Fede Valverde double pivot but I’m not yet entirely convinced that Mourinho and co are yet ready to give up on this duo. I like many others believe that Tchou or Fede (but really Tchou if we’re playing a double pivot bc Fede’s defensive positioning is at times truly alarming) needs to be paired with a Silva or even Arda to provide offensive threat and possession control. However, I do understand the logic of the Tchou+Fede duo and why this seems to be Mourinho’s prime two CDMs. Simply put, Jude’s individual pressing, Kylian’s lack of pressing, Vini’s lack of tracking back, and Diomande being legitimately one man who also sometimes loses the ball of dribbles, requires a midfield spine that is able to cover vasts amount of space. Bernardo Silva is just not physically capable of doing that job especially for the entirety of a season. So…almost Carlo-esque…Mou is hoping that both players can defensively cover for the other’s freedom and that Kyky, Jude, etc simply bring their own individual brilliance to the table going forward. Do I fully agree with this rationale — no. But do I understand it — yes. Anyway, that’s what I expect to see.
What I Hope To See. TBH I really hope to see either Espi or Endrick starting alongside Diomande, Arda, Jude, Kyky, and take your pick of Fede/Tchou (unless we get RB FEDE). Endrick had a scintillating performance at RW and deserves more minutes. Quite frankly, Espi deserves to start and has deserved to start for a long time. I believe he’s currently our 3rd or 2nd highest goal scorer and he’s likely played no more than 150 total minutes. I also am just excited to see how our team functions with Espi as a ST and Kylian Mbappe as a LW / LF. It’d just be a new twist and potentially over the next 4 La Liga matches could be an interesting facet to our team. If we will not get that combination, for various reasons, I’d also be extremely interested in seeing either a) Jude played higher up the pitch with Arda behind as a 10 OR b) Endrick at RW so that its Dio-KyKy-Bobby. I can’t guarantee that we’d win games with that trio or connect final third passes (lmao) but boy it’d be exciting to see. We haven’t had dual threatening wings off the dribble since early early Rodrygo and Vini and before that likely 2013 BBC. I can’t lie that personally I’m a huge sucker for a good old 433 with a fluid front 3 and at times touchline wingers who can not only pick the right pass but win a 1v1. But alas…I don’t expect to see any of this. Idk maybe I secretly do but I’m holding my cards to my chest so that I’m delightfully surprised. Anyway. Hala Madrid y Nada Mas.
Until the next DT week.
Cheers,
J
