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.
Word From Author:
Notsogoodlawyer: Juni — I thought you were done with all of this? With all this melancholy…
Juninho: Yea — I thought I was too…
A Collection of Letters (Prelude)
“I hope one day these words find you.” — [censored]
Writer’s Prelude. This week will simply feature
letters as we discuss Real Madrid. Maybe they’ll matter and maybe they won’t. It is what it is. It’s just how I felt those days.
Dear MM,
Let’s talk about the Media.
Understanding. I understand that it is 2025, so buzzwords like “Fake News” have been propagated to disparage true and at times sensationalist journalists / reporters. I understand that this has been popularized by populist government leaders (note I said “populist” not “popular”), the increase usage of social media and just the entire complex of humanity to only believe what they want to believe. I also understand and recognize that engagement is king so at times simple news boredom in a 24/7 cycle doesn’t put food on thousands of people’s tables. I get all of that. However, as it concerns Real Madrid CF and recent media for the past 5 or so years, we as a community need to be more diligent / cognizant or at the very least consistent on what we choose to consume as well as understanding the nuances of our club and how our club feeds into this hysteria.
This could easily be an impassioned 20-page thesis so I’m going to try to briefly break this down into just three sections: 1) recent news and where it comes from; 2) our club’s role in this; and 3) our own roles in consuming it.
“MARCA is only reliable when you want it to be.” — TR Madridista
Ultimatums? Much of this letter stems from the recent news regarding the board’s alleged ultimatum to Xabi as well as other negative news about some of our favorite players (i.e., Vini, Fede, and Jude). And regarding this, I tend to agree with many MM posters. As I’ve said on countless occasions or as said in the quote above there are a fair share of outlets that quite frankly embellish the truth. Just to ensure that we are ALL on the same page these outlets are primarily MARCA, AS (sometimes written as DiarioAS), El Chiringuito, El Fichaje, Defensa Central, and often OKDiario or anything Catalan (e.g., El Mundo). These are the major outlets that you will consistently see shown on MadridZone and MadridXtra (more on these “aggregators” later). These are the outlets which are frequently embellish our truths.
Now I just want to further emphasize the key term is “embellish,” which means “to make something more attractive by the addition of decorative details or features.“ Again, I’m saying embellish not necessarily invent. I personally rarely look towards these major outlets for news and I certainly make sure to read the entire article rather than a Twitter snapshot of a statement because again these outlets are known to “add decorative details” to make stories more “attractive.” Now, unless you believe there is The Commission or La Cosa Nostra of journalists, even though these sources embellish stories it is still quiet notable when they all state the same foundational story. It is highly unlikely that AS, MARCA, La Ser, ESPN, and The Athletic (owned by the New York Times) is gathering together to invent a narrative that Xabi may potentially be fired. This is certainly being fed to all of these outlets which range in degrees of their reputation by someone else.
(Quick aside: reliable journalists are as followed, also confirmed by Kiyan Sobhani and MM, — Mario Cortegana (The Athletic), Arancha Rodriguez (COPE — note Kiyan says when she speaks its certainly the board talking). Other notable journalists from Juninho’s POV (Santi Aouna – for French related reports, David Ornstein — for Prem and all news, Gustavo Hofman (ESPN – very reliable for the Real Madrid Brazilians. Trust me they speak to him), and Rodra (ESPN – has grown in reliability in the past 1-2 years).
The Club. Now and hopefully this section will be much shorter because the above is simply too long and I’m sorry for that. We as MM and Real Madrid fans need to understand that Real Madrid CF similar to many other clubs controls reporters access to the institution and in many ways their livelihoods. The club has the ability to feed reporters information regarding the inner workings of the club as well as to ban reporters who simply do not report information that is beneficial to Real Madrid. This has been seen and done on countless occasions (e.g., Fergie banned BBC for 7 years from Utd.) Now just to quickly list real examples of Real Madrid wielding similar power one only has to go back to Zidane’s resignation letter, where he purposefully states:
Note: this translation says “intentionally leaked message.” So let me ask — who served to gain from leaking messages of these note? And have we seen this before? Did this occur with Carlo 2.0’s reign where there were messages in even 2021 that Carlo would be sacked if he didn’t win? Does this seem like Real Madrid’s norm?
And let me also pose this other question. If these reports are clearly toxic and cancerous for our team’s environment and playing football…why doesn’t the club deny these reports? Some of you will likely say that the club doesn’t have the time to refute every sensationalized report and yes that’s true. But when every major outlet is talking about your manager being sacked if he doesn’t win the next game, certainly we can make time for a sentence statement…no? I mean the club refuted statements that they were pursing Mbappe in an official statement in 2023.
soooo clearly this has and can be done before. However, instead we continue to see a imo PR game conducted by the club to see what manager sticks. Last week it was Zidane / Klopp until reports said they weren’t interested. Then it was Arbeloa which inspired little faith from the fans. And yesterday it was…Santiago Solari (lmao). And within all this chaos — official silence.
It’s Us. To briefly (I said it again and failed) conclude this massively long DT. I just want to throw some kind words and discuss how it’s extremely important for us to manage what forms of media we consume just like how its important to have a balanced diet. First and foremost, Madrid Zone / Madrid Xtra are incredibly biased and inaccurate aggregators so read actual full articles. To begin both aggregators often can’t properly translate simple Spanish, Madrid Zone rarely posts an article that spans Vini in a poor light, MadridXtra does the same for Fede / Jude, and if you really follow them you’ll see the cadence of when they are somewhat forced to post about a fan favorite in a suboptimal way compared to a Rodrygo / Alaba / Mendy / Endrick (which is rapid fire). It makes sense because these “aggregators” are simply fan accounts. So let’s treat them as such. (Quick note: @RMadridInfo is actually an extremely accurate translator and at times aggregator, however they release info slowly which may be for the best) Second, and I’m saying this again read full articles carefully and slowly. We have an epidemic of careless reading so take the time to do so. Third, and imo most importantly, be consistent. If you deem AS / Marca as unreliable today, well then deem them as unreliable tomorrow. If you think all reporters are sensationalized, then again deem all reporters as sensationalized that can’t be trusted. Sadly, consistency is what plagues MM. One day we don’t believe Fede could be disgruntle about playing RB but then clamor that Rodrygo refused to play RW. Another day Jude (who is having issues in England) can’t be a potential issue in the locker room but then Vini is the reincarnation of pure evil. Idk…maybe it is what it is.
“The news is only reliable when you want it to be.” — Juninho
Cheers,
J
…Us
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“dont trip. we fallin.“
