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. The Jose Juninho Era will continue.
Jose Juninho — Betis Match Edition
“It has to be a great Real Madrid, otherwise, we won’t win. Betis, as you say, is a very good team. To win, you have to be at your very best level. There is no other way.”
— Jose Mourinho
At First A Reply. Yesterday, I perused through the comments (which haven’t been as active in years past — may be a discussion for a different day) and noticed a rec’ed comment from OutofEyeDiaz that said the following re my take on obsession over positioning rather than responsibilities:
Juninho: I think we often obsess with positions when we should be focusing on responsibilities.
OutofEyeDiaz: Which was what Carlo did especially well no?
I mean, the “no tactics” jokes aside, the main reason people said that because his tactics weren’t particularly intensive for talented players, and weren’t overly positional. Of course with it’s bonuses and flaws, but point stands.
Xabi was supposed to be the one with more intensive positional training.
I only really feel a small need to reply to this quote in order to provide some clarity. “Responsibilities” does not infer a lack of “intensive tactics.” Earnestly, I’d argue it actually is very much on the other spectrum where playing a rather fluid system involves much more than an instinctual ability to figure out movement. Players need to completely comprehend their role in their favored position. They then need to fully understand their teammates roles and how they should correspond if they find themselves in those positions. Players also need to fully comprehend each other’s movements so that for example when Kylian makes a darting run towards the left channel, Vini then knows to make an underlapping run towards the middle but to also be effective from the central position in case transitionary play breaks down. This is a much harder process imo than simply telling a young player to play on the LW or RW or RCM. Ultimately, a manager who requires this type of fluidity in function and responsibilities, is asking a player to understand the entirety of the game from various perspectives. Positional Rigidity v Fluidity are certainly different spectrums of positioning but they are not inherently more tactical or less tactical in approach. Ironically, Luis Enrique actually spoke on what I was inferring in the last DT today:
A high level translation of partially what he said is “I’m on the same page as Cesc. The traditional positional game, the one I know from my time at Barcelona, has disappeared. Because if you’re not capable of having movement capacity, you’re not going to surprise any team.” No one really should care as much about whether a player is a LW / ST / RW because in today’s football players quite frankly need to be versatile and flexible enough to play across the line. It’s consistent movement that breaks down low blocks not just a touchline winger who can dribble because said winger is going to beat one man and find 2-3 others simply waiting to shepherd him to the corner.
Additionally, and I don’t fully know if this is valuable, we could likely have a serious debate on how positionally rigid or better yet inflexible Carlo’s system ultimately became with this current crop of players. Yes, he left many players to their own devices but this also likely led to our favorite Vini / Kylian / Rodrygo left-side of the pitch meme. I am probably poorly explaining this due to time constraints, but I’d just challenge you all to also think of whether fluid responsibility and roles is something innate or something that is actually taught. It’s likely a combination of both. But when you have a player who primarily and only wants to stay in the left channels, combined with a two players who want to drift left wards or centrally, and there are zero guardrails, you’re more likely to get a “fluid mess” with overlapping roles / responsibilities rather than what one would argue PSG has in their attacking front and even their midfield.
Onto Betis. I’ll keep this rather short because the above took a bit longer than I expected. However, another match day against what is generally a serious opponent. Real journey to the Benito Villamarin to face a Real Betis squad that started bright but was recently thumped by 5 goals to Levante. I’ve surprisingly watched every Betis game besides the Levante match so the recent result is a bit of a surprise to me but the team will definitely be our toughest test to date in a La Liga campaign where dropping any points is absolutely detrimental. Expect Real Betis to be well-coached as usual by Manuel Pellegrini (a manager that I don’t believe gets enough praise for how good he’s been for a long time) and to have a formidable midfield commanded by Isco and Pablo Fornals. Considering our form, we should be able to achieve 3 points but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if this is the first game we falter. Historically, Real Madrid hasn’t won this match at Betis away since 2021…so yea it’s about time to change our fortunes
A Quick List Of Things I’d Love to See. Ok a quick list of things I’d love to see in this match: Jude assist to Kylian Mbappe. Yan Diomande with 30+ mins. Sergio Martinez 10+ min debut. No injuries. No Brahim starting (lol). 2 RM goals in the first half. Clean Sheet. Isco standing ovation despite Betis loss. Dean Huijsen goal. And Espi 25+ mins.
One Final Random Rambling. I wouldn’t be opposed to having this combo join Real Madrid in summer 2027 and then summer 2028/2029.
Cheers,
J
