4. All. The. Wolves: 14 April 2025

Reflections of the Lone Wolf:

Freddy: After the mod tag. After the arguments. After the 1K DTs and blue recs…after all that’s happened and you still turn back to me. You still chase a ghost.

Juninho: ….

Freddy: Well let’s see what you’ve learned…what sound do us shooters make?

Juninho: BRRRRR.

Ayo….SB Nation tags glow when I tip toe. While 2014 conq screams “F— you mean? Juni been dope.” All my MMers shooters in wolf coats. With no aim, you better get low. (BRRRRRR) Zegna lettermans with a Madrid crest stitched in it. Fed a cowardly dog rope, watched him put his neck in it. Got my troops in off-white Adidas boots. Pulled up crown in hand, with my foot hanging’ out the coupe. (SKRRRTT) Off-white flannel looking like a lumberjack. Always have the DT poppin’, promise he don’t want none of that.”

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, KungFuZizou, NeRObutBlanco, Felipejack, and Juninho (the “The Greatest of Mods”).

Deportivo Alaves v. Real Madrid: Observations

Quick Recap. There’s not really an incredible amount to say about this quite frankly off-putting game that just needed to happen for the sake of happening. With all eyes predominantly turned towards a potential Champions League miracle, a rotated Real Madrid squad faced a relegation battling side in Alaves. Davide Ancelotti managed the game decently and provided necessary rest to a multitude of players (as well as early subs!!!!) but the game was predominantly “meh” for lack of a better term. Positively though, we won. At times it was concerning if we really tried to. At times, the refereeing was alarming (pen call for Arda, timidness to produce yellow cards in the first half, timidness to produce red cards). At times, our buildup play was disastrous. But we won. I’ll have a further breakdown of my quick thoughts as we slowly progress and try to make sense of what we watched.

Fede – Tchouameni – Camavinga. My first prominent observation about this midfield combination is that I never want to see this midfield combination again until we curate some type of cohesive buildup play and even then I’m not sure I ever actually want to see this again. I’ve been pretty reluctant to proclaim that we need a creative midfielder or a new midfielder. I’ve been pretty present to blame a lot of these issues in our build up on coaching and I still stand by that claim. I do believe a more tactically nuanced manager with new ideas whether its a Xabi or a Michel or an Iraola could find a means to have us have real passing channels. However, this combination of midfielders (especially without an identified 10) feels putrid lmao.

None of the players besides Cama seemed to really have a semblance of where to pass or dribble to get out of Alaves high press. None of the players really curated a consistent creativity from the midfield which led towards a more or less supremely stagnant performances by all of our forwards. It wasn’t until Jude came on + the Deportivo red where Madrid seemed to find an outlet. Now, some of this is definitely due to just player profiles. I’ve been pretty adamant that Camavinga Jude Fede and Tchouameni share a lot of similar midfield tropes and don’t fully blend well together. Yes, my prior arguments have mainly been coached with Fede from a stylistic midfielder reference is the easiest to replace but that isn’t happening any time soon so I won’t really carry on too much on that note. I just think at the moment it may be worthwhile to think about bringing a Wirtz into this team or a Baena or a player in a Pedri-type mold.

One positive, this midfield defends and they defend decently because they all cover a huge amount of space. I’m not entirely sure what Davide’s approach was but it may have been better to situate Arda as a 10 rather than a RW or Rodrygo as a 10 rather than a LW to just facilitate connecting the midfield to the forwards. But I couldn’t complain about their defensive effort even if they occasionally were out of position.

Camavinga. He deserves his own accolades. Camavinga imo was the only Real Madrid player worth watching today. Everyone else was excruciatingly frustrating (including my beloved Rodrygo). Cama was everywhere with breaking runs, dribbles through pressure, effective passing, and scoring the necessary golazo that we desperately needed. Camavinga still needs to better decide when to dribble (or at least how) out of pressure as he occasionally has Brahim Diaz moments where he loses the ball in our half. He also has to be more defensively disciplined (as he sometimes tries to compensate poor positioning with his speed + cobra tackles which leads to yellows) but hey I for the most part love what I saw. It’s also important to remember that he’s only 22.

Now — and this is something I really SHOULD spend time on but don’t have time to spend on so I would love for there to be more discussion on this….Cama is really an 8 who we are trying to shoehorn into being a 6 / CDM. Cama IMO thrives when he has Fede type freedom to go forward into space and isn’t the defensive lynchpin of our team. He thrives when he is closer to the opponents box. He thrives when he’s allowed to start a counter or try to feed a playmaking pass or truly press the opposition’s back line. Cama (imo) doesn’t thrive when he is the last ditch effort to cover a copious amount of space or is the last midfield line in defense. He doesn’t thrive in tracking runners into the box or swapping roles with a marauding Rudiger / Asencio. I believe we will see better Cama performances when he’s allowed in many ways to play almost Pogba-esque (for lack of a better comparison…I know this is lazy….apologies). Many forget that Cama at Rennes operated at times as a 10…I believe we really do have a generational…yes generational…talent on our hands and we need to position him to succeed more than our other non-named Jude Bellingham midfielders. Place him in an 8 role and you still have Fede’s energy, a midfielder who recognizes the importance of defending, an actual effective passer who is press resistant, and someone who may just occasionally dribble past the entire opposition. It may behoove us in the near future (esp if TAA never learns how to defend…) to swap Fede and Cama. Fede RB campaign begins today!

Mbappe Red. Before I just address this cause it has to be addressed…I did notice (or at least it appeared) that Mbappe was putting in defensive effort today. He actually looked to try to press Alaves back line, though it was often unsuccessful so I’m happy about that.

The red card was stupid af tho. But it is what it is. This is a funny season. Nothing surprises me at this point. Honestly, I have no hope for us winning on Wednesday but if we do, I wouldn’t be surprised at all. I also wouldn’t be surprised if we lose 5-0. I wouldn’t be surprised if tomorrow we learn “insert player” suddenly has a muscle overload or if Ferland Mendy is suddenly ready for the game. It’s just one of those years. Anyway maybe this is the beginning of the long requested Mbappe villain-arc.

Freddy’s Lessons:

Freddy’s: Juni remind him that he should move to a small town where the rule of law still exists. He will not survive here. He is not a wolf. And this is the land of the wolves now.

Juninho: ”Look…Juni a wolf b—, I kill movements. I will snap, promise you, I will scrap, I will lose it. Strapped with this keyboard Mac, I will use it. Pop him, then pop him again…while he still moving. MMers got all these fantasies about 1k post sales. Ok, Vase, whatever make ya boats sail. But me, I don’t speak about the DTs, I don’t sell. I’m a 20-14 G, conq + me don’t ride coattails. All it take is one phone call made. 3 Gunners four 1Ks, find Tbo’s goalposts sprayed. I’m just tryna see my name on ManagingMadrid front page. My new Daily threads sound like something that The Lord made. (sheesh) A cowardly dawg can’t shake my hand. And its up with any comment that ran but then tried to snake our stand. Dipped then @Juni when they see me, like you straight my fan. Promise will drop the body and double back ‘til I break my hand…”

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“wolves. only.”