A Reality Check: 17 Apr 2025

(Apologies Alonsofan – this was a better title)

Reflections of A Lone Wolf:

Freddy: Today we have bigger issues. Do what needs to be done.

Juninho: I know.

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 “GOAT”).

A Reality Check

Dear MM,

Yesterday was a reality check. It was an emblematic display of what many have complained about for years. It was the tiring exhausted gasp of results based off a loose foundation and a neglected process. It was an expression of when individual brilliance runs out. It was the end of the road.

If I can be honest with you all, I’m not entirely sure what to say. I’m not entirely sure that there’s anything that I can say that hasn’t said before, and I’m confident that there’s nothing really I can say at this point to convince those who refuse to acknowledge that we have true coaching issues. So I’ll be honest, I don’t really want to carry on with this letter but I guess I’ve already started and my own time is running out here so I might as well use this meaningless pulpit to at least talk to myself. To convince myself that any of this has meaning.

But for those who read, I’ll try:

The Real Madrid 24/25 team is not a good team. The team has failed to perform against any meaningful club (besides City) with losses to Arsenal (twice), Barcelona (twice), Milan, Liverpool, Athletic Bilbao, Atletico Madrid (technically) as well as a myriad of losses or points dropped to teams that are not at the caliber of Real Madrid CF such as Real Betis, Las Palmas, Valencia, Espanyol, Mallorca, and Lille. The team has failed to have consistent results throughout the season with only a brief period of good end of December through January form as an outlier. The team has had monumental expectations as the team has 2 of the 3 top Balon D’Or candidates, the best player in the world, a top 10 RW, arguably 2 Top 10 CM / CDMs, the best goalkeeper in the world, and arguably the best CB in the world in its ranks. The team is currently out of the CL after finishing 11th in the group stage (behind Dortmund, Atalanta, Bayer Leverkusen and the likes of Lille); was embarrassed in the Supercopa Final, barely made it to the Copa Del Rey Final, and currently chasing Barcelona in La Liga. By no measure, is this team “good.”

Yes, the Real Madrid 24/25 squad has some personnel flaws. (Note: If specifically Hala Croatia takes any form of this paragraph and posts it today or the day after out of context, please ignore him and anything he says. That’s law). The team lacks depth in both fullback positions. It lacks a creative midfielder. It lacks concrete options after Rudi / Tchou / Asencio at CB. And if we want to get picky, it lacks a pure goalscoring ST and a true-blooded RW. Yes, these are flaws but AGAIN every team has flaws. PSG who are currently playing scintillating football have 3 LWs starting on their front line in Dembele, Barcola / Doue, Kvaradona. Arsenal who just beat Real Madrid have Mikel Merino starting at CF and are starting Kiwior who they attempted to sell last summer in the backline. David Raya in no shape nor form is Thibaut Courtois and the majority of their squad would barely make our bench. Barcelona who is also playing scintillating football currently start Raphinha at LW who everyone seems to have forgotten was a major sale candidate last summer and is ACTUALLY a RW. They are also starting children in their backline with Cubarsi, the ghost of old man Inigo Martinez, and that Casado kid at CDM. Who else must I mentioned having flawed teams? Liverpool haven’t had a legitimate ST in nearly a decade. Bayern Munich started today Eric Dier (YEA ERIC DIER) in the backline with Laimer at RB. Inter Milan is a good team so they won’t catch any heat from me. Aston Villa who also made the quarters is filled with PSG rejects, a Manchester Utd reject, a Chelsea reject, etc. So unless you think we need Ollie Watkins to start over Kylian freaking Mbappe…..miss me with that.

I go on this lengthy rant because yes I completely understand that we need squad upgrades to be better prepped to beat good teams. But we’re struggling against bad teams. We’re struggling against the Valencia’s of the world while every Mestalla fan would sacrifice their first born child to have our squad issues. We could lose every La Liga game to Atleti / Barcelona and still win the league as long as we won every other game our squad on paper is supposed to beat. I know life and none of this is really that simple. But some of the complaints about the squad is nauseating and at times spoiled. This isn’t FIFA. This is real money with real people with real families with real kids who go to real schools and have real friends. Are there some players / personnel we probably should have stepped up to buy? Absolutely. But we can’t just buy every Harry and Jane simply because we now suddenly need Gyokeres for cross and inshallah on our bench. No one can.

But yes we surely do need a few personnel tweaks and to shed some of the old weight.

The Real Madrid 24/25 is not well coached. I’m going to attempt to be as short as possible here because this legitimately shouldn’t be a talking point today. This team is not well coached. This team hasn’t been well coached in a while. This team simply has brilliant players. This team marched into a “remontada” with the glitz and glory of a tailored IG post to just have LV fling aimless crosses to Vinicius / Jude Bellingham / Kylian Mbappe. This team still found ways to run less than Arsenal in a match where they needed to be perfect in every aspect of the game. This team continuously finds itself making the same tactical mistakes. Like let’s all be honest here about the coaching performance. We lost 0-3 away at Arsenal last week and our changes were what exactly…? Lucas Vazquez at RB? This coaching staff hasn’t improved most of the key players this year and we can argue they’ve primarily taken steps back. This coaching staff hasn’t even attempted to develop players in key positions like fullback. This coaching staff hasn’t found a fix for Toni Kroos who announced his retirement nearly a year ago and still acts as if the team should play as if he’s dictating play. The coaching staff has you believing that Vini / Mbappe / Rodrygo can’t play at a pace or cohesiveness as Dembele / Kvaradona / Barcola. That’s baffling.

MM this is embarrassing. This coaching staff has somehow gaslighted all of you into believing that we need Joselu. How? No other CL semifinalist would contemplate signing Joselu. Legitimately, none of them would see a need for him over their status quo. Maybe just maybe there is a case for Arsenal since Havertz + Jesus are hurt but even then I’m unsure of whether Arteta would want Joselu’s slow touch to ruin his “total football”. This is just a romanticized response to the Bayern game because prior most of you cursed “King Joselu” because we needed to sign Harry Kane, Lacazette, Aubamayeng, Belotti, etc. Let’s not permit this revisionist history today.

If you listen to the MM podcast you’ll here a similar retort from Lucas saying “dare I say it..this team didn’t look tactically prepared for tonight,” and I’m here to tell you this has been a theme all season. We didn’t look tactically prepared after losing to Barcelona the first time. We didn’t look tactically prepared to beat a Milanese side that I believe fired their manager 3-4 weeks later. If we genuinely and earnestly look at today’s opposition, player for player Real Madrid has the edge. Every Arsenal fan would even agree. Shoot, Barcelona fans probably agree too. The only difference is that Arsenal were tactically prepared for what was coming. They understood that if they sat in a mid block we’d lose traction going forward because our midfield doesn’t shift the ball quickly or with any true purpose to isolate our wings. They understood to double Vini because he’d simply dribble into it and lose possession. They understood to double Rodrygo because he’d choose to just pass it backwards as he’s too scared to actually run at defenders, lose the ball, and then run all the way back. They understood that Saka’s speed would turn Alaba around and realistically there would be zero LW coverage or Jude would have to travel kms to get there in time. One side was coached while the other was simply not.

And if we’re going to grandstand here and say things like well at a club like Real Madrid of this size tactics don’t matter and we need to only massage egos. Then your concept is outdated and you’re missing the multitude of changes in 2025 football where even Las Palmas have a foundational style of play. This section is far too long so I’m not going to dive further but I have to also say that Hansi Flick took nearly the same squad Xavi struggled with and has turned them into goalscoring monsters. The only change was tactics.

We need a new voice. The new voice may fail and to be honest, I’m ok with taking that risk. But we need to at the very least try something new.

Even Kings. Die. Thrones. Rust.

– J

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“wolves. only.”