433 Part II: 30 Jul 2025

Another Juninho Edition of the Daily Merengue

Dancing With Demons:

“And one day his heart was stolen by a demon. He never returned to complete his apprenticeship. And from that day forward he has been using his magic for entirely selfish reasons. That boy is extremely dangerous. His powers are far too great for someone without a heart”

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.

Quick Transfer News

“When things get dark and your number get called. And you look side to side like, “What did they say?”. And it ain’t the Lord’s voice and then you realize…

That the Devil is talkin’ to you.”

Real quick…transfer rumors

Transfer Rumors. Main report from Mario. Vini is staying. Rodrygo this and that. Endrick may stay but also may find himself loaned. Ceballos only sold for 15-20M. Gonzalo Garcia likely staying. Kiyan thinks Saliba is gonna renew with Arsenal.

The 433: Part Two

Midfield. Okay — so now that we got this whole Vini x Mbappe stuff and how I’m unsure if they work in any formation out of our system, we can now properly focus on the 433 and a central issue of why it likely isn’t a formation of the future for our current personnel.

A primary issue that I’ve actually consistently repeated for the past few years is our midfield. To better specify, our midfield profiles and their balance. I’m not sure if in 2025 MM still disagrees with me but for the most part our past midfield trio’s skillsets are quite duplicative. Let’s just quickly go through them.

Midfield Profiles.

1) Jude Bellingham is an elite athlete who is a dominant ball carrier, scorer, dribbler to some extent, and defensively sturdy. He can occasionally strike a perfect long pass but this isn’t his primary objective nor is passing in general. Maybe a short pass here and there but we don’t expect him to connect the midfield.

2) Fede Valverde is an elite athlete (which downplays his athleticism) who is a dominant ball carrier in space, golazo magnet, and defensively sturdy in absolute chaos / shenanigans. His passing and press resistance has improved in recent years but he isn’t a Modric or Arda. He isn’t even Camavinga.

3) Tchouameni is a stalwart CDM. He can infrequently ping a long pass or short pass and is press resistance enough but he isn’t really an organizer of elite status. Smart player who will be crucial as we change formations in game.

4) Camavinga is a budding CDM who’s strengths are his press resistance, dominant ball carrier, can actually ping a long pass and circulate play when required but this at times may compromise his positioning and lead to defensive mistakes. He imo is a better “organizer or creator” than those above, but he isn’t better than a Modric or Arda especially as the team gets closer to the final third.

So as we quickly review and feel free to disagree with me here and there (but I won’t listen), our past midfield trios are primarily ball dominant carriers who could be pressing masterminds but at times lack the technical ability to dominant a passing structure or play a line breaking pass. Have we seen them perform like this? Yes! You may recall in the CWC, Jude playing a line breaking pass against (I believe Salzburg) to Vini. Cama in the past has played multiple line breaking passes or close to the final third genius passes throughout his time at RM. He has also at times been a loose metronome next to the God of build-up play Toni Kroos. However, this task isn’t entirely a frequent endeavor of either player. And I think we all agree that they would both dribble 1-2 players prior to playing or being a metronome.

Which then brings us to a conclusion, where I believe Xabi also finds himself:

Arda Guler. Now in many ways, Arda brings to table exactly what the rest of our midfield lacks. He has the presence of mind and technical ability to dictate the pace of possession and be a focal point of build up play. He can effectively find outlets where needed out of pressure, and in many ways like Ceballos did last year, he can reorganize the the team. Arda could be a bonafide sanctuary in an otherwise frustrating midfield structure. However, the inclusion of Arda also presents a fair share of issues:

1) Arda imo isn’t yet physically or defensively sound enough to survive as a DLP or play deeper in a midfield trio. I’m of the opinion that he is really a roaming 10 with license to drop deeper into the midfield and this imo is evident in several games primarily against Juve & PSG. Arda’s lack of athleticism and positioning leads to him being found out in transition, during 50/50 duels as he tries to place a tackle, or also if he attempts to press the ball and is simply passed around.

If you review the first few Juve related offensive highlights in this recap, you’ll immediately see two instance where Arda was either slow on the press or positionally in the wrong place leading to larger counter attacks. Particularly in the second clip, Arda simply takes a terrible angle to the pass, and does not have the athletic prowess to catch up. Now this isn’t a massive problem when operating with a trio if he’s surrounded by Tchouameni + Cama / Fede but it likely is if we task him to play as DLP where a mistake leads to forwards overwhelming our last line of defense.

2) Who do you bench for a trio? So ok let’s start Arda in a 433. Who are you benching? (Note: I’m no longer trying to sell Fede. Although, I wouldn’t be crushed if we did). You can’t bench Tchouameni because he is literally our only superb CDM. I love me some Camavinga but Camavinga isn’t as positionally sound as Tchouameni or a lockdown defensive presence. He simply makes to many mistakes. I personally believe Cama needs to play a role more similar to Fede’s to properly shine. You aren’t benching Jude because he’s fucking Jude Bellingham. You can’t bench Fede atm because he’s the captain Halcon. Soooo yea. Arda is prime bench fodder in a midfield trio unless you play him as a RW and we saw how far we got there. Pulled at HT against Barca like his name was Rodrygo Goes.

Trio. So more or less concluding, the 433 is dead and it really should stay dead until we resolve our midfield. Until we sign an Angelo Stiller / Kees Smit and are prepared to imo bench two of Jude / Fede / Cama (because imo they have the most duplicative skillsets), we are ultimately forced to play with a midfield 4 in realistically a diamond shape or similar to a 4222. It’s kind of disheartening as I personally love 433 and any 3 forward system. But it just seems like this is where we’ll have to be.

The Devil

“R.O.K.I, Sison, Kiko — yea TR & I don’t buy that. Mendy at L.B…? You seen Fran fly back? My transfer connect has ponytails tied back. “Rodry 90% signed Arsenal contract”. They content create, I despise that. I create content, then they tries that. Run these jewels, there’s rules, I don’t buy back. I’ve topped all these list, MM where’s my prize at?

All I see is new 10.2K twitter stars & 20-year thousand-aires. Not enough clickbait shoppin’, whole lot of browsin-aires. My DT reinvention, I know you thinkin’ how it’s fair? You stream kings, but you never fit a crowd in there. Sell Rodri dream teams, parallels when the powder clears. I seen things that I’m still not even proud to share.

You X verified network moderators, you hear me loud and clear. Get these fifty-five-hundered-to-host-RM-“spaces” users out of here.

Al-Hilal color Rolls-Royce, we like Vini + the Saudis here. The only Wirtz rumor Audi here, is driven by my Merseyside au-pair. Valverde w/ iced Rolex wrist, bird falconaire. Willy falcone, trunk full of transfer talcum here. Shotgun wit ya ex, feels like Malcolm’s near. Send a hit through DT txt, aint no shoutin’ here. Bypass M.I.A, too much crowd in there. I spent summers wit’ connects, love that mountain air…

Koyo-tito, jfelixdiaz, indykaila — I don’t buy that. Alphonso Davies at L.B.? You seen Fran fly back? My transfer connect has ponytails tied back. “Pre-CWC, Vini Jr. renewed his contract”. They content create, I despise that. I create content, then they tries that. Run these jewels, there’s rules, I don’t buy back.

I’ve topped all these list, MM where’s my prize at?”

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“They content create, I despise that.”