Daily Thread: 31 Jul 2025

Another Juninho Edition of the Daily Merengue

We gonna keep this brief…no intro.

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. Aguado is staying. Ceballos is staying. Endrick may get the #9.

Q&A: Requested Topics

Mendy. Okay — I don’t really know why we’re talking about any of this but I guess we’ll chat about Ferland Mendy today because someone requested it. Ferland Mendy isn’t Real Madrid caliber and hasn’t been for awhile. Period. There really isn’t much more to say and I wan’t to reiterate that I have total respect for Ferland Mendy. He was crucial in 19/20 season and during the Zidane era. He at one point was imo the best defensive LB in the world. He’s smiley and I rarely ever question his commitment to the badge.

But we haven’t seen a Ferland Mendy of even Fran Garcia at the CWC caliber in a long time. If we want to just look at a quick comparison of both:

(Note: I didn’t use Fran’s previous season stats as a comparison because it would’ve looked worse for Ferland).

Fran dwarfs Mendy in every stat besides aerial % (he’s short). This is amplified by the eye test, where we’ve witnessed Mendy for at least the past two years beaten as a LB in 1v1 defensive situations (his bread and butter). The quick example, I can recall is Leroy Sane’s goal for Bayern in the last CL semifinal.

Yes — I believe Rodrygo should’ve tracked back faster. However, Mendy inexcusably allows Sane to drift centrally rather than forcing him to make the pass down the channel and is skipped past with little difficulty. This characteristic to his game has become more prevalent in recent years. And the shame about Mendy is that if he isn’t legitimately the best defensive player on the planet, he offers little else. He isn’t good under pressure. He doesn’t cross. He rarely makes progressive passes forward. If he’s forced to invert his run, he is stuck in the middle of the pitch. He rarely ever moves to receive a pass. If he’s pressed, he shields off the defender and then prays to fall down. And he’s extremely one-footed. We should all be able to confidently agree that Mendy shouldn’t have been renewed last summer. But the board had to give Carlo one win for an incredible double.

Anyway…

Fran Garcia may not be the best LB in La Liga, but he’s certainly not the current version of Mendy. He’s certainly much better and even if he isn’t a starter this season, he should be Carreras’ backup. This may not play out the best way football-wise because Ferland Mendy has been so unproductive and injury prone that he has zero market. And imo 3 LBs is a huge waste of a roster spot. But it is what it is. Que sera, que sera.

Let’s dead this narrative though.

Ceballos. I’m giving this agenda about 30 seconds of my time and at this point everyone just needs to ignore the Ceballos agenda from Hala_Croatia. Note: I’m doing this because you asked.

Ceballos is our 5th option midfielder. He plays deeper and is a perfect DLP. He rivals the glorified Luka Modric in every stat besides key passes because again he played at a lower portion of the pitch. He is paid less than any midfield we’d use to replace him. He’s Spanish and helps our homegrown quota. He is Dani Ceballos. He has won multiple trophies for our club. He sits on the bench without raising much of a fuss. And by all reports, all of our players like him.

I’m sorry but I just can’t take complaints about not selling Ceballos, seriously. There is no rational reason to have a problem with our 5th option midfielder basically being a more defensive Luka Modric for half the price. Ya’ll need to get over yourselves.

Top 10 Pizza Toppings. No order…and definitely not all at once. Pineapple, Ham, Pepperoni, Green Peppers, Italian Sausage, Black Olives, BBQ Chicken, Margherita.

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“It aint that deep, twin.”