Different POVs: 22 Thurs May 2025

Another Farewell Letter From Juninho

A Series of Farewell Letters From Juninho.

別れの挨拶の練習をしているだけ

I’m just practicing how to say goodbye.

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 Mod”).

Letter #3 — Differing Perspectives

Dear MM

As I get a little older, I realize life is perspective. And my perspective may differ from yours. I wanna say thank you to everyone that’s been down with me. Thank you to everyone who hasn’t. All the readers, all the Real Madrid fans. Anyone who’s ever gave me a listen / lesson, you’re all my MM people.

I come from an MM generation of pain, where verbal trolling is minor. Rebellious and Karim Benzema pen chipped Ninja’s one-liners. Blue features and clout, overzealous we prone to violence — don’t make the wrong turn. Be it will or the UI alignment MM residents burned. Red mist of my inner-city, miscommunication to keep SB Nation detective busy — no mod badge protection is risky. Desensitized, I vandalized pain. DT covered up and camouflaged til you get used to hearin’ player stan culture reign. Analyze, risk your MM life, take the premod charge. Paragraphs showing Rodrygo stats + wolf gifs whenever Torez hit the yard. That’s MM culture. 24hr suspension + lockdown, then somebody called. Said your lil’ nephew got suspended, now the MM culture’s involved. I done seen BSG & Hala continuously scream, hit the Coral doghouse, get out and get their IP domains blocked out. While I’m grumbling #CarloIn or Out is played out, new Scottie / VC accounts’ll proceed. New mod — a brand-new victim to carry those shattered dreams, the MM culture.

Told Val I’d do this for MM culture. To let y’all know what a mod DT look like in a bulletproof Rover. In my mama’s sofa was a doo-doo popper. Hair trigger, walk up closer, ain’t no photoshoppin’. Temporary MM friends bipolar, grab you by your pockets. No option if you froze up, always play the offense. MMers goin’ to work and flaggin’ work, late for work. Workin’ late, prayin’ for work, but then email complaints paperwork. That’s the DT culture, point the finger, promote ya. Remote location, VPN protection, they gon’ hold ya. The MM streets got me f— up, y’all can miss me. I wanted to represent for us. New revolution was up and movin’. I’m in [omitted] wiping my tears full of confusion. Water in between us, another beefs been executed. History repeats again make amends, then find a new RM fan with the same hardskin to do it. But that’s the culture, crack a bottle — hard to deal with the pain when you’re sober. By tomorrow, we forget the remains, we start over. That’s the problem, our foundation became trained to accept whatever follows. Dehumanized, insensitive. Scrutinize the way we live for you and I. Enemies shook my hand, I can promise I’ll meet you. In the land where no equal is your equal. Never say I ain’t told ya, nah. In MM where hurt people hurt more people. F— applauding this culture.

CWC Timing + More Injuries. Some of you are just going to assume that I’m already curating an excuse for a manager, I’ve followed for years but I’m just going to be honest since I won’t be around for the summer festivities. I’m not really expecting too much early on from Real Madrid. The schedule is heinous and our current transition period couldn’t come at the worst time.

To just begin, our players virtually have zero rest this summer with the CWC starting on June 18th (only 7-10 days after the end of the Nations League which potentially Mbappe, Tchouameni or Dean will participate in). The team will then be shuttled across the world to US, play in the humidity of summer sun, and if we perform to our talent-level finish the CWC tournament on July 13th to then play in La Liga which will start on either August 8th or 15th. Considering the mandatory 2-week vacation for all players, that would give Xabi around 2.5 weeks to prepare for an arduous season. Meanwhile, our primary rivals Barcelona will have the entire summer to simply rest bodies.

I also haven’t even dived into the current injuries which may shape our early season form. To my knowledge, Endrick / Mendy / Camavinga will miss the CWC completely. Rudiger may return shortly before. Alaba / Militao / Carvajal are still recovering from significant injuries. AND Jude will miss the first 2 months of the regular season. This discounts the possibility for potentially additional injuries during the tournament / training.

This is hardly the continuity or set-up that you want for a fairly young manager taking over the largest club in the world. It may actually behoove us to enact as little change as possible simply to ensure a semblance of continuity. But I’ll be honest, I’m a bit worried about our early season chances.

The Infamous Galactico Signing. To be honest, I don’t expect much with this rumor. Well let me put it this way…I don’t expect anything to develop in the next month or two with the Galactico signing or even a major sale. What I’ve heard recently is that Xabi Alonso wants to take his time to accurately assess and evaluate the players at our club. He thinks everyone for the most part has some semblance of quality + talent so it’s a case of whether they fit into his guided principles or however he expects us to play (I have a feeling it’ll be a 41212 diamond to start). The CWC will likely prove to us who deserves and is willing to stay and who isn’t. I earnestly think for now this is the right decision. We’ve seen the effects of the long schedule on our players, as well as in my opinion the lack of tactical nuance, so it may behoove Xabi and the board to keep as many players as possible until it is obvious that they MUST be sold. Of course, this is easier said than done but it should be accounted into our calculations. It’s just not that easy to sell or buy players.

Now concerning the players we are linked to, here is my Juninho quick speculation on what will occur. Carreras will sign a contract and be announced at some point next week or latest the first week of June. Wirtz is not at a non-0% chance but I’d be pretty surprised if he doesn’t go to Bayern. However, the longer his decision drags, the better opportunity he has to arrive. I think we’ll know where he stands by early June. IMO that’s the deadline for Bayern. If the transfer fee + wages are true, this transfer likely only happens if Rodrygo + (insert 50M+ player) is sold or Vini is sold to Saudi. Enzo isn’t happening. Rodri isn’t happening. McAlister happens if (Rodrygo / Vini / Tchouameni) is sold but I wouldn’t advise it. Franco is a possibility but it sounds like it would be a purchase to arrive in 2026.

Higher chance imo that we sign someone like Konate in August…or a Spanish midfielder who could be a project like Javi Guerra.

Translation: Xabi Alonso wants Wirtz at Real Madrid. He is a player that has Xabi’s confidence and connection and Xabi believes will Wirtz will greatly help Real’s play. Real Madrid is not planning anything until after the CWC. If there is failure (I believe this means in terms of Bayern offer / or terrible CWC result), there’s a possibility to study this operation.

Goodbyes. I plan on having a more distinguished farewell letter for this. But begin to prepare your goodbyes for various Real Madrid players. ATM it looks like Lucas Vazquez, Luka Modric, and Jesus Vallejo will be early departures. Whether we believe they should continue or not, they each gave us some truly memorable moments. Yes, even Jesus Vallejo – let’s not forget his iconic picture following the City comeback.

Like how are paying for all of this?

Sincerely,

Juninho

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“Still practicing how to tell you sorry”