Real Madrid

[Devils]

Zidane effect.

 

[michelco]

 

[Cule4life]

Papa Barto, we've done as you asked.

 

[Luftstalag14]

Great respect to Valencia, always standing firm and refusing to capitulate against us and Real Madrid.

Will be a tough final against them next month.

 

[El Gato]

Great respect to Valencia, always standing firm and refusing to capitulate against us and Real Madrid.

Will be a tough final against them next month.

Their defense is rock solid this calendar year, but they'll get tired, they've got 3 competitions to play for and they can't let up in any of them. If there's anything they want to sacrifice, it's probably Copa.

 

[Cule4life]

Hope they sign both Rabiot and Icardi. Would be fun to watch the locker room blow up.

 

[BarçaBarça]

Best thing that can happen is for us to bomb badly enough so that even with a Zidane comeback people question whether we’ll stay in top4. Don’t think there’s a chance unless Seville pull their finger out and help push Valencia, but one can hope. Otherwise the reaction will be insufficient.

I like what Zizou is doing. Holding players feet to the fire and exposing their limits to Perez. This is the last season of CKM. Possibly last season for the likes of Vazquez etc. Some of these departures will be sad, but it is time.

With Eriksen possibly coming you will get a midfielder who actually runs himself into the ground defensively, has great technical skills, consistently delivers assist and can contribute with some goals here and there. He will be an upgrade to your midfield for sure. I would fear Real more if you go for Eriksen than if you go for Pogba, because Pogba can't play together with Isco for example, imo, unless you have a world class DM, and I can't see who could do that job.

With Hazard coming as well you will get an actual threat up front instead of a baby (Vinicius) and a midtable player (Vázquez). If you manage to land a great CF as well, and not some random brazilian baby up front, then the squad is beginning to look like a challenge for the league.

I'd say you should plan on getting the team to benefit Isco and Asensio/Vinicius, add Hazard and Eriksen, a promising non-brazilian striker and a great DM. De Jong is taken, but how about Milinkovic-Savic as DM or better yet Rodrigo? Rodrigo-Eriksen-Isco > CKM right now, imo.

 

[El Gato]

With Eriksen possibly coming you will get a midfielder who actually runs himself into the ground defensively, has great technical skills, consistently delivers assist and can contribute with some goals here and there. He will be an upgrade to your midfield for sure. I would fear Real more if you go for Eriksen than if you go for Pogba, because Pogba can't play together with Isco for example, imo, unless you have a world class DM, and I can't see who could do that job.

With Hazard coming as well you will get an actual threat up front instead of a baby (Vinicius) and a midtable player (Vázquez). If you manage to land a great CF as well, and not some random brazilian baby up front, then the squad is beginning to look like a challenge for the league.

I'd say you should plan on getting the team to benefit Isco and Asensio/Vinicius, add Hazard and Eriksen, a promising non-brazilian striker and a great DM. De Jong is taken, but how about Milinkovic-Savic as DM or better yet Rodrigo? Rodrigo-Eriksen-Isco > CKM right now, imo.

Llorente is a defensive god in the making, don't sleep on the guy even if he's a definite #2 now at 25. His ability to tackle, anticipate danger, distribute direct passes further than 20-30m and be able to get out of the opponent press to not concede possession once it's recovered by defenders is something I've only seen in Busquets. He's also an athletic freak who runs sand dunes when he's bored. It's salivating to think about next season if CKM is permanently broken up by a transfer of one of the lot, because I don't necessarily have confidence in Casemiro connecting with anybody else as well as he did with Kroos and Marcelo on that flank. He was always kind of a flappy player on the ball, a lot less sophisticated movement killer kind like old-school hack-and-smash Rino or Keano types, but without the alpha component.

Isco and Pogba could play together for sure, but we'd need to permanently do a 4-2-3-1 and make it fluid so that neither of the two feels restricted to a deep pivot and we can get the best out of both going forward. Isco LOVES dropping deep. I don't watch a whole lot of Pogba, but he seems to not like to track, even if he's very comfortable in that Eriksen-like role.

There are lots of options.
I'm not sure even Zidane knows what we'll do. He tends to just kind of drop hints and sing praises to players in the media every now and then, so that they know Madrid would be keen to sit down and talk over the options if the opportunity to do business came out. It's kind of difficult to predict if anybody is able to set Pogba straight. He's a guy who seems to need a very, very unique locker room to make his maturation click permanently as a person. And this locker room with Zizou and Ramos, men focused on trophies like nobody else, is something he may not have been a part of. Only takes a season to make this change too so it's not like Ramos retiring from Madrid would make a difference in the future.

I don't know where we'll go. It's kinda nice to feel it. I'm happy to get surprised this summer.

 

[michelco]

Their defense is rock solid this calendar year, but they'll get tired, they've got 3 competitions to play for and they can't let up in any of them. If there's anything they want to sacrifice, it's probably Copa.

League ends at 19th, Cup final plays at the 25th, EL semis at 2nd and 9th and EL final at 29th. Though I wouldn't worry about the Copa final, Messi will destroy us as usual when it matters

 

[serghei]

Their defense is rock solid this calendar year, but they'll get tired, they've got 3 competitions to play for and they can't let up in any of them. If there's anything they want to sacrifice, it's probably Copa.

Lol. Copa final is probably their biggest goal.

 

[El Gato]

Lol. Copa final is probably their biggest goal.

Bollocks it is. No point in that whatsoever. EL they can compete in till the end with the current teams on current form and it guarantees CL spot if they win. If not, they desperately need to try and secure the CL anyway. Winning Copa is no progress. You can become an afterthought from it very easily.
And the point is that they’ll be going for all three whatever they prioritise. Makes them less likely to achieve any one goal.

 

[serghei]

Lol. I think they prefer a title. You rarely get that in Spain with Barca, Madrid and Atletico being your direct rivals.

 

[Cule4life]

Lol. I think they prefer a title. You rarely get that in Spain with Barca, Madrid and Atletico being your direct rivals.

Yup. If anything they'll forego Europa league cos they'll qualify for UCL next season and Copa final is just 1 match to play for a trophy and is much later in the season.

 

[BarçaBarça]

Llorente is a defensive god in the making, don't sleep on the guy even if he's a definite #2 now at 25. His ability to tackle, anticipate danger, distribute direct passes further than 20-30m and be able to get out of the opponent press to not concede possession once it's recovered by defenders is something I've only seen in Busquets. He's also an athletic freak who runs sand dunes when he's bored. It's salivating to think about next season if CKM is permanently broken up by a transfer of one of the lot, because I don't necessarily have confidence in Casemiro connecting with anybody else as well as he did with Kroos and Marcelo on that flank. He was always kind of a flappy player on the ball, a lot less sophisticated movement killer kind like old-school hack-and-smash Rino or Keano types, but without the alpha component.

Isco and Pogba could play together for sure, but we'd need to permanently do a 4-2-3-1 and make it fluid so that neither of the two feels restricted to a deep pivot and we can get the best out of both going forward. Isco LOVES dropping deep. I don't watch a whole lot of Pogba, but he seems to not like to track, even if he's very comfortable in that Eriksen-like role.

There are lots of options.
I'm not sure even Zidane knows what we'll do. He tends to just kind of drop hints and sing praises to players in the media every now and then, so that they know Madrid would be keen to sit down and talk over the options if the opportunity to do business came out. It's kind of difficult to predict if anybody is able to set Pogba straight. He's a guy who seems to need a very, very unique locker room to make his maturation click permanently as a person. And this locker room with Zizou and Ramos, men focused on trophies like nobody else, is something he may not have been a part of. Only takes a season to make this change too so it's not like Ramos retiring from Madrid would make a difference in the future.

I don't know where we'll go. It's kinda nice to feel it. I'm happy to get surprised this summer.

If Llorente can have a breakthrough to the starting-11 and play consistently on the right level, then you surely have cracked a big part of the puzzle, yes. It seems like you are ready to spend in the right places elsewhere, so next season most definitely will be better than this one, but that doesn't say much. First thing is qualify to CL, otherwise next season is doomed as well. Next thing is spend big on the right players like Hazard, Eriksen/Pogba etc. With Zidane + the biggest transfer budget of all time Florentino Perez has avoided criticism again and started a positive buzz around Real. But if next season doesn't give you the league or CL I think the criticism can quickly return.

 

[Andresito]

Hahaha what a club this is

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