The Open Thread/Daily Merengue is a place where you can discuss anything and everything related to football. Feel free to discuss the topics presented here, or start your very own discussions! The Open thread will be posted every day by one of the mods you’d love to hang out with: Valyrian Steel, NeRObutBlanco, Kung_Fu_Zizou (AKA KFZ), Juninho and, of course… yours truly.
Nacho farewell
Real Madrid will hold farewell ceremony to Nacho today at 1 pm.
Five storylines to watch next season.
Matt Wiltse wrote a nice article discussing five storylines to watch next season. The most interesting is how Ancelotti will handle the in-game substitution:
If Madrid is 2-1 down at the Bernabeu, does Ancelotti take off Vinicius, Mbappe, or Bellingham, even if all three are having a poor game? How often do you see a superstar pop up in the final minutes of a match, despite playing poorly, to score the game-winner? Will any of the three ever be happy with consistently being yanked off around the 70th minute? Doubtful. But then, how do the likes of Brahim, Guler, Endrick, and others accumulate the necessary minutes? That is one of the big questions for Ancelotti. How does he handle the rotations and, potentially more interestingly, the in-game substitutions for the attack?
The current squad
Per AS, Ancelotti wants to use Arda Guler in the midfield next season.