Open Thread: October 18, 2020.

Hola Madridistas!

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: Valyrian Steel, Felipejack or Oscnar.

Loss to Cadiz.

In just the first game after the international break, Los Blancos lost at home to newly promoted Cádiz. Zidane was clearly not happy with the team’s first half performance, as he made four changes at half-time (with the exception of Ramos, who suffered a knock in the knee). The changes didn’t seem to help much as Real Madrid slumped to its first defeat of the season. This match was covered in the Immediate Reaction, Player Ratings articles and Managing Madrid Podcast as well:

Looking Forward

The week is just starting and Los Blancos have a very important game against Shakhtar Donetsk on Wednesday. It is the first Champions League game of the season! Hopefully, the knock on Sergio Ramos’ knee will be nothing important and El Capitãn will be available for this game.

Bale the only player unwilling to take pay cut - report

Radio station Cadena SER says Gareth Bale was the only member of the Real Madrid squad against taking a pay cut as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. After football was suspended because of the pandemic, the Madrid squad in April accepted a 10% reduction to their annual salaries, which would have risen to 20% if the 2019/20 season had been unable to resume. In total, it is believed that Madrid saved just under 50 million euros as a result of wage cuts taken not only by the first team, but also reserve side Castilla, the club’s basketball team and Bernabéu directors.

Although Madrid’s 2019/20 accounts are yet to be released, it has emerged that the savings made by the LaLiga champions helped them to post a 320,000-euro budget surplus last term.

150 games in charge of Real Madrid in La liga.

Zidane clocked another milestone, sadly without a win this time. The coach has a 150 games in charge of Los Blancos and has accumulated 102 victories (second most after Miguel Muñoz’s 257 victories). He is third in the coaching standings with Miguel Munoz Muñoz (424) and Vicente Del Bosque (153) having overseen more games than him. With how ruthless Florentino Perez usually is, we ask the fans an intriguing question that might be unthinkable to some and a no brainer to others.