Open Thread: December 31, 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, YoSnail or Oscnar.

Only a draw for Los Blancos yesterday.

In the last game of the year, Real Madrid unfortunately dropped points with a draw against Elche. The game was broken down in the detail in the following articles: Immediate Reaction, Player Ratings, Three answers and three questions. There is also the post-game podcast:

Zidane talks about Odegaard and more.

In his post-game press conference Zidane addressed the status of Hazard as well as Martin Odegaard, who was an unused substitute against Elche and hasn’t seen the field since December 1 due to a combination of injuries and his coach’s decision. On the subject Zidane stated “Ødegaard? Nothing is wrong with him, I made a choice of not putting him on and that’s it. Hazard also needs more time.”

Regarding the coach’s substitutions and the timing of them, Euan McTear in his article reported that Zidane defended his approach. He said: “When it comes to making substitutions, you must be very clear on what you want from them. We weren’t playing poorly, so that’s why I waited until later. The changes then didn’t give us the boost we were looking for.”

Finally Zidane wasn’t overly concerned about the gap between Los Blancos and Atletico remarking that “Everyone’s going to end up dropping points. This is a very tough league. We had produced a number of good performances coming into tonight’s match and we’ve dropped two points here, but we have to keep on doing what we’re doing because it’s a very long league season and there’s a long way to go.”

Madrid’s goals in the last 4 years.

According to Pedro Martin from COPE, the number of Real Madrid goals in the last 4 years were:

• 156 goals in 2017 (Cristiano Ronaldo played the whole year);
• 142 goals in 2018 (Cristiano Ronaldo played half of the year);
• 100 goals in 2019 (without Cristiano Ronaldo);
• 91 goals in 2020.

This will certainly have to be addressed in the next transfer window, funds permitting of course.

ICYMI: Churros y Tácticas Podcast: When was Ronaldo and Messi’s peak?

Kiyan Sobhani and Diego Lorijn discuss Ronaldo and Messi’s peak, whether Diego still feels Luka Modric is beneath Xavi and Iniesta and other topics in this juicy podcast.