Open Thread: February 24, 2021

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, Ezek lx or NeRObutBlanco.

It’s match day

Yesterday, the squad had their last training session for the game against Atalanta.

The squad list for both teams

Below is Atalanta’s squad list for the game. Jose Perez wrote a great article, breaking down Atalanta’s offense. As Perez put it:

Atalanta’s offense focuses heavily on the wings, with relatively little happening through the middle.

Giving details on how Atalanta likes to play, he analyzed the pros/cons of two approaches Zidane might opt for the game: press aggressively or defend deep to exploit Atalanta’s high line. Give the article a read!

Let’s remember one more time Real Madrid’s squad list for this game. Unfortunately, we have several important absences, such as Ramos, Carvajal and Benzema.

Other Spanish teams

With Atletico losing (0-1) to Chelsea, 3 Spanish clubs (Barcelona and Sevilla being the other two) that have played their first leg of UCL Round of 16 have all lost at home. Definitely feels like La Liga’s cycle of dominance is well and truly over, unless of course Los Blancos can do something about that.

It’s poll time

Vote how do you think Zidane will start this game: