Open Thread: March 27, 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 Ix or NeRObutBlanco.

Who is Enrique Riquelme?

Real Madrid are due to have elections in 2021 and Florentino Perez might have a challenger this time, after winning uncontested in 2009, 2013 and 2017.

According to Marca, Enrique Riquelme is a 32-year-old businessman who was born in Cox in the Valencian Community and he is considering running against Perez, either now or in the future.

To run in the Real Madrid presidential elections, several requirements must be met and there are only a few capable of meeting them. There’s a need to have 20-plus years as a club member and the need to guarantee 15 percent of the club’s budget, which would currently be 92.5 million euros.

These requirements shouldn’t be an issue for the young candidate who is the founder and largest shareholder of Cox Energy – a solar developer with projects in Latin America and Europe.

In an interview with El Confidencial he stated “Santiago Bernabeu is the best president in Real Madrid’s history. After him, we got some great presidents, like Florentino Perez who is a gamechanger and did great things for Real Madrid, but the club needs a change. Being global is more than doing a tour of the USA. I see the possibility of applying what I’ve learned and managing a hyper professional board, not made up of friends, in order to take the club to the next level”.

A lifelong Madridista he certainly hasn’t hidden his passion for the club on social media and has been to the finals in Milan, Kiev and Cardiff. Now about that picture with Messi, surely the Madridistas can let it slide right? Or can they?

Just a few more Mbappe, Haaland rumors and other news.

Marca’s front page screamed “Mbappe and Haaland are Real Madrid’s targets for the season 21/22. The club will do a huge reconstruction of the squad this summer”. With Dortmund now valuing Haaland at 180mil euros and with PSG probably going to trump that with their own valuation of Mbappe, I don’t really know how this is possible but we shall see.

As meanwhile reported that Vallejo wants to return to Madrid next season. He isn’t thinking about another loan but it could be difficult for him to find a place. He’s one of 7 players out on loan who Real Madrid have to figure out a future for.

Lucas Vazquez is still not training with the squad for the 3rd day in a row, so it’s good news to see Dani Carvajal back on the ball.

ICYMI: Managing Madrid Podcast: Massive Mailbag; Castilla Corner.

In this podcast, Kiyan Sobhani and Lucas Navarrete go through a bunch of Real Madrid questions from fans before Sam Sharpe and Kristofer McCormack join the show for another edition of Castilla Corner.