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 your favourite mods: Valyrian Steel, Felipejack, YoSnail, Ezek Ix or yours truly.

The Wall Standing Tall

Hala Madrid y nada mas, ladies and gents! We’re through to the semifinals of our favourite competition. It wasn’t pretty and -as usual- we suffered for the most part, but Real Madrid defended well and made it through the Kop with a 0-0 draw. Unexpectedly I would say, both sides drew blanks.

Now then, since I’ve started the whole movie and game references thing, I’ll keep it up for this part at least.

We’ve seen Liverpool come back from worse scorelines before. Say, certain 4-1 defeats for example. A Kop comeback was something we had been hearing about and for good reason. As a team, Liverpool are really good offensively and if they get into their groove, they can hurt you, bad. Yet, there stood Zidane and his team of white warriors, saying:

“We are Real Madrid The kings of this competition with thirteen titles. Our will is of steel... We shall now present to you a wall that you cannot overcome”

(This is a somewhat tough game reference. Lemme know if you got it. If you can’t figure it out, I’ll let you know in the comments)

Klop had stated before the game, that he had made a few tweeks ahead of facing Toni Kroos. Credit to him, Kroos was somewhat compromised before being subbed off. Even some fans of the opposition thought it would be a good idea to demoralize our squad by attacking the bus. The whole team was fatigued. We knew that much. Liverpool pressed Real Madrid and were on the front foot for most of the game. But alas, Jurgen Klop - the Saruman to Zidane’s Theoden/Aragorn- seemed to be running out of ideas as the game progressed and the defensive wall was never actually breached and when it almost did, Thibaut, Nacho, Militao and Casemiro were there to say “You. Shall NOT. PASS.” Madrid did and now Chelsea are waiting. Like Zinedine Zidane himself says, Real Madrid always want more.

As always, the Managing Madrid crew have published the Immediate Reaction and the Player Ratings. What we would like to hear, however, is this: What did you think about the game?

Results of the Hell Week

• Real Madrid 3-1 Liverpool
• Real Madrid 2-1 Barcelona
• Liverpool 0-0 Real Madrid (1-3 agg / Real go through)

We knew heading into this, that this would be a true test and one that would make or break our season. Well, it made our season and lifted our spirits. Can you believe some people were saying we would be playing Europa League back in November. Well, one could say that it was HFIL (eh?) for our opponents. Not bad lads. Not bad at all! Here’s an interesting read to go along with this.

The Saga Continues

In the game played parallel to our favourite team’s, Manchester City beat Dortmund 2-1 away to finally seal their progression to the semifinals with a score of 4-2 on aggregate. Of course, this also means that we’ll finally get to watch (this one’s for you guys): “El Cashico”, the “2nd Gulf War”, “The Conflict on the Champions League Delta” itself. The semifinal pairs are as follows:

• Real Madrid VS Chelsea
• Manchester City VS Paris St. Germain

One thing is for sure. Both matchups are bound to be interesting and can therefore provide us with what football is all about anyway; Entertainment.

Looking ahead

Our next opponent is Getafe (away), whom we face on... Sunday. The team can’t catch a break, can they? At the very least, the squad won’t have to travel a long distance. If I showed you Getafe’s record this season, you probably wouldn’t say “Color me impressed”. They have just one win, two losses and three draws in their last six games. Yet, they are physical side and they play with width. Los Blancos are coming out of their so called “Hell Week” - a test they passed with flying colors - tired, though in high spirits for obvious reasons, but they shouldn’t take Getafe lightly. Also, Kubo’s playing for them!

Something that everyone is probably wondering is “Would gets to rest?” Well, most likely, not as many players as we would like, but it will be interesting to see how Zizou choses to rotate the players at his disposal. Dani Carvajal should be coming back from injury as well.

Have a very nice day and may the madridismo be with you.