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.

Almost forgot what month we’re in, smh.

ANYONE NOTICE?

There’s been a silent growing string of players facing heart related problems. From Fabrice muamba, iker, lucas silva, dani carvajal etc and now Christian Eriksen. Per ESPN, Eriksen suffered cardiac arrest 2 days ago. And there’s talks that he may be forced to retire if he wants to live longer. What could be the underlying cause of this slow creeping but sudden devil that abruptly ends careers. You wouldn’t expect this in athletes due to their healthy lifestyle. But it’s never out of the realms of possibility for anyone.

Ninja Turtle Vs Go-Kart

The fantasy transfer of many Madridistas, Kylian Mbappe, has been in the news lately and not for good reasons. There’s on going problems between the ninja turtle and the go-kart ever since Giroud publicly came out to talk about his french teammates not passing him the ball.

WHO DESERVES THE BALLON D’OR FOR THIS YEAR?

I personally don’t have any one player that i can say is a clear fav for this award. This has been a peculiar year in football. I can’t name one Chelsea or city player that deserves it. If Kante wins it off of 2-3 weeks of good football then God help us. Lewandowski/Bayern hasn’t been the same since winning FIFA’s the best award, despite scoring plenty goals. The euros might determine what player gets a big push for the award.

MY HONEST OPINION

I’ll be honest with you, I'm not thrilled with Ancelotti’s return nor am I thrilled with some of the contract extensions we’ve made recently. But I'm always hoping for the best for our club.