Open Thread: June 5, 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.

Welcome back, Antonio Pintus.

Antonio Pintus returns as head of the phyisical staff. Pintus previously joined Real Madrid in July 2016. As reports sugests, he requested by Zidane when the frenchman was appointed after Benitez. When Zidane left in 2018 after the threepeat, Pintus stayed. He continued to work in Real Madrid with Lopetegui and Solari. When Zidane returned, Pintus also continued, but only for the remaining 11 games of the season. When the upcoming season started, Pintus was replaced by Gregrory Dupoint. About 2 years later, almost the opposite happens and Pintus is once again Real Madrid’s physical coach.

Several fans expressed their concern regarding the increased number of injuries of the last season. Even though the conditions and the team itself are different between Inter and Real Madrid, Inter’s injury numbers sounds reassuring.

Regarding the head of medical services, Niko Mihic, there were some conflicting rumours, but the latest claimed that he is staying.

Kroos launched his own football academy

Will Copa America be played in Brazil without Brazil NT?

Copa America was supposed to be played in Argentina. Giving the increasing number of Covid-19 cases, the Cup was suspended. Colombia, apparently, also didn’t accept to run the event in their country. However, Brazil’s Federal Government offer its country.

Militao, Casemiro and Vinicius Jr are the madridistas being called by Brazil’s national team. Casemiro, Brazil’s captain, didn’t attend to a press-conference before today’s game against Equador for World Cup qualifiers. He and other Brazil players don’t want to play the Copa America in Brazil due to the bad situation the country faces in the pandemic. After the game, Casemiro was asked about his opinion, but refused to say anything more than “everyone knows what we think, but we need to respect the chain of command.” By the chain of command, he refers to CBF’s president, who has just been accused of sexual harassment by an employeers. It is still unknown if Brazilian players will deny or not to participate in the tournament.

Militão and Casemiro started today’s game, while Vinicius Junior didn’t play. Brazil won 2-0 over Equador.