Open Thread: September 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 Ix or NeRObutBlanco.

The squad trains for Villareal.

Let’s keep the good times rolling. Next up the yellow submarine. The team completed its first training session at Real Madrid City ahead of the next league encounter, which will be played at the Santiago Bernabéu against Villarreal (Saturday, 9 pm CET).

The players who started against Mallorca underwent a recovery session. Kroos completed part of the session with the group, while Carvajal, Marcelo, Mendy, Ceballos and Bale all worked out indoors. It will be interesting to see if Hazard slots back into the starting lineup. Vinicius has been playing non stop and could use a bit of rest. The players recevied a little treat as well.

El Clasico date fixed.

It’s official!! El Clasico will be played at Camp Nou on Sunday, October 24 at 16:15 CET. Currently the gap is 7 points though Barca do have a game in hand, but this game provides an opportunity to put more daylight between Los Blancos and their rivals. Here’s what the next few fixtures look like until that date.

Chust, Kubo and Brahim updates.

On loan defender Victor Chust helped Cadiz keep a clean sheet against Barcelona last night. The 21 year old started the game and played the full ninety minutes in the 0-0 draw with the Catalans that also saw Frenkie de Jong red carded.

Lost in the euphoria of the Mallorca win was the fact that one of our own got injured in that game. Takefusa Kubo will be out for a minimum of one month. He left the Bernabeu on crutches yesterday after he got injured early on in the game during a play with Benzema. It’s clearer now why he was substituted at half time.

Brahim Diaz is coming into his own meanwhile having started the season with a bang. Milan coach Stefano Pioli lavished praise on him - “He’s a youngster who has always believed in his qualities and who needed to settle in a different league. He’s a quality kid, last year we were playing with a midfielder, he is a pure quality trequartista”.

Here’s Zlatan and the rest celebrating his goal against Venezia.